thesis on emotional intelligence

An official website of the United States government

The .gov means it’s official. Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

The site is secure. The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

• Publications
• Account settings

Preview improvements coming to the PMC website in October 2024. Learn More or Try it out now .

• Advanced Search
• Journal List
• Front Psychol

A Meta-Analysis of the Relationships Between Emotional Intelligence and Employee Outcomes

Associated data.

The original contributions presented in the study are included in the article/supplementary material, further inquiries can be directed to the corresponding author/s.

Emotional intelligence is an emerging field since the 1990s due to its important outcomes for employees. This study is a psychometric meta-analysis examining the links between emotional intelligence and organizational commitment, organizational citizenship behavior, job satisfaction, job performance, and job stress of employees. In this meta-analysis, carefully selected studies on emotional intelligence since the origin of the concept in 1990 were included along with studies examining its outcomes. For this analysis, three streams of emotional intelligence, consistent with previous meta-analyses, were considered: ability, self-report, and mixed emotional intelligence. This meta-analysis is an attempt to add to the literature by analyzing the relationships between emotional intelligence and selected employee outcomes over a period of time beginning in 1990. The three streams of emotional intelligence were separately analyzed to examine their relationship with employee outcomes. These outcomes were included in the study based on select research studies. Our study results showed that emotional intelligence and its three streams were positively related to organizational commitment, organizational citizenship behavior, job satisfaction, and job performance and negatively related to job stress.

Introduction

Since the 1990s, the study of emotional intelligence has gained importance in disciplines such as psychology (Salovey et al., 2009 ), management (Prentice et al., 2020 ), organizational behavior (Minbashian et al., 2018 ), leadership (Goleman et al., 2013 ), education (Titrek, 2009 ), and marketing (Kidwell et al., 2011 ). This is due to the increasing value of emotional intelligence in employees. It is argued that a business that effectively manages emotions within its organization results in better performance and higher rates of return than companies that ignore emotions (Parmar, 2016 ). Emotions can be effectively managed in an organization by understanding employees (Pick et al., 2015 ), cultivating empathy (Petrovici and Dobrescu, 2014 ), giving them a chance to understand each other and creating a unique organizational emotional climate (Härtel et al., 2008 ). All these abilities, in addition to the capacity of the employees to monitor their own and others' emotions, were defined as emotional intelligence by Salovey and Mayer ( 1990 ). They viewed emotional intelligence as a subgroup of social intelligence, and following their continued research, they revised it and propounded the four-branch model of emotional intelligence, which included perception and expression of emotion, assimilating emotion in thought, understanding and analyzing emotion, reflective regulation of emotion (Mayer and Salovey, 1997 ). In their studies, they projected emotional intelligence as an ability, and recent research has added weight to the ability and the integrative model approaches in this field (Mayer et al., 2008 ).

In this study, the primary goal is to update the prior meta-analyses on the relationships between emotional intelligence in organizations and employee outcomes. Scholars have already linked particular employee outcomes with emotional intelligence. These include performance (Gong et al., 2019 ), job satisfaction (Feyerabend et al., 2018 ), organizational commitment (Baba, 2017 ), burnout (Hong and Lee, 2016 ), stress (Sarrionandia et al., 2018 ), leadership (Mullen et al., 2019 ), motivation, organizational justice, and counterproductive work behavior (Tziner et al., 2020 ). In this research, we have attempted to articulate the consequences of emotional intelligence in organizations by conducting a meta-analysis. Various useful meta-analyses on emotional intelligence already exist. For example, Joseph and Newman ( 2010 ) conducted an integrative meta-analysis linking emotion perception, understanding, and regulation with performance. Harms and Credé ( 2010 ) found a positive correlation between emotional intelligence and transformational and transactional leadership. O'Boyle et al. ( 2011 ) added to the literature through their three-stream approach for emotional intelligence and the relationship between the approach with job performance. Miao et al. ( 2017a ) also used the three-stream approach to explore the connections between emotional intelligence and job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and turnover intentions. Building on previous theoretical and methodological contributions of various scholars, in this study, it was decided to explore the relationships between emotional intelligence and certain employee outcomes using a meta-analysis covering a period of 30 years. The employee outcomes that were selected for this analysis are organizational commitment, organizational citizenship behavior, job performance, job satisfaction, and job stress. These employee outcomes were selected for two reasons. First, according to the literature survey, they are the most correlated employee outcomes with emotional intelligence. Second, the three streams of emotional intelligence and the selected employee outcomes form part of future research suggestions in studies undertaken by Ashkanasy and Daus ( 2005 ), Joseph and Newman ( 2010 ), and Mattingly and Kraiger ( 2019 ).

This study also aims to add to the existing literature on emotional intelligence. First, this study includes a vast array of studies on emotional intelligence since the origin of this concept in 1990. Second, this study explores the relationship between emotional intelligence and a wide range of selected employee outcomes, namely, organizational commitment, organizational citizenship behavior, job performance, job satisfaction and job stress. These employee outcomes were carefully selected through a literature review. Third, this study adopts the three-stream classification of emotional intelligence as highlighted by Ashkanasy and Daus ( 2005 ). This study has the following structure – a detailed theoretical review followed by the hypothesis, the research methodology, the overall analysis, and finally, the results of the study. A comprehensive discussion on the results will be presented at the end of the study.

Theoretical Background and Hypothesis Development

Emotional intelligence.

Salovey and Mayer ( 1990 ) were the first to assess emotional intelligence (EI) as an ability of an individual to effectively manage their own and others' emotions. According to Van Rooy and Viswesvaran ( 2004 ), it included all verbal and non-verbal abilities to understand and evaluate emotions. Additionally, there are previous studies that debate whether emotional intelligence is a trait or an ability. Some scholars argue that EI is a competence (e.g., Salovey and Mayer, 1990 ; Austin, 2010 ), and some others refer to it as a trait (e.g., Bar-On, 1997 ; Petrides and Furnham, 2000 ; Petrides et al., 2007 ).

Based on the different approaches for emotional intelligence, different measures have been adopted to assess them. For instance, Harms and Credé ( 2010 ) and O'Boyle et al. ( 2011 ), in their studies, discussed the Bar-On Emotional Quotient Inventory (EQ-i) (1997) and the Emotional and Social Competency Inventory (Boyatzis et al., 2011 ) for measuring emotional intelligence as a trait. Mayer and Salovey ( 1997 ) developed and transformed EI into a four-branch model. In 2002, the Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT) was developed (Mayer et al., 2002 ) and, after a year, the 141-item scale MSCEIT V2.0 was developed (Mayer et al., 2003 ).

Throughout this study, the three-streams approach of emotional intelligence is used. According to Ashkanasy and Daus ( 2005 ), the first stream is ability-based, the second is self-report, and the third is mixed-model. The purpose of the study is to include as many studies as possible using the three different streams and to measure emotional intelligence.

Organizational Commitment

Organizational commitment as a concept has been very popular among organizational behavior scholars since the 1970s. It has been associated with many important employee attitudes and behaviors like employee turnover (Marsh and Mannari, 1977 ; Kang et al., 2015 ), job satisfaction (Bartol, 1979 ; Culibrk et al., 2018 ), absenteeism (Cohen and Golan, 2007 ), job performance (Supriyanto, 2013 ), role stress (Han et al., 2015 ), and knowledge sharing (Curado and Vieira, 2019 ).

Organizational commitment is indicative of the employee's recognition and acceptance of organizational circumstances (Steers, 1977 ). The essential characteristics of organizational commitment include approval of organizational rules, approval of objectives and values, and behaving in favor of the organization (Porter et al., 1974 ). Given the multidimensional structure of organizational commitment, Meyer and Allen ( 1991 ) classified the concept into affective, normative, and continuance commitment. Affective commitment is defined as the sentimental attachment employees have for their organization, and normative commitment is built on the moral obligation they feel to stay back in an organization. Continuance commitment is when the employee prefers to remain in the organization for fear of facing a negative outcome associated with leaving the organization (Allen and Meyer, 1990 ).

Employees with higher emotional intelligence are believed to direct their own emotions, and therefore, they might be more committed to their organizations. These kinds of employees are more resistant to emotional surges. For this reason, their intent to leave their organizations is lower when compared to employees with a lower level of emotional intelligence (Lee and Woo, 2015 ). Another reason is that emotionally intelligent employees are more successful in building strong social relationships in the workplace (Schutte et al., 2001 ). Managers, who are recognized as the agents of the organization, provide social support that increases the level of organizational commitment (Panaccio and Vandenberghe, 2009 ). As evidenced from the literature by Miao et al. ( 2017a ), and Baba ( 2017 ), there is a positive correlation between EI and organizational commitment, which is our first hypothesis.

Hypothesis 1 (H1): EI has a positive relationship with organizational commitment of employees .

Organizational Citizenship Behavior

Organizational citizenship behaviors (OCB) of employees are generally related to the social and psychological aspects within organizations (Organ, 1997 ). These behaviors mostly go beyond the formal job description in the workplace. Among these behaviors are accepting extra responsibilities and duties, working longer hours, accepting and obeying organizational rules and procedures, and helping colleagues when they need (Organ et al., 2006 ). These types of activities are usually not listed in the formal reward system of an organization (Organ and Lingl, 1995 ).

Organ ( 1988 ) classified organizational citizenship behavior into altruism, conscientiousness, sportsmanship, courtesy, and civic virtue and used each classification to define a particular behavior exerted by the employee in an organization. For example, it is altruism when employees tend to help colleagues when they need anything. Conscientiousness is related to obeying organizational rules like working hours, for instance. When employees employ constructive approaches to issues in the organization and refrain from complaining of any inconvenience, it is sportsmanship . It is courtesy when employees stop from abusing the rights of others in the organization. Lastly, civic virtue refers to activities that are undertaken to serve the interests of the organization, such as being a member of various committees.

