Self reported emotional intelligence and its relationship to academic success

"Emotional intelligence (EI) is a relatively new psychological construct and is the focus of much debate. This debate is centered on the differences in the way EI is conceptualised and measured between the ability and the mixed model schools of thought. The ability model considers EI to be a form of intelligence similar to cognitive skill and can thus, be observed in an objective manner. In contrast, the mixed model considers EI to be a mix of cognitive and personality traits. Mixed model EI is typically assessed using self-report measures. Both models of EI have reported some good evidence to link the construct with organisational and personal well-being. This research had two main goals. The first goal was to address a common criticism of the mixed model. Researchers from the ability model routinely discredit mixed model approaches to EI by proposing that in essence, they are measuring personality and not intelligence. This study tests this criticism by including a measure of personality as well as EI to assess their relative contribution in explaining academic success. The second goal was to better understand the role of age and EI. The literature suggests a small linear relationship between these variables but the better studies suggest the effect of EI plateaus during mid-life. Thus, the hypotheses were tested by using two age groups; < 35 years old and 35 years. In addition, the study used a longitudinal design, collected both objective and subjective data and controlled for the effect of gender and social desirability"--Abstract.