Applicant versus employee scores on self-report emotional intelligence measures

There exists growing interest to assess applicants' emotional intelligence (EI) via self-report trait-based measures of EI as part of the selection process. However, some studies that experimentally manipulated applicant conditions have cautioned that in these conditions use of self-report measures for assessing EI might lead to considerably higher scores than current norm scores suggest. So far, no studies have scrutinized self-reported EI scores among a sample of actual job applicants. Therefore, this study compares the scores of actual applicants at a large ICT organization (n = 109) on a well-known self-report measure of EI to the scores of employees already working in the organization (n = 239). The current study is the first to show that applicants' scores on a self-report measure of EI during the selection process are indeed higher (d = 1.12) and have less variance (SD ratio = 0.86/1) than incumbents' scores. Finally, a meta-analytic combination of our results with those of earlier research showed that a score increase of about 1 SD in applicant conditions seems to be the rule, regardless of the type of setting, self-report EI measure, and within-versus between-subjects design employed

Validity evidence for the situational judgment test paradigm in emotional intelligence measurement

To date, various measurement approaches have been proposed to assess emotional intelligence (EI). Recently, two new EI tests have been developed based on the situational judgment test (SJT) paradigm: the Situational Test of Emotional Understanding (STEU) and the Situational Test of Emotion Management (STEM). Initial attempts have been made to examine the construct-related validity of these new tests; we extend these findings by placing the tests in a broad nomological network. To this end, 850 undergraduate students completed a personality inventory, a cognitive ability test, a self-report EI test, a performance-based EI measure, the STEU, and the STEM. The SJT-based EI tests were not strongly correlated with personality and fluid cognitive ability. Regarding their relation with existing EI measures, the tests did not capture the same construct as self-report EI measures, but corresponded rather to performance-based EI measures. Overall, these results lend support for the SJT paradigm for measuring EI as an ability

Measurement equivalence of the Wong and Law Emotional Intelligence Scale across self and other ratings

There exist a variety of measurement instruments for assessing emotional intelligence (EI). One approach is the use of other reports wherein knowledgeable informants indicate how well the scale items describe the assessed person’s behavior. In other reports, the same EI scales are typically used as in self-reports. However, it is not known whether the measurement structure underlying EI ratings is equivalent across self and other ratings. In this study, the measurement equivalence of an extant EI measure (WLEIS, Wong & Law, 2002) across self and other ratings was tested. Using multiple group confirmatory factor analysis, we conducted a sequence of increasingly more restrictive tests of equivalence across self and other ratings. The WLEIS was found to be configurally and metrically invariant across self and other ratings. However, there was no evidence for structural invariance between rater groups. Future research is needed to test the equivalence of other EI measures across self and other ratings

Emotional intelligence predicts success in medical school

Accumulating evidence suggests that effective communication and interpersonal sensitivity during interactions between doctors and patients impact therapeutic outcomes. There is an important need to identify predictors of these behaviors, because traditional tests used in medical admissions offer limited predictions of “bedside manners” in medical practice. This study examined whether emotional intelligence would predict the performance of 367 medical students in medical school courses on communication and interpersonal sensitivity. One of the dimensions of emotional intelligence, the ability to regulate emotions, predicted performance in courses on communication and interpersonal sensitivity over the next three years of medical school, over and above cognitive ability and conscientiousness. Emotional intelligence did not predict performance on courses on medical subject domains. The results suggest that medical schools may better predict who will communicate effectively and show interpersonal sensitivity if they include measures of emotional intelligence in their admission systems

Differences between multimedia and text-based assessments of emotion management: An exploration with the multimedia emotion management assessment (MEMA)