Emotional intelligence is understood to reinforce the organizational citizenship behaviors of employees in an organization. This may be deducted from the results of studies that have found that employees who are good at managing their emotions are more eager to demonstrate positive behaviors in their organizations (e.g., Miao et al., 2017c ; Kim and Park, 2020 ). Additionally, employees with high emotional intelligence tend to volunteer helping others in the workplace. Previous studies demonstrate the positive link between EI and OCB (e.g., Turnipseed and Vandewaa, 2012 ; Pradhan et al., 2016 ; Miao et al., 2018 ), which is the second hypothesis.

Hypothesis 2 (H2): A positive relationship exists between EI and organizational citizenship behavior .

Job Satisfaction

Job satisfaction has emerged as a very popular behavioral outcome among scholars who have been trying to locate behavioral outcomes since the beginning of 1930s (e.g., Hoppock, 1935 ). Job satisfaction is an attitude that signals “a positive or negative evaluative judgment toward an employee's job.” (Weiss, 2002 ). Ever since the introduction of the concept of job satisfaction in this field, its various impacts on employees have been examined. Among them are job performance (Li et al., 2018 ), turnover intentions (Lu et al., 2016 ), job burnout (Zhang and Feng, 2011 ), organizational commitment (Valaei and Rezaei, 2016 ), and organizational citizenship behavior (Singh and Singh, 2019 ). According to these studies, there are positive links between job performance, organizational commitment and organizational citizenship behavior, and job satisfaction. On the contrary, job satisfaction has negative effects on turnover intentions and burnout since it is an important element that steers an individual's happiness and enthusiasm to perform in the workplace (Piccolo et al., 2005 ).

Emotional intelligence is a vital input for employees feeling job satisfaction. For example, Anari ( 2012 ), in his study on high-school teachers, established positive links between emotional intelligence and job satisfaction. Similarly, Brunetto et al. ( 2012 ) found that EI was the main indicator for predicting job satisfaction in a study among 193 police officers in Australia. Furthermore, in their meta-analysis, Miao et al. ( 2017b ) revealed that job satisfaction was positively affected by emotional intelligence regardless of gender, age, or tenure, which is the basis of our third hypothesis.

Hypothesis 3 (H3): EI has a positive link with job satisfaction .

Job Performance

Job performance, in general, can be defined as the employee's activities and behaviors that directly or indirectly contribute to the organizational goals (Borman and Motowidlo, 1993 ). From this perspective, the level of job performance is a valuable indicator for many human resource management decisions (e.g., training and development, compensation, and promotion).

Most studies categorize job performance as a task or a contextual performance (e.g., Borman and Motowidlo, 1997 ; Van Scotter, 2000 ). Task performance includes the degree to which employees meet the standards of core and technical tasks and duties. Alternatively, contextual performance measures the degree of employees' behaviors that promote the social and psychological environment in the organization, such as helping others, taking extra responsibilities in the workplace, and obeying organizational rules and procedures (Motowidlo and Van Scotter, 1994 ). There are many studies that substantively establish that emotional intelligence is a meaningful precursor for performance. For example, Farh et al. ( 2012 ) found in their study on 212 professionals from different organizations that overall emotional intelligence led to more effective teamwork and higher job performance. Similarly, Li et al. ( 2018 ) found a positive correlation between trait emotional intelligence and performance among 881 teachers and 37 principals from primary schools in China. Also, O'Boyle et al. ( 2011 ) found positive correlations between all the three streams of emotional intelligence and job performance in their meta-analysis, which is our fourth hypothesis.

Hypothesis 4 (H4): EI is positively related to job performance .

Job stress is a deviation from the ordinary psychological state of an employee due to job-related factors (Schuler, 1980 ). Job stress is mostly associated with poor job performance (Siu, 2003 ), low motivation (Luo, 1999 ), low job satisfaction (Parker and DeCotiis, 1983 ), high emotional exhaustion (Griffin et al., 2010 ), and high turnover intentions (Mullen et al., 2018 ). In general, building strong social relationships, having role clarity, providing organizational support, and encouraging knowledge sharing help employees decrease their stress levels.

In addition to environmental and organizational factors, the employees' personality, perceptions, and emotions are significant factors contributing to job stress among them (Spector and Goh, 2001 ; Sur and Ng, 2014 ). It is evident that employees who are good at managing their emotions experience lower job stress (Mann, 2004 ). However, it is important to note the link between emotional intelligence and job stress. Lee ( 2010 ) found a negative relationship between emotional intelligence and job stress among 152 nurses from 4 hospitals in Korea. Similarly, Shukla and Srivastava ( 2016 ) found a negative relationship between trait emotional intelligence and job stress among 564 retail employees, which is our fifth hypothesis.

Hypothesis 5 (H5): EI is negatively related to job stress .

Meta-Analytical Research Methodology

Literature review.

Since the aim of this study was to include all the relevant research so far, 1990 was chosen as the beginning year, given that it was in 1990 that Salovey and Mayer conceptualized EI. The time period for this analysis was from 1990 to 2019. However, to expand the scope of this study, studies that were published in the early months of the 2020 were also included. To increase the likelihood of identifying relevant studies, both published and unpublished research works in English were included in the analysis. Keywords such as emotional intelligence, emotional ability, emotional competency, emotional stability, organizational commitment, organizational citizenship behavior, job satisfaction, job performance, job stress, and occupational stress were used in this analysis.

To expand the scope of this study, several research techniques were adopted which were similar to those adopted in previous meta-analytic studies that were part of the literature review. First, the main electronic databases such as ABI/INFORM Global, APA PsycInfo, EBSCOhost, Google Scholar, JSTOR, ProQuest, ProQuest Dissertation and Theses, ScienceDirect, and Web of Science were scanned. Second, a further scanning was carried out by searching the archives of leading journals such as the Academy of Management Annals, the Academy of Management Journal, the Academy of Management Review, Administrative Science Quarterly, the Journal of Applied Psychology, the Journal of Management, the Journal of Organizational Behavior, the Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, Leadership Quarterly, Personnel Psychology, and Personality and Individual Differences. Third, proceedings of leading conferences on Management and Psychology were also scanned (e.g., Annual Meeting of Academy of Management, European Academy of Management Conference, and the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology Annual Conference). This broad scanning resulted in identifying 287 articles and 118 unpublished dissertations and conference papers for examining the links between EI and organizational commitment, organizational citizenship behavior, job satisfaction, job performance and job stress. For the articles to be useful for this analysis, some inclusion criteria were determined.

Inclusion Criteria

In order to be included in this meta-analysis, the identified studies needed to meet some rules and standards. The first criterion for any study to be included in this analysis was that it should be a quantitative empirical study providing at least correlation coefficients in its variables. The second criterion was that it should have been published between 1990 and 2020 (the first 2 months). The third criterion was that English should be the article's language. The fourth criterion was related to the sample – only studies that used unique samples when studying more than one sample were included in the analysis. This inclusion criterion was developed to prevent duplication in samples. Drawing on the recommendations from Ashkanasy and Daus ( 2005 ) and meta-analysis by O'Boyle et al. ( 2011 ), emotional intelligence was coded based on three streams (ability EI, self-report EI, and mixed EI). After screening the identified articles using the inclusion criteria, the final total sample for this meta-analysis consisted of 253 effect sizes representing data from 78,159 participants.

Visualization of the Inclusion and Exclusion Process

After carefully screening the existing literature on emotional intelligence and its possible outcomes in the workplace and checking the identified studies against the inclusion criteria, some studies were excluded from the analysis. In order to demonstrate the screening and the selection processes, a widely used visualization technique in meta-analyses, PRISMA Flow Diagram for new Systematic Reviews (Page et al., 2021 ), was employed throughout this meta-analysis and it is shown in Figure 1 .

PRISMA flow diagram for new systematic reviews. Source: Page et al. ( 2021 ).

Descriptive Statistics for the Sample

To understand the profile of the participants in the studies and to provide more information about the sample, some of the descriptive statistics were categorized on the basis of participants' gender, age, and job positions (managerial or non-managerial) as well as the publication details (year and country) of the studies. The descriptive statistics are presented in Table 1 .

Descriptive statistics of the samples included in the analysis.

For this study, the psychometric meta-analysis method was used. The strength of this method is that it provides a basis for estimating the variance of sampling error and gives an opportunity to estimate reliability for studies in which no reliability had been reported (Hunter and Schmidt, 2004 ). This method has been used in previous meta-analyses (e.g., Harms and Credé, 2010 ; O'Boyle et al., 2011 ). One of the reasons for choosing this technique is that it helps to forecast the variance associated with sampling error and artifacts. To generate artifact distributions, reliability estimates were employed to fill the gaps stemming from the absence of reliability data in some of the studies. Hunter and Schmidt ( 1990 ) suggested that the distributions of correlations were corrected in this study. Further, r obs and SD obs were corrected to help understand the artefactual biases and moderators, as done previously by Harms and Credé ( 2010 ). Using the technique proposed by Hunter and Schmidt ( 1990 ) and successfully applied by their successors (Ones et al., 1993 ), several sets of artifact distributions along with their descriptive details are presented in Table 2 . Next, to indicate the significance of effect sizes, the confidence interval was chosen as 95% (corrected). Finally, within this scope, the sample sizes and uncorrected coefficients were converted into corrected correlation coefficients.

Descriptive statistics of artifact distributions for correcting validities.

SD, standard deviation .

