Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences - Theses
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ItemInterpersonal competencies and managerial performance: the role of emotional intelligence, leadership self-efficacy, self-monitoring and political skill( 2004)Job performance is influenced by both task and contextual factors. Previous research has found interpersonal facilitation to be an important contributor to contextual and overall job performance, especially for managers. The current study examined four interpersonal competencies, namely, self-monitoring, emotional intelligence, leadership self-efficacy, and political skill, as predictors of managerial performance. Particular attention was given to political skill, a goal-directed activity that aims to achieve organisational success and influence. Data were collected from 136 managers from a large motor manufacturing company using both self- and supervisor-evaluations. Measures of social desirability were also included in order to increase the accuracy of self-reports. Job performance was measured using the organisation’s internal performance appraisals. The results confirmed that political skill was both the strongest predictor of managerial performance, and a differentiating factor between top performers and others. Emotional intelligence was also a significant predictor but it did not explain significant variance in performance when considered with political skill. Leadership self-efficacy and self-monitoring were not predictors of performance. Exploratory analysis showed that positive relationships existed between seniority and both leadership self-efficacy and political skill, and a negative relationship with emotional intelligence. Exploratory analysis also showed associations between specific interpersonal competencies and occupations. Other results challenged the accuracy of self-report measurement in comparison with supervisor reports and pointed to the pivotal role of self-deception — a sub factor of social desirability — in self-report measurement.
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ItemEmotional intelligence: conceptual and methodological issues, and its role in coping and well-being( 2005)This research investigates the convergent, divergent, predictive, and incremental validity of emotional intelligence. It addresses five issues. These are: (1) the conceptual and psychometric adequacy of self- and observer-judgements of emotional intelligence; (2) the impact of demographic factors on performance-assessed emotional intelligence; (3) the convergent and divergent validity of performance-assessed emotional intelligence; (4) the role of performance-assessed emotional intelligence in coping and psychological health; and (5) the incremental validity of performance-assessed emotional intelligence in predicting coping and psychological health. A demographically heterogeneous sample (N = 342) completed a performance measure of emotional intelligence, the Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT; Mayer, Salovey, & Caruso, 2002b) and a self-judged measure of emotional intelligence, the Schutte Assessing Emotions Scale (Schutte AES; Schutte et al., 1998). Participants also completed measures of cognitive intelligence, personality, dispositional coping, psychological morbidity, and well-being. Six months later, a subsample (N = 138) was readministered the Schutte AES and completed a measure of ruminative coping. Observers (N = 121) who were well-acquainted with the target respondents (M acquaintance = 13.96 years) completed observer-judgements of emotional intelligence. A principal axis factoring model-fitting procedure with an oblique (promax) rotation recovered a four-factor solution of the Schutte AES. These factors did not converge with the MSCEIT. In addition, the Schutte AES showed a lack of convergence with cognitive intelligence and lack of divergence from personality. The data suggested that some traits indexed by self-judged emotional intelligence measures have low visibility and may not be amenable to observer assessments. Performance-assessed emotional intelligence showed theoretically coherent convergent and divergent validity. Weak relational effects were found for performance-assessed emotional intelligence and age. These were independent of cognitive intelligence and language proficiency. The direction of these was not uniform across the emotional intelligence abilities suggesting that some abilities evidence age-related increments, while others evidence age-related decrements. Although there was a tendency for women to have higher MSCEIT scores, the difference was not significant. There were greater magnitudes of correlations between the MSCEIT and criteria for males compared with females. Low performance-assessed emotional intelligence (MSCEIT Total EIQ) was significantly associated with an avoidant coping style, the severity and psychosocial impact of depressive symptoms, and the breadth and intensity of current psychiatric symptoms. Individuals diagnosed with depression using DSM-IV (American Psychiatric Association, 1994) criteria had significantly lower MSCEIT Total EIQ scores. Those with a past self-reported history of psychiatric difficulties had lower Understanding Emotion but not MSCEIT Total EIQ scores. In addition, low Managing Emotion at Time 1 was associated with a greater self-reported propensity to ruminate at Time 2 (N = 138), approximately 6 months later. MSCEIT TotaI EIQ was also associated with a range of psychological well-being criteria: perceived control over mood experience, recent quality of life, and global assessments of life satisfaction. Performance-assessed emotional intelligence showed incremental predictive efficacy. With the combined explanatory power of the Big Five personality factors and cognitive intelligence statistically accounted for in hierarchical regression analyses, MSCEIT EIQ significantly predicted an avoidant coping style, the severity and psychosocial impact of depressive symptoms, the breadth and intensity of current psychiatric symptoms, and quality of life.