Occupational performance and EQ profilingDate of publication: 08/07/2007 This section is still being developed but will eventually contain complete summaries of studies that have studied general occupational performance and conducted EQ profiling for various occupations based on the Bar-On conceptual and psychometric model of emotional-social intelligence. In the meantime, I have summarized the key studies that I am aware of. Should you wish to share findings from a study that you have conducted or have detailed information on studies that others have conducted focusing on this topic, please use the template provided above for summarizing this study and email it to us (info@reuvenbaron.org). You are invited to provide results that confirm or refute these findings and help us understand this area better. In six studies that I and my colleagues have conducted, summarized and cited over the past few years [Bar-On, 1997b, 2004; Bar-On et al., 2005; Handley, 1997; Ruderman & Bar-On, 2003], the EQ-i has demonstrated that there is a significant relationship between emotional-social intelligence and occupational performance.
In the first known study that directly examined the relationship between emotional-social intelligence and occupational performance, the EQ-i scores of 1,171 US Air Force recruiters were compared with their ability to meet annual recruitment quotas [Handley, 1997; Bar-On et al., 2005]. Based on USAF criteria, they were divided into those who were able to meet at least 100% of their annual quota (“high performers”) and those who met less than 80% (“low performers”), representing a very robust method of assessing occupational performance. A discriminant function analysis indicated that EQ-i scores were able to fairly accurately identify high and low performers, demonstrating that the relationship between emotional-social intelligence and occupational performance is high (.53) based on the sample studied. Prior to 1996, it was costing the USAF approximately $ 3 million for an average of 100 mismatches a year. After one year of combining pre-employment EI screening with interviewing and comparing EQ-i scores with the model for successful recruiters, they increased their ability to predict successful recruiters by nearly threefold, dramatically reduced first-year attrition due to mismatches and cut their financial losses by approximately 92%. Based on these results, the US General Accounting Office submitted a Congressional Report to the Senate Committee on Armed Services praising the USAF’s use of EI screening [United States General Accounting Office, 1998].
In two other studies, performance in highly stressful and potentially dangerous occupations was studied by comparing EQ-i scores with externally rated performance for a sample of 335 regular combat soldiers in the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) and for an additional sample of 240 soldiers in an elite IDF unit [Bar-On et al., 2005]. Both studies clearly revealed a significant relationship between emotional-social intelligence and this specific type of occupational performance; the predictive validity coefficient in the former study was .55 and .51 in the latter.
In three additional studies described by me [Bar-On, 2004; Bar-On et al., 2005], leadership was studied by examining the relationship between EQ-i scores and peer-nomination in one study (i.e., those considered to possess leadership capacity among new recruits in the IDF), criterion group membership in another study (i.e., IDF recruits who were accepted to officer training versus those who were not) and multi-rater evaluations in the third study which was conducted at the Center for Creative Leadership in the US (i.e., ratings on 21 different leadership criteria made by an average of seven to eight coworkers). The results indicated, respectively, that there is a moderate to high relationship between emotional-social intelligence and leadership based on the predictive validity coefficients of .39 (n=536), .49 (n=940) and .82 (n=236) that were revealed. The third study shows that successful leadership is based to large extent on emotional-social intelligence -- approximately two-thirds (67%) to be exact.
The average predictive validity coefficient for the six studies described above is .54, meaning that nearly 30% of the variance of occupational performance is based on emotional-social intelligence as described by the Bar-On model. When compared with Wagner’s extensive meta-analysis that revealed that cognitive intelligence accounts for approximately 6% of occupational performance [Wagner, 1997], the findings presented here suggest that EQ accounts for about five times more variance than IQ when explaining this type of performance. The findings indicate that high performers in the workplace have significantly higher emotional-social intelligence than low performers. It is interesting to note that in one of the studies described above [Bar-On et al., 2005], the results suggest that the EQ-i was able to predict performance quite well (.55) even over a period of 18 months.
The findings described here suggest that the most powerful emotional-social intelligence contributors to occupational performance are: (a) the ability to be aware of and accept oneself; (b) the ability to be aware of others’ feelings, concerns and needs; (c) the ability to manage emotions; (d) the ability to be realistic and put things in correct perspective; and (e) the ability to have a positive disposition.
Based on the findings presented here, the EQ-i compares quite favorable with other EI measures in predicting occupational performance. For example, the correlation between the MSCEIT and various aspects of occupational performance ranges between .22 and .46 [Brackett & Salovey, 2004].
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