However, the consideration of assertive behavior as a substance use protection factor is contradicted in some empirical observations . Therefore, this study aims to confirm whether assertiveness predicts cannabis use by adding extra empirical evidence when considering it as a central element in clinical and educational interventions. Over the last two decades, interest in studying Emotional Intelligence has increased. EI is understood as “the ability to recognize, understand and regulate one’s own emotions and those of others, discriminate between them and use the information as a guide to thoughts and actions” . It should be noted that the scientific literature distinguishes two EI constructs that can be differentiated on the basis of the measurement method used to operationalize it . On the one hand, self-reports measure trait EI through the perception of the person’s own emotional skills. On the other hand, the maximum performance tests of EI measure the cognitive ability to give correct or incorrect responses to emotional tasks. The trait EI construct belongs to the field of personality, while the second refers to cognitive ability, thus the scientific literature has been developed independently.

The EI self-report measures have been widely used in research. However, maximum performance tests have been barely used athough the literature highlights theimportance of applying them to assess the real capacity of people when solving emotional tasks . In the fifield of drug use, data from a systematic review confirmed the association between lower EI and a more problematic use of alcohol, tobacco, cannabis, and other illegal substances mostly in adults . Some research that evaluated trait EI found that university students who used cannabis were less able to understand and repair their negative emotional states and started consumption at an earlier age . A higher perceived ability to regulate emotions was related to a lower frequency of cannabis use in other studies with adolescents . On the other hand, a high level of attention to emotions has been linked to a higher level of stress, which hinders the ability to understand and regulate emotions and increases the probability of cannabis use in adolescents . In terms of EI evaluated through maximum performance tests, the few existing studies such as the one carried out by Brackett, Mayer, and Warner , showed significant negative relations between the components of emotional perception, emotional facilitation, emotional understanding, and emotional regulation regarding the frequency of cannabis use in university students.

The authors concluded that EI was a protective factor against cannabis consumption, which also reduced the influence to use exerted by the peer group. This research aims to analyse the involvement of EI with respect to cannabis use in adolescence, and combines the assessment of trait and ability EI factors in order to provide a complete understanding of their role in the use of this substance. In addition, this study is one of the first to analyze the incremental and predictive validity of trait and ability EI with respect to other classical variables of protection, such as coping styles and assertiveness in relation to the cannabis use habit in adolescents . Finally, this research adds relevant information on the youngest consumers’ habits in order to guide future preventive interventions.The results of this study show that the prevalences of cannabis use in adolescents broadly coincide with the data reported in the last Spanish Survey on Drug Use in Secondary School Students . This fact has important implications at the prevention level and exalts the need for intensive work at the beginning of Compulsory Secondary Education and even in the the last years of Primary Education. The present research analysed the influence of coping styles and assertiveness together with the effects of trait EI and ability EI on cannabis consumption habits in adolescence. First, it should be noted that the first working hypothesis was completely fulfilled.

Based on the data obtained, it is observed that the style of active and social coping, as well as assertiveness and the factors of trait EI and ability EI appear to protect against some cannabis consumption behaviors; on the other hand, avoidant coping style and high emotional attention are shown as risk factors. Considering the size of the effect of the correlations between the predictor and the dependent variables, it should be noted that these correlations were weak , as has been observed in previous studies on drug use in adolescents . Secondly, the second hypothesis of the study was partially fulfilled. Once the age and gender of the participants were taken into consideration, all the factors of trait EI and only the ability EI factors of emotional perception and emotional facilitation helped explain the consumption habits alongside coping styles and assertiveness. Taking into account the age groups , the results showed that the perceived ability to repair negative emotional states and the ability to perceive one’s own and other’s emotions adequately explained cannabis use at some point in life in both age groups. On the other hand, assertiveness and avoidant coping styles predicted higher probability of consumption in the older group.