As seen in Table 2 , the overall mean of the predictor reliability for artifact distribution is 0.83 and the standard deviation value is 0.09. The mean of the square roots of predictor reliabilities is 0.91 and the standard deviation of the square roots is 0.05. The overall mean of the criterion reliabilities is 0.87 with a standard deviation value of 0.13. The mean of the square roots of criterion reliabilities is 0.93 and the standard deviation of the square roots of reliability is 0.07. Finally, the mean value of the range restriction value is 0.80 with a standard deviation value of 0.15.

After conducting the psychometric meta-analysis (Hunter and Schmidt, 2004 ), the results obtained from the analysis were listed separately. Beginning with the relationship between EI and organizational commitment, the results are presented in Table 3 .

Meta-analytic results of the relationship between EI and organizational commitment.

EI, emotional intelligence; k, number of independent samples; n, sample size; r ¯ , uncorrected sample size weighted mean correlation; ρ, corrected correlation; SD ρ , standard deviation of corrected correlation; CI, confidence interval .

As evident from Table 3 , according to 37 independent overall EI samples, EI is positively and significantly correlated with organizational commitment (ρ = 0.26, p < 0.001). Therefore, according to the result, H 1 is supported. Additionally, all three streams of EI are also positively correlated with organizational commitment. Although there is a slight difference in magnitude, the most powerful positive relationship exists between self-report emotional intelligence and organizational commitment (ρ = 0.28, p < 0.001). The weakest relationship is between ability emotional intelligence and organizational commitment (ρ = 0.22, p < 0.001). The results of the relation between EI and organizational citizenship behavior are presented in Table 4 .

Meta-analytic results of the relationship between EI and OCB.

EI, emotional intelligence; OCB, organizational citizenship behavior; k, number of independent samples; n, sample size; r ¯ , uncorrected sample size weighted mean correlation; ρ, corrected correlation; SD ρ , standard deviation of corrected correlation; CI, confidence interval .

Based on the results obtained from 43 samples, it is evident that emotional intelligence has a positive relationship with organizational citizenship behavior (ρ = 0.36, p < 0.001). For this reason, H 2 is supported. As with organizational commitment, self-report emotional intelligence has a strong positive relationship with organizational citizenship behavior (ρ = 0.37, p < 0.001). Also, as found in previous studies, the important relationship between emotional intelligence and job satisfaction was reaffirmed. Table 5 provides the correlations and additional statistical results.

Meta-analytic results of the relationship between EI and job satisfaction.

According to 74 independent samples, emotional intelligence is positively related to job satisfaction (ρ = 0.29, p < 0.001). This indicates that H 3 is also supported. The three streams of EI are also positively correlated with job satisfaction. This reaffirms another important relationship between emotional intelligence and job performance that this analysis sought to verify. The results are presented in Table 6 .

Meta-analytic results of the relationship between EI and job performance.

As seen in Table 6 , for measuring overall EI, 68 samples were used. Again, both overall emotional intelligence (ρ = 0.29, p < 0.001) and the three streams of EI were positively related to job performance. Therefore, H 4 is also supported. Finally, the relationship between emotional intelligence and job stress is presented in Table 7 .

Meta-analytic results of the relationship between EI and job stress.

It is evident in Table 7 that based on the results obtained from 31 samples, a negative relationship exists between emotional intelligence and job stress (ρ = −0.43, p < 0.001). This significant and negative relationship is marginally stronger than the other relationships in this study. Therefore, H 5 is also supported. Yet again, all three types of EI were significantly related to job stress. It can be inferred that emotional intelligence is an important source for overcoming job stress in the workplace.

Effects of Possible Moderators

The results obtained from the analysis of this meta-analysis suggested conducting a moderator analysis. To understand the effects of the substantive moderators, the moderating effects of different emotional intelligence types, managerial and non-managerial positions and publication types were analyzed by conducting separate meta-analyses.

Effects of Types of Emotional Intelligence

As previously stated, the potential moderating effects of ability emotional intelligence, self-report emotional intelligence, and mixed emotional intelligence were further studied by conducting separate meta-analyses. The separate results are indicated in Tables 3 – 7 . According to the results, Ability EI, Self-report EI , and Mixed EI have similar positive and statistically meaningful effects on organizational commitment, organizational citizenship behavior, job satisfaction, and job performance but have negative effects on job stress (i.e., ρ AbilityEI = 0.22; ρ Self−report EI = 0.28; ρ Mixed EI = 0.27 for organizational commitment; ρ AbilityEI = 0.29; ρ Self−report EI = 0.37; ρ Mixed EI = 0.35 for organizational citizenship behavior; ρ AbilityEI = 0.24; ρ Self−report EI = 0.31; ρ Mixed EI = 0.30 for job satisfaction; ρ AbilityEI = 0.28; ρ Self−report EI = 0.33; ρ Mixed EI = 0.31 for job performance; and ρ AbilityEI = −0.42; ρ Self−report EI = −0.45; ρ Mixed EI = −0.37 for job stress).

Effects of Managerial/Non-Managerial Positions

Few of the studies included in this meta-analysis had further categorized the employees as holding either managerial or non-managerial positions in their organizations. Employees such as branch managers, coaches, supervisors, and chief officers were categorized under managerial staff, while frontline employees and subordinates were categorized under non-managerial staff. To examine the moderating effects of managerial and non-managerial positions on employee outcomes, separate meta-analyses were conducted. According to the results of the meta-analyses, a higher correlation exists between emotional intelligence and organizational commitment when employees held managerial positions (ρ managerial : 0.32 > ρ non −managerial : 0.24), as shown in Table 3 . On the other hand, as indicated in Table 4 , the correlation between emotional intelligence and organizational citizenship behavior was lower among managers (ρ managerial : 0.27 < ρ non −managerial : 0.38). Table 5 shows the lower levels of correlation between emotional intelligence and job satisfaction among managers (ρ managerial : 0.21 < ρ non −managerial : 0.33). The same is applicable for the managers' relationship between emotional intelligence and job performance, as evident in Table 6 (ρ managerial : 0.33 < ρ non −managerial : 0.40). Finally, in Table 7 , the negative correlation between emotional intelligence and job stress is established; however, it is stronger among employees in non-managerial positions (ρ managerial : −0.30 < ρ non −managerial : −0.47).

Effects of Publication Type

To examine the moderating effects of publication types included in this meta-analysis, both published and unpublished studies were included in separate analyses. This was done to overcome the “file drawer problem” (Harms and Credé, 2010 ), given that most of the results in this analysis were derived from published studies. According to the results, the correlations between the variables differ based on whether a study is published or unpublished. For example, in Tables 3 – 7 , the corrected correlation between emotional intelligence and organizational commitment in published studies is higher than the one in unpublished studies (ρ published : 0.31 > ρ unpublished : 0.21). Similarly, between emotional intelligence and job satisfaction (ρ published : 0.35 > ρ unpublished : 0.24) and between emotional intelligence and job stress (ρ published : −0.48 > ρ unpublished : −0.38), the same correlation exists. However, the corrected correlation between emotional intelligence and organizational citizenship behavior in published studies is lower than the one in unpublished studies (ρ published : 0.32 < ρ unpublished : 0.40). Similarly, the correlation between emotional intelligence and job performance is lower in published studies (ρ published : 0.25 < ρ unpublished : 0.34).

Findings and Theoretical Contributions

With the help of this analysis, the relationships between EI and selected employee outcomes in organizations are presented herewith. According to the results obtained in this study, emotional intelligence and its three streams are positively related to organizational commitment, organizational citizenship behavior, job satisfaction, and job performance; however, they are negatively related to job stress. If the relationship between the different streams of EI and organizational commitment is analyzed, it is noticed that self-report EI is slightly stronger than mixed EI and ability EI (ρ Self−report EI: 0.28 > ρ Mixed EI : 0.27 >ρ Ability EI : 0.22). Similarly, the relationship between the different streams of EI and organizational citizenship behavior shows that self-report EI is slightly stronger than ability EI and mixed EI (ρ Self−report EI: 0.37 > ρ Mixed EI : 0.35 >ρ Ability EI : 0.29). Additionally, self-report EI is slightly stronger than ability EI and mixed EI when there exists a relationship between the different streams of EI and job satisfaction (ρ Self−report EI: 0.31 > ρ Mixed EI : 0.30 >ρ Ability EI : 0.24). In the relationship between EI streams and job performance, self-report EI is still stronger than mixed EI, and ability EI is the weakest (ρ Self−report EI: 0.33 > ρ Mixed EI : 0.31 >ρ Ability EI : 0.28). However, when samples of job stress is analyzed, although self-report EI has the strongest negative correlation, ability EI emerges second (ρ Self−report EI: −0.45 > ρ Ability EI : −0.42 > ρ Mixed EI : −0.37). These results can be used to explain the ranking within the three streams of emotional intelligence. In general, except for the relationships between the EI streams and job stress, it is evident that self-report EI is the most influential among all three EI streams. Although it is useful to note that the differences in their magnitudes are quite slim, in the relationships between the EI streams and job stress alone, ability EI ranked second while mixed EI ranked third.

When the results of this meta-analysis are compared with the previous meta-analyses, it is evident that the findings of the relationships between EI and organizational commitment are consistent with surveyed literature. Miao et al. ( 2017a ) also found a positive correlation between self-report EI and organizational commitment, which is slightly stronger (ρ = 0.43) than the result obtained in this study (ρ = 0.28). Their result on mixed emotional intelligence is also higher (ρ = 0.43) than the one in this study (ρ = 0.27). Previous meta-analyses also found a positive correlation between EI and organizational citizenship behavior. For example, Miao et al. ( 2017c ) obtained positive correlations between the three streams and organizational citizenship behavior. The corrected correlation coefficients in this analysis are marginally lower than their results. There are also similarities between this research and the analysis of Miao et al. ( 2017a ) on the link between emotional intelligence and job satisfaction. Furthermore, the results obtained from this meta-analysis indicate a positive link between EI and job performance; these results are consistent with the previous meta-analysis of O'Boyle et al. ( 2011 ). The last relationship examined in this meta-analysis was between EI and job stress. The negative relationship between them was already identified in the studies that were included in this study. Since there was no meta-analysis in the literature that examined this relationship, the results of this study were consistent with the results of separate studies (e.g., Mikolajczak et al., 2007 ; Karimi et al., 2014 ).

