Does Emotional Intelligence Assist in the Prediction of Academic Success?

Abstract

Some authors have claimed that emotional intelligence predicts success at work, at school, and in relationships, as well as or better than IQ. Little research exists to support or refute this claim at present. In this study, the ability of emotional intelligence to predict academic achievement was examined in a sample of undergraduate psychology students, using year-end grades as the criterion. The predictive validity of emotional intelligence was compared with the predictive validity of traditional cognitive abilities and the Big Five dimensions of personality. In addition, the incremental predictive validity of each of these three domains was assessed. In this setting, only some measures of Emotional Intelligence predicted academic success, and none of these measures showed incremental predictive validity for academic success over and above cognitive and personality variables. It may be that the overlap between many emotional intelligence measures and traditional measures of intelligence and personality limits their incremental predictive validity in this context.