People process emotional information using visual, vocal, and verbal cues. However, emotion management is typically assessed with text based rather than multimedia stimuli. This study (N=427) presents the new multimedia emotion management assessment (MEMA) and compares it to the text-based assessment of emotion management used in the MSCEIT. The text-based and multimedia assessment showed similar levels of cognitive saturation and similar prediction of relevant criteria. Results demonstrate that the MEMA scores have equivalent evidence of validity to the text-based MSCEIT test scores, demonstrating that multimedia assessment of emotion management is viable. Furthermore, our results inform the debate as to whether cognitive saturation in emotional intelligence (EI) measures represents noise or substance. We find that cognitive ability associations with EI represent substantive variance rather than construct-irrelevant shared variance due to reading comprehension ability required for text-based items

The image of psychology programs: The value of the instrumental-symbolic framework

As competition for funding and students intensifies, it becomes increasingly important for psychology programs to have an image that is attractive and makes them stand out from other programs. We use the instrumental-symbolic framework from the marketing domain to determine the image of different master’s programs in psychology and examine how these image dimensions relate to student attraction and competitor differentiation. The samples consist of both potential students (N = 114) and current students (N = 68) of three psychology programs at a Belgian university: industrial and organizational psychology, clinical psychology, and experimental psychology. The results demonstrate that both instrumental attributes (e.g., interpersonal activities) and symbolic trait inferences (e.g., sincerity) are key components of the image of psychology programs and predict attractiveness as well as differentiation. In addition, symbolic image dimensions seem more important for current students of psychology programs than for potential students

Emotional intelligence tests: the value of alternative measurement approaches

The objective of this dissertation was to examine the viability and validity evidence of three alternative emotional intelligence (EI) measurement approaches, i.e., other-reports, the paper-and-pencil situational judgment test (SJT) approach, and the multimedia SJT approach. First, it was examined whether a self-report EI scale can also be used for other-report assessment. Results showed that though the WLEIS (Wong & Law, 2002) means the same to both rater groups, self raters used a narrower range of response intervals. So, only if practitioners are aware that self-ratings might be more biased than other ratings, knowledgeable others might be used as a complement to self-ratings in EI measurement. Second, construct-related validity evidence of two new paper-and-pencil EI SJTs (the STEU and the STEM, MacCann & Roberts, 2008) was examined. The established nomological network showed that the tests do not seem to capture the same construct as personality and self-report EI measures, but seem to correspond rather to performance-based EI measures, indicating they correspond to the ability EI model and can thus be used for assessing emotional abilities. The third empirical study aimed to find an explanation for past inconsistent criterion-related validity results of EI. Using the theory-driven logic of predictor-criterion matching, results showed that criterion-related validity of EI improved when fine distinctions were made in both the predictor and criterion space and when specific predictors were matched to specific criteria. It was also shown that the distinct EI dimensions differed in their relations with performance (emotion regulation carried the effect of emotion understanding). Finally, the viability of multimedia SJTs to assess EI was examined. A Multimedia Situational Test of Emotion Management was developed using MacCann and Roberts’ (2008) paper-and-pencil STEM as starting point and the classic three-step SJT approach as methodology. Next, construct-related and criterion-related validity evidence for this test was examined in a large scale study. The results demonstrated that the multimedia EI SJT measured the processing of emotional knowledge rather than the propensity to behave in a certain way in emotional situations, aligned to the positive manifold among intelligence measures, and operated in the domain of emotions

Self-Esteem and Job Performance: The Role of Contingencies of Self-Worth

<span>Two field studies were undertaken to investigate the nature of the relationship between justice perceptions and feedback reactions. Previous work suggests that the relationship between procedural justice and feedback reactions is mediated by the quality of the relationship with the supervisor. However, there are also good theoretical reasons to hypothesise that the relationship between justice perceptions and feedback reactions is moderated by relationship quality. Across two field studies, we found support for both mediated and moderated relationships. Results of the moderator analyses showed that the positive relationship between justice perceptions and feedback reactions was more pronounced for subordinates in a low-quality relationship with their supervisor. The present results provide useful suggestions for enhancing feedback reactions in organisations.</span