Finally, it is important to flag the effects of managerial and non-managerial positions of the employees on the relationships between emotional intelligence and employee outcomes. As reported in the results shared above, it is evident that, when employees hold managerial positions, their emotional intelligence positively influences their level of organizational commitment and a stronger correlation is obtained (ρ managerial : 0.32 > ρ non −managerial : 0.24). However, correlations between emotional intelligence and organizational citizenship behavior (ρ managerial : 0.27 < ρ non −managerial : 0.38), job satisfaction (ρ managerial : 0.21 < ρ non −managerial : 0.33), job performance (ρ managerial : 0.33 < ρ non −managerial : 0.40), and job stress (ρ managerial : −0.30 < ρ non −managerial : −0.47) was weaker in those employees holding managerial positions. From this perspective, although there are positive relationships between emotional intelligence and organizational citizenship behavior, job satisfaction, and job performance, it is evident that those employees who hold non-managerial positions exhibit stronger positive correlations to these outcomes. A similar trend is observed in the negative relationship between emotional intelligence and job stress among non-managers in the workplace.

In this study, an attempt was made to add to the existing literature on emotional intelligence by determining the nature of relationships between emotional intelligence and selected employee outcomes such as organizational commitment, organizational citizenship behavior, job satisfaction, job performance, and job stress. These relationships were distinguished by ability EI, self-report EI, and mixed EI. This helped us to see the consequences of emotional intelligence on employees in a more detailed way. Lastly, the categorization of managerial and non-managerial roles in the samples provided valuable insights into the relationships between emotional intelligence and employee outcomes.

Limitations and Future Research Suggestions

One of the limitations was the methodology used in the studies. Some studies used self-reports for organizational citizenship behavior and job performance. Though these studies were few, their inclusion in this analysis is a limitation for more accurate results. Another limitation is the inclusion of unpublished studies such as dissertations in the analysis. Yet again, though there were few dissertations compared to other published resources, it is important enough to be flagged as a limitation for this analysis. The third limitation was that only English sources were included in the analysis. Finally, moderators and contextual factors were not included to retain the focus on the aim of the research.

The limitations listed in this meta-analysis provide a basis for future research in this area. Researchers should also consider including more moderators and contextual factors while assessing the outcomes of emotional intelligence in their future studies. Future research should also examine the effects of emotional intelligence on other factors like leadership, occupational stress, role stress, innovative behavior and social relations. Another potential variable that has been largely underemphasized is the correlation between emotional intelligence and digital transformation in the workplace (e.g., Kaur and Sharma, 2021 ). Thus, researchers should investigate the role of emotional intelligence on the future of work and employees' perceptions of digitalization in the workplace (e.g., Stubbemann, 2021 ).

Practical Implications

Emotional intelligence gains importance day by day for human resource managers and line managers. In general, human resource managers are more eager to select and place candidates with higher emotional intelligence (Chia, 2005 ). Similarly, line managers are satisfied with the performance of employees with higher emotional intelligence (Gong et al., 2019 ). This is because these employees can manage their own emotions as well as their colleagues' emotions. With the help of emotional intelligence, employees' satisfaction from job (Soleimani and Einolahzadeh, 2017 ), organizational commitment (Jain and Duggal, 2018 ), and job performance (Joseph et al., 2015 ) is set to increase. For these reasons, human resource departments should plan strategies for increasing the emotional intelligence of their employees. They could design training and development programs to increase ability EI, self-report EI, and mixed EI. Human resources managers could also set rules and standards for rewarding employees with favorable behaviors in the workplace. In addition, line managers could demonstrate effective leadership by promoting employee outcomes based on emotional intelligence.

This meta-analysis was an attempt to explore the consequences of emotional intelligence on employee outcomes with the help of previous studies within a time frame of the last 30 years. From this perspective, this study has tried to add an important brick on the wall of emotional intelligence literature. Consistent with the previous meta-analyses, the three-stream approach for emotional intelligence was adopted for this study as well. After carefully examining the studies, it has been observed that all streams of EI are positively related to organizational commitment, organizational citizenship behavior, and job satisfaction whereas they are negatively related to job stress. According to the results of this meta-analysis, the magnitudes of the correlations were higher in self-report emotional intelligence compared to ability emotional intelligence; however, the differences were not very large.

From this comprehensive meta-analysis, it can be inferred that employees who are good at managing their own emotions and their colleagues' emotions are more committed to their organizations and are more eager to show organizational citizenship behavior, evince job satisfaction, and evince better job performance, and their level of job stress tends to decrease. Since these are all favorable employee outcomes, managers should design development programs for increasing the capacity of emotional intelligence among employees in the organization. In addition to other job-specific competencies, they should select and place employees with high emotional intelligence.

By including all three streams of emotional intelligence to examine their links with employee outcomes, this holistic meta-analysis is a first step for future studies exploring important relationships and developing research models on emotional intelligence. Although there are comprehensive studies in the literature, more studies are still needed for the future.

Data Availability Statement

Author contributions.

The author confirms being the sole contributor of this work and has approved it for publication.

Conflict of Interest

The author declares that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Publisher's Note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

