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3.5 Trait EI and personality

3.4.1 Overview

The following section reveals the relevant literature regarding the relationship between trait EI and personality in order to propose the incremental validity of trait EI over the personality factor in explaining any variance within the service performance of casino key account representatives.

3.4.2 Emotional intelligence and personality

The relationship between emotional intelligence and personality has been widely discussed in the relevant literature, but the degree of the relationship depends on the measures used to assess emotional intelligence. For example, using one of the emotional intelligence measures, BarOn’s Emotional Intelligence Quotient and the NEO-PI-R, a measure of the Big Five personality factors, Brackett and Mayer (2003) found that emotional intelligence is highly significantly correlated with Neuroticism, Extraversion, Agreeableness and Conscientiousness, but moderately related to Openness to experience. Sala (2002) also found that emotional intelligence measured by Goleman’s Emotional Competence Inventory is significantly related to Extraversion, Openness to experience and Conscientiousness. However, when the MSCEIT was used, only Openness to experience and Agreeableness were found to relate to emotional intelligence (Brackett and Mayer, 2003). Surprisingly there is no significant relationship found between the two constructs when the MEIS is adopted (Caruso, Mayer & Salovey, 2002).

The differences lie in how emotional intelligence is measured. In general, when it is assessed through self-report measure, emotional intelligence is more strongly related to personality measure, as indicated in previous literature review (Petrides & Furnham, 2001; Petrides, Furhnam & Frederickson, 2004; Van Der Zee & Wabeke, 2003). The weak relationships of the MSCEIT and MEIS with personality is construed as that the two measures are through performance-based tests, which is more related to cognitive ability measures (Petrides, Furhnam & Frederickson, 2004; Van Der Zee & Wabeke, 2003). Petrides and Furnham (2001) classify the self-report emotional intelligence measures as trait EI, the performance-based measures as ability EI. This distinction accounts for the difference of the incremental validity in the criterion variables explained by emotional intelligence and personality measures.

3.4.3 The incremental validity of trait EI

Apart from comparing correlations of the two constructs, emotional intelligence and personality have been constantly used to compare their individual variance in the criterion variables (e.g., Vakola, Tsaousis, & Nikolau, 2003; Van Der Zee & Wabeke, 2003). Researchers (e.g., Brackett & Mayer, 2003; Zeidner, Matthews, & Roberts, 2004) in the relevant area indicate that emotional intelligence, as a newly incepted construct in the psychology domain, should not only demonstrate criterion and predictive validity, but also incremental validity over those well-established constructs in the field. Due to various measures of emotional intelligence in the literature, such as self-report questionnaires or performance-based tests, caution should be taken in evaluating its incremental validity to account for additional

variance, as different methods of measuring this construct lead to the differences in its incremental validity.

Based on the distinction of trait EI and ability EI, the incremental validity of emotional intelligence is discernible. Ability EI, assessed by performance-based measures, is expected to provide additional variance over the traditional intelligence measures. However, the results from Van Rooy and Viswesvaran’s (2003) meta- analysis showed that the ability EI only demonstrated incremental validity over GMA by 0.02, while the incremental validity of GMA over emotional intelligence is as large at 0.31. Moreover, trait EI, assessed by self-report measures should demonstrate incremental validity over the Big Five personality factors, something which has been evidenced by a number of empirical studies (e.g. Austin, Saklofske & Egan, 2005; Saklofske, Austin & Minski, 2003). As the current study adopted a self-report emotional intelligence measure, the following discussion will centre on the incremental validity of trait EI.

In discussing if trait EI is simply or more than a trait, Van Dan Zee et al. (2004) found that trait EI as measured by Bar-On’s Emotional Intelligence Quotient was not only substantially related to most dimensions of personality measure, but also explained additional variance over and above the personality measure in the identified two dimensions of competencies: support and leadership. In a study to compare the predictive validity in attitudes towards organizational change, Vakola, Tsaousis and Nikolau (2003) found that the overall emotional intelligence score explained additional variance over personality measure, however, when using the sub-scales of

emotional intelligence, only one dimension of trait EI – the use of emotions scale demonstrated more effect than personalty measure in the criterion variable.

Day, Therrien and Carroll (2005) conducted a study to explore the relationships among emotional intelligence assessed by Bar-On’s EQ-i, Big Five personality factors, Type A Behaviour Pattern (TABP), daily hassles, and psychological health/strain factors (in terms of perceived well-being, strain, and three components of burnout). The results showed that the EQ-i was highly correlated with most aspects of personality and TABP. After controlling for the impact of hassles, personality, and TABP, the five EQ-i subscales accounted for incremental variance in two of the five psychological health outcomes. Similar results were found in Chapman and Hayslip’s (2005) study. The authors reported that emotional intelligence measured by Schutte et al.’s (1998) self-report emotional intelligence scale significantly and uniquely predicted variance beyond personality measured by NEO Five–Factor Inventory (NEO–FFI; Costa & McCrae, 1992) in loneliness and social stress.

A recent study by Petrides, Pérez-González and Furnham (2007) attempted to investigate the criterion and incremental validity of trait EI. Defining emotional intelligence as a constellation of emotion-related self-perceptions and dispositions located at the lower levels of personality hierarchies, the authors found that trait EI is more related to measures of rumination, life satisfaction, depression, dysfunctional attitudes, and coping. Most relationships remained statistically significant even after controlling for Big Five variance. The authors concluded that trait EI has a role to play in personality, clinical, and social psychology, often with effects that are incremental over the basic dimensions of personality and mood.

The above studies demonstrate trait EI indeed explains additional variance in certain criteria beyond personality measures. However, the existing studies reveal a lack of research on the incremental validity of trait EI over personality in organizational settings. Applying the concepts to a casino setting, the following hypothesis is made by employing the sample of casino key account representatives:

Hypothesis 3: trait EI explains additional variance in the service performance of