1. Introduction

Visual impairment is a global public health problem. Damage to visual sense as much as visual sense that has a role in man’s different function can make a serious problem for a person growth unless it would be compensated partly by the other senses. For example, a person with visual defect is able to obtain the information through other senses while other normal people gain it by eyesight. Since a long time ago, in one sense, eyesight considered as beauty and apprehension of life and brightness. On the other hand, blindness perceived as ugliness and darkness and being deprived of understanding life. This perspective to blindness and, also this issue that the blind individuals don’t have occupational and educational opportunities in the life through the prolonged centuries has remained stable in the wide range. Studying international statistics and regarding the number of over four hundred million (400,000,000) disabled people around the world and significant increasing number of this population reveal the importance of education, welfare, occupation and finally exceptional people life style. There is no exact statistics about the number of the blind in Iran, but according to WHO (world health organization) statistics, the number of the pure blind is 120.000 and about 450 to 500 low-sighted people, among this population there are individuals that in spite of not having enough facilities, they can get a high social rank. Based on The most important epidemiological study in years 2007 in Tehran city was prevalence low vision 13/2 percent and also amounts prevalence a blind 0/28 percent According to recent findings, one of the factors that have a direct impact on the human life improvement is the concept of emotional intelligence[1]. Emotional intelligence concept refers to that how the people adapt themselves to life situations and achieve successes. Emotional intelligence theory justifies a wide range of abilities that relate to cognitive and emotion application[2].

At one time, the prevailing opinion of experts was that people with visual impairment are at risk of personality disorders. Now, the researchers are in agreement that personality problems are not an innate condition of eyesight disorder. Social problems are usually caused by inappropriate social reactions to blindness. Many of improper impacts may be caused by lack of knowledge which we have about eyesight disorders. Social interactions are often based on subtle clues, such as facial demonstrations. Facial demonstrations in the blind individuals are different from ordinary people. For example, hiding their real feelings, especially negative emotions are difficult for them,[3]. According to the Bar-on[4] Emotional intelligence is a set of capabilities, capacities and skills which equip person to applies them to adapt himself with his environment (daily life & job); in the other words, it is a kind of capacity that makes us capable of understanding, expressing, perceiving and application and self-regulation of ourselves emotion and others[5,6]. Elsewhere, emotional intelligence defined as the ability to understand affections to assess thoughts and temperament and regulate them in such a way that promotes excellence and intellectual and emotional growth. Owing to these reason, this issue is important to identify effective factors on emotional intelligence for having effective behavioral interventions, in this course, one of the important approach regarding all cognitive aspects of individual is personality traits. Basically, psychologists define personality as dynamic Organization of person psycho-somatic systems that determines special thoughts and behaviors for him which can predict what a person wants to do in a special situation Schultz, & Schultz[7].

Researches which investigated the role of different aspects of personality and emotional intelligence have found useful results. Salsky and kartrite[8] investigations also showed that there is relation between stress, general health, well-being and emotional intelligence. They believed that their findings indicate the importance of emotional intelligence role in modification of stress process and flexibility increase. Also, Oginsa-Bolik[9] study determined that the individuals who have high level of emotional intelligence have a little job stress and fewer health problems. In their point of view, emotional intelligence has a preventive role in health problems and, especially depression. Individuals with high level of emotional intelligence are characterized by coping with stress, emotions expression, emotion mastery and management in the better way. Siaroschi and colleagues research[10] suggests a moderating effect of emotional intelligence in stress and mental health variables. Of course, there are also some studies that indicate there is no significant and substantial relationship between emotional intelligence and five- factors personality,[11, 12, 13]. In Some researches, these factors have been investigated in different individuals. Aghjanzade and Heydarian[14] investigated and compared Emotional Intelligence in the two groups of the blind and normal one. The results indicate, there is significant difference between two groups from an Emotional Intelligence point of view. And, this factor has assigned a great degree to itself in the girls. Also, Talebi[15] in the study that he did about the investigation of the sporty blind personality traits in the goalball with the blind showed that there is significant difference between two groups in some traits. In spite of different studies in the field of emotional intelligence, in one sense, there is a little study about these factors; from other hand, being significant and paying attention to important affair of rehabilitation in the blind led to the study in this field would be done. Thus, the purpose of the present study is comparing the emotional intelligence and personality traits between two groups of the successful blind (successful individual with visual impairments) and the normal blind (normal individual with visual impairments) that lives in Tehran city. And, investigates this question: is there significance difference between two groups of the successful and the normal individual with visual impairments in emotional intelligence and personality traits component?

2. Method

2.1. Subjects

Present study is post-facto design which through that personality traits and emotional intelligence compared in two groups of the successful blind and normal blind. Statistical population including all the individuals with visual impairments in year 2010 of Tehran city that they had professions or they were membership of state and private organizations. And, among them 40 patients (12 women and 28 men) were selected by available sampling method.

These individuals' ages range was between 27 to 40 years. In the present study, successful group with visual impairment was included those of credit and employment status, income, and academic of levels were MA and PhD. they were better position in this cases than to the normal group generally.