• Allen N. J., Meyer J. P. (1990). Organizational socialization tactics: a longitudinal analysis of links to newcomers' commitment and role orientation . Acad. Manag. J. 33 , 847–858. 10.5465/256294 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Anari N. N. (2012). Teachers: emotional intelligence, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment . J. Workplace Learn . 24 , 256–269. 10.1108/13665621211223379 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Ashkanasy N. M., Daus C. S. (2005). Rumors of the death of emotional intelligence in organizational behavior are vastly exaggerated . J. Organ. Behav. 26 , 441–452. 10.1002/job.320 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Austin E. J. (2010). Measurement of ability emotional intelligence: results for two new tests . Br. J. Psychol. 101 , 563–578. 10.1348/000712609X474370 [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Baba M. M. (2017). Emotional intelligence, organizational commitment, and job satisfaction: a study of higher learning institutions . Amity Glob. Business Rev. 12 , 51–60. Available online at: https://web.p.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=0&sid=9bbc8944-e110-41dc-8b99-e807bbd23963%40redis (accessed June 28, 2020). [ Google Scholar ]
• Bar-On R. (1997). The Bar-On Emotional Quotient Inventory: A Test of Emotional Intelligence . Toronto, ON: Multi-Health Systems. [ Google Scholar ]
• Bartol K. M. (1979). Individual versus organizational predictors of job satisfaction and turnover among professionals . J. Vocat. Behav. 15 , 55–67. 10.1016/0001-8791(79)90018-6 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Borman W. C., Motowidlo S. J. (1997). Task performance and contextual performance: the meaning for personnel selection research . Hum. Perform. 10 , 99–109. 10.1207/s15327043hup1002_3 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Borman W. C., Motowidlo S. M. (1993). “Expanding the criterion domain to include elements of contextual performance,” in Personnel Selection in Organizations , eds Schmitt N., Borman W. C. (San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass; ), p. 71–98. [ Google Scholar ]
• Boyatzis R., Brizz T., Godwin L. (2011). The effect of religious leaders' emotional and social competencies on improving parish vibrancy . J. Leadership Organiz. Stud. 18 , 192–206. 10.1177/1548051810369676 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Brunetto Y., Teo S. T., Shacklock K., Farr-Wharton R. (2012). Emotional intelligence, job satisfaction, well-being and engagement: explaining organisational commitment and turnover intentions in policing . Hum. Resour. Manag. J. 22 , 428–441. 10.1111/j.1748-8583.2012.00198.x [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Chia Y. M. (2005). Job offers of multi-national accounting firms: the effects of emotional intelligence, extra-curricular activities, and academic performance . Account. Educ. 14 , 75–93. 10.1080/0693928042000229707 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Cohen A., Golan R. (2007). Predicting absenteeism and turnover intentions by past absenteeism and work attitudes . Career Dev. Int . 12 , 416–432. 10.1108/13620430710773745 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Culibrk J., Delić M., Mitrović S., Culibrk D. (2018). Job satisfaction, organizational commitment and job involvement: the mediating role of job involvement . Front. Psychol. 9 , 132. 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00132 [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Curado C., Vieira S. (2019). Trust, knowledge sharing and organizational commitment in SMEs . Pers. Rev . 48 , 1449–1468. 10.1108/PR-03-2018-0094 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Farh C. I., Seo M. G., Tesluk P. E. (2012). Emotional intelligence, teamwork effectiveness, and job performance: the moderating role of job context . J. Appl. Psychol. 97 , 890–900. 10.1037/a0027377 [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Feyerabend R., Herd A. M., Choi N. (2018). Job satisfaction and turnover intentions among Indian call center agents: exploring the role of emotional intelligence . Psychol. Manager J. 21 , 106–129. 10.1037/mgr0000071 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Goleman D., Boyatzis R. E., McKee A. (2013). Primal Leadership: Unleashing the Power of Emotional Intelligence . Cambridge, MA: Harvard Business Press. [ Google Scholar ]
• Gong Z., Chen Y., Wang Y. (2019). The influence of emotional intelligence on job burnout and job performance: mediating effect of psychological capital . Front. Psychol. 10 , 2707. 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02707 [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Griffin M. L., Hogan N. L., Lambert E. G., Tucker-Gail K. A., Baker D. N. (2010). Job involvement, job stress, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment and the burnout of correctional staff . Crim. Justice Behav. 37 , 239–255. 10.1177/0093854809351682 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Han S. S., Han J. W., An Y. S., Lim S. H. (2015). Effects of role stress on nurses' turnover intentions: the mediating effects of organizational commitment and burnout . Jpn. J. Nurs. Sci. 12 , 287–296. 10.1111/jjns.12067 [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Harms P. D., Credé M. (2010). Emotional intelligence and transformational and transactional leadership: a meta-analysis . J. Leadership Organiz. Stud. 17 , 5–17. 10.1177/1548051809350894 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Härtel C. E., Gough H., Härtel G. F. (2008). Work-group emotional climate, emotion management skills, and service attitudes and performance . Asia Pac. J. Hum. Resour. 46 , 21–37. 10.1177/1038411107086541 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Hong E., Lee Y. S. (2016). The mediating effect of emotional intelligence between emotional labour, job stress, burnout and nurses' turnover intention . Int. J. Nurs. Pract. 22 , 625–632. 10.1111/ijn.12493 [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Hoppock R. (1935). Job Satisfaction . New York, NY; London: Harper and Brothers. [ Google Scholar ]
• Hunter J. E., Schmidt F. L. (1990). Dichotomization of continuous variables: The implications for meta-analysis . J. Appl. Psychol . 75 , 334–349. [ Google Scholar ]
• Hunter J. E., Schmidt F. L. (2004). Methods of Meta-Analysis: Correcting Error and Bias in Research Findings . Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. 10.4135/9781412985031 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Jain P., Duggal T. (2018). Transformational leadership, organizational commitment, emotional intelligence and job autonomy: empirical analysis on the moderating and mediating variables . Manag. Res. Rev . 41 , 1033–1046. 10.1108/MRR-01-2018-0029 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Joseph D. L., Jin J., Newman D. A., O'Boyle E. H. (2015). Why does self-reported emotional intelligence predict job performance? A meta-analytic investigation of mixed EI . J. Appl. Psychol. 100 , 298–342. 10.1037/a0037681 [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Joseph D. L., Newman D. A. (2010). Emotional intelligence: an integrative meta-analysis and cascading model . J. Appl. Psychol. 95 , 54–78. 10.1037/a0017286 [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Kang H. J., Gatling A., Kim J. (2015). The impact of supervisory support on organizational commitment, career satisfaction, and turnover intention for hospitality frontline employees . J. Hum. Resour. Hosp. Tourism 14 , 68–89. 10.1080/15332845.2014.904176 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Karimi L., Leggat S. G., Donohue L., Farrell G., Couper G. E. (2014). Emotional rescue: the role of emotional intelligence and emotional labour on well-being and job-stress among community nurses . J. Adv. Nurs. 70 , 176–186. 10.1111/jan.12185 [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Kaur S., Sharma R. (2021). “Emotion AI: integrating emotional intelligence with artificial intelligence in the digital workplace,” in Innovations in Information and Communication Technologies (IICT-2020) (Cham: Springer; ), 337–343. 10.1007/978-3-030-66218-9_39 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Kidwell B., Hardesty D. M., Murtha B. R., Sheng S. (2011). Emotional intelligence in marketing exchanges . J. Mark. 75 , 78–95. 10.1509/jmkg.75.1.78 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Kim D., Park J. (2020). The way to improve organizational citizenship behavior for the employees who lack emotional intelligence . Curr. Psychol. 1–15. 10.1007/s12144-020-01104-5 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Lee S. (2010). Emotional intelligence and job stress of clinical nurses in local public hospitals . J. Korean Acad. Nurs. Administr. 16 , 466–474. 10.11111/jkana.2010.16.4.466 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Lee S. J., Woo H. J. (2015). Structural relationships among job embeddedness, emotional intelligence, social support and turnover intention of nurses . J. Korean Acad. Nurs. Administr. 21 , 32–42. 10.11111/jkana.2015.21.1.32 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Li M., Pérez-Díaz P. A., Mao Y., Petrides K. V. (2018). A multilevel model of teachers' job performance: understanding the effects of trait emotional intelligence, job satisfaction, and organizational trust . Front. Psychol. 9 , 2420. 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02420 [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Lu L., Lu A. C. C., Gursoy D., Neale N. R. (2016). Work engagement, job satisfaction, and turnover intentions . Int. J. Contemp. Hosp. Manag . 28 , 737–791. 10.1108/IJCHM-07-2014-0360 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Luo L. (1999). Work motivation, job stress and employees' well-being . J. Appl. Manag. Stud. 8 , 61–72. [ Google Scholar ]
• Mann S. (2004). ‘People-work': emotion management, stress and coping . Br. J. Guid. Counsell. 32 , 205–221. 10.1080/0369880410001692247 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Marsh R. M., Mannari H. (1977). Organizational commitment and turnover: a prediction study . Administr. Sci. Quart. 22 , 57–75. 10.2307/2391746 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Mattingly V., Kraiger K. (2019). Can emotional intelligence be trained? A meta-analytical investigation . Hum. Resour. Manag. Rev. 29 , 140–155. 10.1016/j.hrmr.2018.03.002 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Mayer J. D., Roberts R. D., Barsade S. G. (2008). Human abilities: emotional intelligence . Ann. Rev. Psychol. 59 , 507–536. 10.1146/annurev.psych.59.103006.093646 [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Mayer J. D., Salovey P. (1997). “What is emotional intelligence?” in Emotional Development and Emotional Intelligence , ed Salovey P. (New York, NY: Basic Books; ), 3–31. [ Google Scholar ]
• Mayer J. D., Salovey P., Caruso D. (2002). Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT): User's Manual . Toronto, ON: Multi-Health Systems. [ Google Scholar ]
• Mayer J. D., Salovey P., Caruso D. R., Sitarenios G. (2003). Measuring emotional intelligence with the MSCEIT V2. 0 . Emotion 3 , 97–105. 10.1037/1528-3542.3.1.97 [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Meyer J. P., Allen N. J. (1991). A three-component conceptualization of organizational commitment . Hum. Resour. Manage. Rev . 1 , 61–89. [ Google Scholar ]
• Miao C., Humphrey R. H., Qian S. (2017a). A meta-analysis of emotional intelligence and work attitudes . J. Occup. Organiz. Psychol. 90 , 177–202. 10.1111/joop.12167 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Miao C., Humphrey R. H., Qian S. (2017b). A meta-analysis of emotional intelligence effects on job satisfaction mediated by job resources, and a test of moderators . Pers. Individ. Diff. 116 , 281–288. 10.1016/j.paid.2017.04.031 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Miao C., Humphrey R. H., Qian S. (2017c). Are the emotionally intelligent good citizens or counterproductive? A meta-analysis of emotional intelligence and its relationships with organizational citizenship behavior and counterproductive work behavior . Pers. Individ. Diff. 116 , 144–156. 10.1016/j.paid.2017.04.015 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Miao C., Humphrey R. H., Qian S. (2018). A cross-cultural meta-analysis of how leader emotional intelligence influences subordinate task performance and organizational citizenship behavior . J. World Business 53 , 463–474. 10.1016/j.jwb.2018.01.003 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Mikolajczak M., Menil C., Luminet O. (2007). Explaining the protective effect of trait emotional intelligence regarding occupational stress: exploration of emotional labour processes . J. Res. Pers. 41 , 1107–1117. 10.1016/j.jrp.2007.01.003 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Minbashian A., Beckmann N., Wood R. E. (2018). Emotional intelligence and individual differences in affective processes underlying task-contingent conscientiousness . J. Organiz. Behav. 39 , 1182–1196. 10.1002/job.2233 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Motowidlo S. J., Van Scotter J. R. (1994). Evidence that task performance should be distinguished from contextual performance . J. Appl. Psychol. 79 , 475–480. 10.1037/0021-9010.79.4.475 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Mullen P. R., Limberg D., Tuazon V., Romagnolo S. M. (2019). Emotional intelligence and leadership attributes of school counselor trainees . Couns. Educ. Superv. 58 , 112–126. 10.1002/ceas.12135 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Mullen P. R., Malone A., Denney A., Santa Dietz S. (2018). Job stress, burnout, job satisfaction, and turnover intention among student affairs professionals . Coll. Student Affairs J. 36 , 94–108. 10.1353/csj.2018.0006 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• O'Boyle E. H., Jr., Humphrey R. H., Pollack J. M., Hawver T. H., Story P. A. (2011). The relation between emotional intelligence and job performance: a meta-analysis . J. Organiz. Behav. 32 , 788–818. 10.1002/job.714 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Ones D. S., Viswesvaran C., Schmidt F. L. (1993). Comprehensive meta-analysis of integrity test validities: findings and implications for personnel selection and theories of job performance . J. Appl. Psychol. 78 , 679–703. 10.1037/0021-9010.78.4.679 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Organ D. W. (1988). Organizational citizenship behavior: The good soldier syndrome . Lexington books/DC Heath and com. [ Google Scholar ]
• Organ D. W. (1997). Organizational citizenship behavior: it's construct clean-up time . Hum. Perform. 10 , 85–97. 10.1207/s15327043hup1002_2 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Organ D. W., Lingl A. (1995). Personality, satisfaction, and organizational citizenship behavior . J. Soc. Psychol. 135 , 339–350. 10.1080/00224545.1995.9713963 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Organ P., Podsakoff P. M., MacKenzie S. B. (2006). Organizational Citizenship Behavior: Its Natüre, Antecedents, and consequences. Thousand Oaks, CA:Sage. [ Google Scholar ]
• Page M. J., McKenzie J. E., Bossuyt P. M., Boutron I., Hoffmann T. C., Mulrow C. D., et al.. (2021). The PRISMA 2020 statement: an updated guideline for reporting systematic reviews . BMJ 372 , n71. 10.1136/bmj.n71 [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Panaccio A., Vandenberghe C. (2009). Perceived organizational support, organizational commitment and psychological well-being: a longitudinal study . J. Vocat. Behav. 75 , 224–236. 10.1016/j.jvb.2009.06.002 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Parker D. F., DeCotiis T. A. (1983). Organizational determinants of job stress . Organiz. Behav. Hum. Perform. 32 , 160–177. 10.1016/0030-5073(83)90145-9 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Parmar B. (2016). The most empathetic companies 2016, Harvard Business Review, December 2016 . Available online at: https://hbr.org/2016/12/the-most-and-least-empathetic-companies-2016 (accessed February 28, 2020).
• Petrides K. V., Furnham A. (2000). On the dimensional structure of emotional intelligence . Pers. Indiv. Diff. 29 , 313–320. 10.1016/S0191-8869(99)00195-6 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Petrides K. V., Pita R., Kokkinaki F. (2007). The location of trait emotional intelligence in personality factor space . Br. J. Psychol. 98 , 273–289. 10.1348/000712606X120618 [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Petrovici A., Dobrescu T. (2014). The role of emotional intelligence in building interpersonal communication skills . Proc. Soc. Behav. Sci. 116 , 1405–1410. 10.1016/j.sbspro.2014.01.406 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Piccolo R. F., Judge T. A., Takahashi K., Watanabe N., Locke E. A. (2005). Core self-evaluations in Japan: relative effects on job satisfaction, life satisfaction, and happiness . J. Organiz. Behav. 26 , 965–984. 10.1002/job.358 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Pick D., Teo S. T., Tummers L., Newton C., Dasborough M., Lamb P., et al.. (2015). Understanding emotions in higher education change management . J. Organiz. Change Manag. 28 , 579–590. 10.1108/JOCM-11-2013-0235 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Porter L. W., Steers R. M., Mowday R. T., Boulian P. V. (1974). Organizational commitment, job satisfaction, and turnover among psychiatric technicians . J. Appl. Psychol. 59 , 603–609. 10.1037/h0037335 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Pradhan R. K., Jena L. K., Bhattacharya P. (2016). Impact of psychological capital on organizational citizenship behavior: moderating role of emotional intelligence . Cogent Business Manag. 3 , 1–16. 10.1080/23311975.2016.1194174 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Prentice C., Dominique Lopes S., Wang X. (2020). Emotional intelligence or artificial intelligence–an employee perspective . J. Hosp. Market. Manag. 29 , 377–403. 10.1080/19368623.2019.1647124 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Salovey P., Mayer J. D. (1990). Emotional intelligence . Imagin. Cogn. Perso. 9 , 185–211. 10.2190/DUGG-P24E-52WK-6CDG [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Salovey P., Mayer J. D., Caruso D., Yoo S. H. (2009). “The positive psychology of emotional intelligence,” in Handbook of Positive Psychology , eds Synder C. R., Lopez S. J. (New York, NY: Oxford University Press; ), p. 237–248. 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195187243.013.0022 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Sarrionandia A., Ramos-Díaz E., Fernández-Lasarte O. (2018). Resilience as a mediator of emotional intelligence and perceived stress: a cross-country study . Front. Psychol. 9 , 2653. 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02653 [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Schuler R. S. (1980). Definition and conceptualization of stress in organizations . Organiz. Behav. Hum. Perform. 25 , 184–215. 10.1016/0030-5073(80)90063-X [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Schutte N. S., Malouff J. M., Bobik C., Coston T. D., Greeson C., Jedlicka C., et al.. (2001). Emotional intelligence and interpersonal relations . J. Soc. Psychol. 141 , 523–536. 10.1080/00224540109600569 [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Shukla A., Srivastava R. (2016). Examining the effect of emotional intelligence on socio-demographic variable and job stress among retail employees . Cogent Business Manag. 3 , 1201905. 10.1080/23311975.2016.1201905 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Singh S. K., Singh A. P. (2019). Interplay of organizational justice, psychological empowerment, organizational citizenship behavior, and job satisfaction in the context of circular economy . Manag. Decis . 57 , 937–952. 10.1108/MD-09-2018-0966 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Siu O. L. (2003). Job stress and job performance among employees in Hong Kong: the role of Chinese work values and organizational commitment . Int. J. Psychol. 38 , 337–347. 10.1080/00207590344000024 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Soleimani A. G., Einolahzadeh H. (2017). The mediating effect of leader–member exchange in relationship with emotional intelligence, job satisfaction, and turnover intention . Cogent Business Manag. 4 , 1419795. 10.1080/23311975.2017.1419795 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Spector P. E., Goh A. (2001). The role of emotions in the occupational stress process . Res. Occup. Stress Well Being 1 , 195–232. 10.1016/S1479-3555(01)01013-7 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Steers R. M. (1977). Antecedents and outcomes of organizational commitment . Administr. Sci. Quart. 22 , 46–56. 10.2307/2391745 [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Stubbemann F. (2021). “Why emotional intelligence is the key to survival in an ever-changing digital world,” in Creating Innovation Spaces (Cham: Springer; ), 145–151. 10.1007/978-3-030-57642-4_11 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Supriyanto A. S. (2013). Role of procedural justice, organizational commitment and job satisfaction on job performance: the mediating effects of organizational citizenship behavior . Int. J. Business Manag. 8 , 57–67. 10.5539/ijbm.v8n15p57 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Sur S., Ng E. S. (2014). Extending theory on job stress: the interaction between the “other 3” and “big 5” personality traits on job stress . Hum. Resour. Dev. Rev. 13 , 79–101. 10.1177/1534484313492332 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Titrek O. (2009). Emotional intelligence (EQ) levels of the senior students in secondary education system in Turkey based on teacher's perceptions . J. Hum. Sci. 6 , 712–731. [ Google Scholar ]
• Turnipseed D. L., Vandewaa E. A. (2012). Relationship between emotional intelligence and organizational citizenship behavior . Psychol. Rep. 110 , 899–914. 10.2466/01.09.20.21.PR0.110.3.899-914 [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Tziner A., Fein E. C., Kim S. K., Vasiliu C., Shkoler O. (2020). Combining associations between emotional intelligence, work motivation, and organizational justice with counterproductive work behavior: a profile analysis via multidimensional scaling (PAMS) approach . Front. Psychol. 11 , 851. 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00851 [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Valaei N., Rezaei S. (2016). Job satisfaction and organizational commitment . Manag. Res. Rev . 39 , 1663–1694. 10.1108/MRR-09-2015-0216 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Van Rooy D. L., Viswesvaran C. (2004). Emotional intelligence: a meta-analytic investigation of predictive validity and nomological net . J. Vocat. Behav. 65 , 71–95. 10.1016/S0001-8791(03)00076-9 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Van Scotter J. R. (2000). Relationships of task performance and contextual performance with turnover, job satisfaction, and affective commitment . Hum. Resour. Manag. Rev. 10 , 79–95. 10.1016/S1053-4822(99)00040-6 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Weiss H. M. (2002). Deconstructing job satisfaction: separating evaluations, beliefs and affective experiences . Hum. Resour. Manag. Rev. 12 , 173–194. 10.1016/S1053-4822(02)00045-1 [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Zhang Y., Feng X. (2011). The relationship between job satisfaction, burnout, and turnover intention among physicians from urban state-owned medical institutions in Hubei, China: a cross-sectional study . BMC Health Serv. Res. 11 , 235–248. 10.1186/1472-6963-11-235 [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]

