The intelligence-personality debate gets emotional: the importance of distinguishing between trait and ability EI when considering associations

Abstract

The wealth of research into intelligence suggests that an individual’s success – socially, academically and occupationally, cannot be accounted for by IQ alone (e.g. Petrides, Frederickson and Furnham, 2004). Since Salovey and Mayer (1990) published their work on Emotional Intelligence, interest in the area has grown rapidly. The current study addresses the relationship between EI, crystallised intelligence and personality. Both self report and performance-based measures of EI were adopted amid concerns regarding the existence of two types of EI that are assessed using different measures. The main findings were that self report EI (assessed by the TEIQue) was correlated positively with the Big Five factors of personality (except for Neuroticism which was negatively correlated), the two performance-based measures of EI were positively correlated, one of the performance-based tests (the Face Blends) was positively correlated with both Extraversion and Agreeableness and finally, crystallised intelligence (assessed by the Wechsler Test of Adult Reading) correlated positively with Openness. Possible implications of research findings are discussed and possibilities for future research are considered. The concept of EI has the potential to be invaluable to an understanding of individual differences. The issues surrounding the construct are largely the result of teething problems associated with measurement and the lack of a coherent theory, in time it is hoped that these issues will be resolved and EI will be acknowledged as an important determiner of individual differences.