Scandinavian Working Papers in Business Administration

SSE/EFI Working Paper Series in Business Administration,
Stockholm School of Economics

No 2001:13: Emotional Intelligence Measured in a Highly Competitive Testing Situation

Lennart Sjöberg ()
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Lennart Sjöberg: Center for Economic Psychology, Postal: Stockholm School of Economics, P.O. Box 6501, S-113 83 Stockholm, Sweden

Abstract: This is a study in which emotional intelligence (EI) as well as several other personality dimensions were studied in a real, high-stakes, selection situation, N=190. Forty-one trait oriented personality scales were measured and factor analyzed. A factor pattern with four secondary factors was found: EI, emotional stability, rigidity/perfectionism and energy/dominance. These factors were related to standard FFM (Five Factor Model) dimensions, to Hogan's Development Survey ("the dark side of personality") and to a number of tasks measuring skills in identifying emotions and emotion knowledge. It was found that EI and emotional stability correlated significantly with some of the latter measures, more so than the FFM scales. Impression management was measured with several scales. In the end of the testing session, participants were instructed explicitly to fake their answers. These active faking responses showed consistency across personality dimensions and also correlated strongly with impression management scores. Correcting the final pooled score (the four secondary factors combined) for impression management and faking produced fairly strong changes in the "short list" of participants ranking among the top 30, or 60. It is concluded that personality trait EI shows some promise while emotion identification tasks must probably be geared towards human emotion rather than abstract judgment of emotion as expressed in art or music.

Keywords: emotional intelligence; selection; impression management

29 pages, First version: November 26, 2001. Revised: December 4, 2001.

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