SYSTEMATIC REVIEW article

A meta-analysis of the relationship between emotional intelligence and academic performance in secondary education: a multi-stream comparison.

• 1 Department of Basic Psychology, Faculty of Psychology, University of Málaga, Málaga, Spain
• 2 Department of Social Psychology, Faculty of Psychology, University of Jaén, Jaén, Spain
• 3 Department of Social Psychology, Faculty of Psychology, University of Málaga, Málaga, Spain

This study was a quantitative meta-analysis of empirical research on the relationship between emotional intelligence (EI) and academic performance (AP) that included the three main theoretical models of EI. We conducted a computerized literature search in the main electronic databases. Forty-four of an initial 3,210 articles met the inclusion criteria. With 49 effect sizes and a cumulative sample size of 19,861 participants, we found significant heterogeneity indices indicating a variety of results. In general, the results of this study indicated a significant effect of EI on AP ( Z ¯ = 0.26). Average association between EI and AP was higher in studies measured EI as ability ( Z ¯ = 0.31), than studies measured EI as self-report ( Z ¯ = 0.24), and self-report mixed EI ( Z ¯ = 0.26). In the educational field, this meta-analysis provides information on the specific role of EI as a function of used measures. Some practical implications are discussed.

Introduction

In the educational field, academic performance (AP) is the construct that has been studied most. Teaching, learning, and all the cognitive factors related to AP have been widely examined ( Pellitteri and Smith, 2007 ). Recently, one of the most analyzed research lines concerns the influence of personality factors and personal skills on achievement of AP ( Poropat, 2009 ; MacCann et al., 2019 ). In the last 20 years, a large portion of research has been guided by a recent theoretical focus on emotional abilities, specifically emotional intelligence (EI), which has been viewed as a key component of the factors that influence well-being as well as adaptive processes in specific contexts ( Zeidner et al., 2012 ). Several reviews showed the relevance of EI as a personal resource associated with health outcomes ( Martins et al., 2010 ), well-being ( Sánchez-Álvarez et al., 2016 ), and even task performance ( Miao et al., 2017 ). Likewise, literature reviews focused on analyzing the role of EI in AP have been published ( Perera and DiGiacomo, 2013 ; MacCann et al., 2019 ). These studies showed significant effects of EI in predicting AP after controlling the effects of intelligence and personality traits. In addition, EI has emerged as a strong predictor in secondary education.