2.2. Procedure

Participants were diagnosis by an ophthalmologist as and individuals with visual impairments. And also in the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and related health problems (ICD-10), were placed in Category the Visual disturbances and blindness (H53-H54)[16]. Participations responded to NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-FFI) and Bar-on Emotional Quotient Inventory.

2.3. Measures

Participants completed the following self-report measures during their assessment:

2.3.1. NEO Personality Inventory - short form (NEO-FFI)

This Inventory was prepared in 1985 by Paul T. Costa, and Mac Carey. NEO-FFI is a questionnaire consists of 60 questions to assess the five personality factors (extraversion, neuroticism, agreeableness, being conscientious, flexibility,). For each of these five factors of personality, there are 12 items in this test[17]. Sharon and et al reported reliability coefficient of 0.86 for neuroticism, 0.77 for extraversion, 0.73 for flexibility, 0.68 for open to experience, conscientious or dutiful. Cronbach's alpha by Wine and et al is respectively, O=0.76, N=0.74, C=0.60, A =0.89. Reliability coefficient obtained in Iran for N.E.O.A.C factors were 0.83, 0.75, 0.80, 0.79, 0.79 respectively[17]. Studies by Mac Carey and Costa (1992) showed that correlation range of five sub-scales of short form with the long form is 0.77 to 0.92. The internal consistency of the subscales estimated in the range of 0.68 to 0.86.

2.3.2. Bar-on Emotional Quotient Inventory

Bar-on emotional quotient inventory in 1980 begun with this question: why some people are more successful than others, and presented concept, definition and measurements of cognitive intelligence (Bar-on, 1988, 1992, 1996a, 1996c, 1997a, 1997b). This test contains 117 questions and 15 scales. The standardization results showed that the test had good reliability and validity. Test scales are emotionalself-awareness, self-assertiveness, self-esteem, self-actualization, independence, empathy, social responsibility, interpersonal relations, and problem solving, realism, flexibility, and stress tolerance, control of impulsivity, optimism, and happiness. Lashkari[18] obtained (Cronbach’s alpha coefficient: 0.92) for whole questions of the inventory. In another study, Dezhcam[19] has mentioned Reliability of ((Bar-on)) inventory using Cronbach's alpha coefficient of 0.6. In this study, Cronbach's alpha coefficient was obtained. / 75.

3. Results

After data collection, data analyzed by SPSS (20 versions).

Descriptive data from this study are shown in Table 1:

Table 1. Mean and standard deviation of the emotional intelligence and personality traits components of the in two groups

Table 2. Multiple analyses of variance (MANOVA) of the emotional intelligence and personality traits components of the successful and normal individual with visual impairment

According to the listed results in Table 2, there is significant difference (P ≤ 0/01) between emotional intelligence and personality traits components, two groups of successful and normal individual with visual impairments, in neurosis component and the average score forth successful with visual impairments in this sub-test is less. There is no significant difference between the other personality traits.

4. Discussion

This study was done to compare the emotional intelligence and personality traits in the successful and normal blind people in Tehran city. As the results showed no difference was seen between the two groups in the components of emotional intelligence. Among personality traits, the only component that differs between two groups is neurosis; probably, the emotional constancy and adaptation in the successful blind people in comparison to the normal one lead to that. Although several studies such as Bastian[11], brackets[12], Lopez[13], Talebi[15], Aghjanzade and Heydarian[14] and others have shown differences in of personality dimensions and emotional intelligence in the blind people and in the normal ones and the people who regain their eyesight, no study has done in this field( study on the successful blind people) so far. Researchers have shown that low emotional intelligence followed by (associate with) internal problem-making behaviors, low levels of empathy, inability to regulate mood Kyaroschy and et al, 2000; quoted by Kachub[20], Parker et al. 2001 quoted by Kachub,[20], depression, psycho-somatic disorders, stress and aggression. But, people with high emotional intelligence have more power to cope with new issues of daily life, occupational and professional improvement and leadership[21]. Also, emotional intelligence has correlation with extraversion[22], flexibility, openness and ability to regulate different emotions, detecting these emotions and their effect on brain and behavior[23]. Hossinyan and Emamipour[24] showed that the blind people emotional intelligence is lower than ordinary pupils in these components: self-awareness,self-expression, self-actualization, independency, interpersonal relationships, problem solving, flexibility, stress tolerance, happiness. Individuals that have high emotional intelligence have social and effective abilities; for that reason, they easily make interpersonal relationships; in addition, they can express and perceive their emotions and this ability to perceive others emotions. Taking into the account that social and emotional skills are taught in relation to others and what is necessary for many skills acquisition is eyesight, as a result, the blind individuals for not having eyesight, are deprived of such as these experiences that we said in above. These experiences can have great effect on emotional growth and social interaction in the blind[25].

Sensory handicaps, especially visual defects, can be effective in the social skills growth, especially skills that in them the eyesight plays a vital role for being obtained. Troster and Brombring[26] showed that blind children due to many defects, suffer from expressing their facial gestures and make a little effort for getting motor connection and satisfying others demands. Limited research has been done on the relation of the successful blind and no study seen in the field of comparing the successful blind individuals with the normal ones in the scope of personality dimension and emotional intelligence; for that reason, it is suggested more rigorous researches be done with larger samples to achieve better results in this field.