Academic Performance

Academic success or performance by students in educational centers is a key goal in the development of all educational programs. AP has been commonly measured through continuous exams or evaluations, with a general consensus about the most important aspects to evaluate, such as skills, and declarative and procedural knowledge ( Ward et al., 1996 ). Although there is no common agreement for the evaluation of AP, measures of cognitive skills or declarative knowledge are the main factors evaluated ( Perera and DiGiacomo, 2013 ), and the most commonly used indicators to measure AP are usually: Grade Performance Academic (GPA), Achievement Test (AT), Grade Average (GA), Academic Achievement (AA), Standard Assessment Test (SAT), and Teacher Ratings Academic (TRA) ( Perera and DiGiacomo, 2013 ).

Recent empirical research in education regarding predictors of AP has focussed on intelligence, IQ, or personal cognitive abilities. This research movement has accumulated an extensive research literature on the measurement of cognitive intelligence ( Ritchie and Tucker-Drob, 2018 ). Moreover, there are other personal skills that differ from traditional cognitive intelligence that could affect academic success ( Furnham et al., 2009 ). Currently, there are several lines of research that analyse individual non-cognitive factors that increase the prediction of AP, which requires broader educational models that integrate personal and contextual factors ( Gutman and Schoon, 2013 ). Other non-cognitive skills include attitude, motivation, personality traits, self-regulation, resilience, and social and emotional skills, which are beyond the academic skills that determine successful performance ( Bowles and Gintis, 2007 ). Likewise, personal factors such as motivation and emotional self-regulation in the classroom are associated with school performance, that is, students who are more motivated and have greater skill to manage emotions to obtain higher academic qualifications ( Pintrich and de Groot, 1990 ). Currently, an increasing number of studies have examined the role of emotional skills such as EI in AP.

Emotional Intelligence

Since the EI concept was first introduced in the scientific literature by Salovey and Mayer (1990) , different EI models have been developed. Based on the measurement methods used, the different theoretical conceptions of EI can be grouped into three main streams: (stream 1) Mayer and Salovey (1997) four branch ability model of EI, which defines ability EI as having four components, including the capacity to perceive, value, and express emotions accurately; the ability to access and generate feelings that facilitate thinking; the ability to understand emotions and emotional awareness; and the ability to regulate emotions and promote emotional and intellectual growth; (stream 2) cognitive emotional abilities three-branch self-perception model of Salovey and Mayer (1990) , self-report EI proposes the existence of a continuous reflexive process associated with one's mood; (stream 3) cognitive emotional competences and other non-cognitive features like personal skills, motivation, and social aspects is conceived how EI mixed model ( Goleman, 1995 ; Mayer and Salovey, 1997 ; Petrides et al., 2004a ; Bar-On, 2006 ).

The ability EI stream (stream 1), also defined as EI-performance, is the conception of EI that seems to have the most similarity to AP, because EI is measured by exercises and problems to assess emotional ability, just as exams are used to measure AP in schools. On the other hand, because ability EI is assessed in a similar way to AP, students with higher levels of EI-performance could better manage stress related to exams, resulting in better AP ( Brackett and Salovey, 2006 ). At the same time, students with inadequate or poor emotional skills will have school maladjustment, interpersonal problems that affect their anxiety ( Rivers et al., 2012 ), and/or a lack of social support from their peers that affects their AP ( Mestre et al., 2006 ). The instruments developed to assess ability EI, the Mayer, Salovey, and Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT) ( Mayer et al., 2002 ) and the Multifactor Emotional Intelligence Scale (MEIS) ( Mayer et al., 1999 ), have objective criteria for correct and wrong answers.

The self-report EI stream (stream 2), based on self-perception of one's emotional skills, assesses a person's subjective emotional abilities. This means that each individual indicates their level of EI according to their previous experiences and their level of self-esteem, including the mood in which they find themselves when completing the EI self-report scale ( Davies et al., 1998 ). This type of measure is usually related to well-established personality factors such as neuroticism, extraversion, agreeableness, openness, and psychoticism, and this connection can yield false correlations with performance and academic achievement ( Gannon and Ranzijn, 2005 ). Representative self-report EI instruments include the Wong and Law Emotional Intelligence Scale (WLEIS) ( Wong and Law, 2002 ), Trait Meta-Mood Scale (TMMS) ( Salovey and Mayer, 1990 ), Schutte Emotional Intelligence Scale (SEIS) ( Schutte et al., 1998 ; Saklofske and Zeidner, 2006 ), and Swinburne University Emotional Intelligence Test (SUEIT) ( Palmer and Stough, 2001 ).

In the mixed EI stream (stream 3), the integration of different personal and social skills leads to overlapping effects with other factors that may influence AP. When evaluating personality variables, cognitive skills, and social-emotional traits together, one obtains a profile that may be more associated with the different skills that are implemented in an academic context. Therefore, students with better social-emotional traits, with high cognitive abilities ( Shen and Comrey, 1997 ), and adaptive personality trait variables achieve better test scores ( Pulford and Sohal, 2006 ; Poropat, 2009 ). Therefore, students with better adaptation to the school context will obtain better scores in AP than students with profiles less oriented toward academic adaptation. Representative measures of mixed EI include the Emotional Quotient Inventory (EQi) ( Bar-On, 1997 ), Trait Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire (TEIQ) ( Petrides, 2009 ), and Emotion Identification Skills (EIS) ( Ciarrochi et al., 2008 ).

Each of the three main streams has contributed to research linking EI and AP, with heterogenous results, despite being evaluated with instruments developed under the same theoretical conceptions of EI. It is not surprising that EI is conceived from several theoretical approaches. A possible cause of the lack of consensus on the results may be the multitude of instruments to evaluate EI from the different theoretical approaches.

Theoretical Linkages Between Emotional Intelligence and Academic Performance

The EI literature has shown that individuals with a higher capacity to process information typically perform better on cognitive tasks ( Saklofske et al., 2012 ). Interpersonal and intrapersonal skills are of great importance in secondary education, since it is a period that involves many social, contextual, and personal changes and stresses. During adolescence, the peer group is of great relevance to adolescents' emotional development and identity formation ( Duncan et al., 2006 ; Eccles and Roeser, 2009 ), with immediate contexts such as the school environment being one of the most relevant ( Monreal and Guitart, 2012 ). In this sense, the events and early experiences lived in the different contexts, the reactions and responses of adolescents to the different situations of risk and stress throughout their development, as well as the existence of resource vulnerability protection, are relevant and important to understanding individual differences between young people ( Monreal and Guitart, 2012 ). Greater emotional regulation and a better process of adaptability are useful to cope with academic stress and achieve academic success ( Saklofske et al., 2012 ). Interestingly, emotional perceptive people appear to be more strongly impacted by stress than their less perceptive counterparts, expressing higher levels of psychological distress ( Ciarrochi et al., 2002 ). It is hypothesized that low perceptive people might ignore thoughts of daily hassles and therefore might be more likely to be confused about the experienced negative feelings showing less coherence between their levels of perceived stress and psychological maladjustment. Thus, people with high EI are more resilient, adapting more easily to changes, reacting better under stress conditions, and coping with difficulties in the form of challenges ( Schneider et al., 2013 ). Finally, students with a better management of their emotions are happier and have better social relationships ( Eryilmaz, 2011 ). In turn, having better interpersonal management is generally associated with higher social networks, as well as better friendships quality ( Brackett et al., 2005 ). Similarly, having a greater social network in a classroom might stimulate an adequate social environment for better cooperative work, better group learning, greater support from classmates ( Hogan et al., 2010 ), and better relationships with teachers ( Di Fabio and Kenny, 2015 ). Together, both the academic climate involving classmates and professors, as well as a better predisposition of learning-oriented abilities might be associated with a greater AP ( Brackett et al., 2011 ; Johnson, 2016 ). In summary, there are several plausible theoretical mechanisms that might explain the relationship between EI as a set of skills and optimal academic functioning in secondary education.

Current Meta-Analysis

Previous work has excluded studies conducted with instruments developed under other theoretical approaches of EI ( Perera and DiGiacomo, 2013 ), or has contemplated the role of EI in AP in a more global way and by levels ( MacCann et al., 2019 ), making it difficult to compare the results between different instruments. The present study examined the association between EI and AP, considering instruments developed from all the theoretical approaches to EI in studies conducted in secondary school students, as an educational level of greater relevance according to previous literature ( Perera and DiGiacomo, 2013 ; MacCann et al., 2019 ). Our meta-analysis aimed to examine previous review studies, comparing the results by the main streams and EI instruments used in secondary education including native English and Spanish speakers. The current meta-analysis study was carried out to (1) asses the associations of AP and EI, hypothesizing that there will be a significant correlation between EI; (2) show the associations of different instruments used to assess EI based on three main streams and levels of AP; in line with previous studies, it was hypothesized that EI ability instruments would have a greater association with AP.

Literature Search

We searched relevants studies of EI y AP on electronic database: PsychoINFO, MEDLINE, SCOPUS, PubMed, ISI Web of Science, Google Scholar, and ProQuest Dissertations and Theses. The search term (emotional intelligence) AND (academic performance OR academic achievement OR grades performance OR academic OR education OR school) AND (secondary level). We also reviewed specialized database journals of relevant papers. This review was conducted from June 2017 to January 2020.

Inclusion Criteria

Studies eligible were scanned titles and abstracts, and included in the review all those that referred to the above terms. To be included in the review, papers had to meet the following inclusion criteria for eligibility of studies ( Lipsey and Wilson, 2000 ): (1) empirical study that provides data on the association between EI and AP; (2) minimum sample size at least 20 participants; (3) studies had to have been performed between 1999 and 2020 (January); published article and unpublished doctoral thesis without published and conference paper, (4) studies written in Spanish and English.

Following a Lipsey and Wilson (2000) : (a) country, (b) publication type, (c) design features, (d) measure used to asses EI, (e) AP index, (f) study sample size, (g) size of the association between key variables, (h) level of significance. Finally, extrinsic characteristics coded were results reporting the year and publication source (see Table A1 ).

Statistical Analysis

All data were conducted in R ( Team, 2012 ), using the “stats” and “metaphor” packages ( Viechtbauer, 2010 ). For the meta-analysis the technique by DerSimonian and Laird (1986) was used. The Q -value indicated heterogeneity among studies ( p < 0.10), thus applied random effect models was used in the meta-analysis. Additionally, we quantified the effect of heterogeneity using I 2 ( Higgins and Thompson, 2002 ). The I 2 value indicate proportion of inconsistency due to heterogeneity rather than chance. The effect size index was converted by Fisher r – Z following the procedures recommended by Hedges and Olkin (1985) . The categorical model between-class results were obtained through a goodness-of-fit statistic Q b , and the within-class goodness-of-fit statistic Q w . The statistic Q wj within-category heterogeneity is under the null hypothesis of within-category homogeneity.

Publication Bias

Publication bias was evaluated by rank correlation with Kendall's tau method, in which a significant correlation indicates publication bias, and Egger's regression test asymmetry, in which significant asymmetry indicates publication bias ( Fernández-Castilla et al., 2019 ). The Egger regression test should not differ significantly ( z = −1.189, p = 0.234), and the rank correlation yielded non-significant results ( T = 0.03, p = 0.243). Non-significant results showed symmetry and absence of publication bias. Regression tests and the funnel plot indicated a non-significant asymmetry, so the results showed no evidence of publication bias between EI and AP.

Selected Studies

The sample consisted of 3,210 studies, 678 were duplicate studies. Eventually, 1,973 did not correspond to association between EI and AP. They associated lack of personal distress and absence of mental disorder to higher levels of well-being. The full text of the remaining 559 articles were reviewed, obtaining 44 items that were selected and evaluated more deeply (see Figure 1 ).

Figure 1 . PRISMA flowchart for the identification, screening, and inclusion of publications in the meta-analyses.

Study Characteristics

The articles included in the meta-analysis showed a closed association between target variables. The overall sample consisted of 19,714 participants, and the mean age was of 15.82 years. Several studies included some scales for assessing EI, obtaining 49 effect sizes. The studies included were conducted in 16 countries, with the largest number conducted in the US (14 studies).

Association of EI and AP

The main results of this study indicated that the association between EI and AP had a significant low to moderate cumulative effect ( Z ¯ = 0.26; CI from 0.14 to 0.38). A DerSimonian test and Laird's random effect showed statistical evidence of heterogeneity ( Q = 1,206.16, p < 0,001), indicating a greater variance of effect sizes between studies than anticipated by chance. In addition, the I 2 estimated of 96% suggests a high proportion of variation between samples.

Main EI Streams

The categorical model test that examined the subgroup model results intra-group showed statistical evidence of heterogeneity ( Q b = 0.39, p = 0.540). The Q w statistics revealed that the model was misspecified ( Q w = 1,205.77, p < 0.001). Therefore, significant differences were found between the effect sizes, indicating heterogeneity within each category (see Table 1 ). The ability stream showed lower levels of heterogeneity ( Q wj = 24.16, p < 0.012), with smaller variation between scores ( I 2 = 54%) obtained between the different studies that used ability stream instruments. When examining the effect size results by grouping the EI instruments by main streams, we found larger effect sizes for those studies that used instruments based on the ability EI stream ( Z ¯ = 0.31). At the same time, the degree of inconsistency between studies that used instruments based on the ability EI stream was lower ( I 2 = 54%) than in the other groups of studies (self-report EI stream I 2 = 99%; mixed EI stream I 2 = 92%).

Table 1 . Olkin and Pratt weighted average ( Z ¯ ), effect size number (K), homogeneity test ( Q wj ), and the degree of inconsistency ( I 2 ) between EI main stream.

Type of EI Measure

As shown in Table 2 , the different instruments used to assess EI had differing levels of association with AP. Moreover, there was much variability in the scores obtained in studies using the same EI instrument. Only the MSCEIT ( Q wj = 3.05, p = 0.880), SUEIT ( Q wj = 0.63, p = 0.426), and Situational Test of Emotion Management for Youths (STEM-Y) ( Q wj = 0.51, p = 0.476) measures did not show significant levels of heterogeneity between the effect sizes of the different studies. On the other hand, the largest effect sizes were observed in studies that used the Behavior Emotional Quotient Inventory (EQBI) ( Z ¯ = 0.94, K = 1), followed by the studies carried out with the MEIS ( Z ¯ = 0.50, K = 1), EIS ( Z ¯ = 0.40, K = 5), and MSCEIT ( Z ¯ = 0.35, K = 8) instruments. At the same time, the lowest degree of inconsistency between studies that used the same instruments was found for the SUEIT ( I 2 = 58%, K = 2), followed by the MSCEIT ( I 2 = 78%, K = 8), and Emotional Quotient Inventory (EQ-i) ( I 2 = 82%, K = 15), with the EQ-i being the most widely used instrument.

Table 2 . Olkin and Pratt weighted average ( Z ¯ ), effect size number (K), homogeneity test ( Q wj ), and the degree of inconsistency ( I 2 ) between EI measure.

Type of AP Measure

Subgroup analysis was conducted to examine the variability in the scores obtained in studies using the same AP instrument (see Table 3 ). The highest degree of variability in the scores between studies using the same instruments was found for the GPA ( Q wj = 246.68, p < 0.001), AA ( Q wj = 16.35, p = 0.003), and GCSE ( Q wj = 35.07, p < 0.001). Furthermore, the largest effect sizes were observed in studies using the WAEC ( Z ¯ = 0.74, K = 1), followed by the studies using the VSLECRA ( Z ¯ = 0.38, K = 1), and GPA ( Z ¯ = 0.28, K = 30) instruments. Simultaneously, the lowest degree of inconsistency between studies using the same instruments was found for the TRA ( I 2 = 47%, K = 2), followed by the AA ( I 2 = 76%, K = 5) and GPA ( I 2 = 88%, K = 30), with the GPA being the most widely used instrument.

Table 3 . Olkin and Pratt weighted average ( Z ¯ ), effect size number (K), homogeneity test ( Q wj ), and the degree of inconsistency ( I 2 ) between AP measure.

The current study was designed to examine the relationship between EI and AP through meta-analyses comparing diverse main EI streams and instruments used in secondary education. Filling the gaps in previous meta-analytic research, our study provides new data, and expands past findings. After a literature review, 44 studies with 49 independent effect sizes based on 19,714 secondary school students were included in cumulative quantitative research on the link between EI and AP. Publication bias analysis showed that these findings are robust and reliable.

Regarding hypothesis 1, we found a moderate significant cumulative effect between EI and AP, including measures of the three main EI streams, and diverse indicators of AP. These findings support previous research ( Perera and DiGiacomo, 2013 ; MacCann et al., 2019 ) suggesting that EI levels are moderately associated with academic success, which suggests that knowledge of one's own and others' feelings, as well as the ability to solve adaptive problems, provides an essential basis for academic learning ( Zeidner and Matthews, 2016 ). Additionally, these results show that EI is a personal resource with an important influence in the academic field, as a process of adaptation to the environment ( Zeidner et al., 2012 ). EI has a dual role; on the one hand, it has intrapersonal affective influences on aspects related to AP, such as motivation and self-regulation. On the other hand, interpersonal skills increase social networks in the academic environment, improving teamwork, which is so important in secondary education level. Teaching staff, through workshops can develop emotional skills to help improve mental health and interpersonal aspects, which is supported by previous literature. Current programs aim to reduce aggressive behavior and substance use; future programs should also target school performance. To deepen these interactions between emotional skills and relevant factors in AP, it would be interesting for future meta-analytical studies to focus on revealing and quantifying each of these links, especially those that are relevant at the secondary level, as it is a period full of changes, is very sensitive to risks, and involves searching for immediate well-being.

With respect to hypothesis 2, we found differences in the levels of association of EI and AP as a function of the EI measures category. The results showed non-significant differences, with ability EI measures ( Mayer and Salovey, 1997 ) showing a greater association with AP, followed by self-report EI ( Salovey and Mayer, 1990 ), and finally the mixed EI stream ( Bar-On, 2006 ). This higher index of association between EI measured with ability instruments and AP may be due to similarities with the tests used to obtain AP, as both of them use performance-based tests. In this sense it is possible this collinearity effect occurred because students who have good abilities to respond to performance tests will obtain high scores in both EI tests and tests that evaluate AP ( Ogundokun and Adeyemo, 2010 ). At the same time, and contrary to other meta-analytical studies on EI ( Martins et al., 2010 ; Sánchez-Álvarez et al., 2016 ), the most commonly used instruments in academic contexts are instruments developed from the mixed EI approach. Future studies should analyse in detail these effects of overlap and collinearity with personality and other aspects to obtain non-biased findings. Previous review studies ( Perera and DiGiacomo, 2013 ; MacCann et al., 2019 ) did not assess the impact of different measures of EI on the association with AP, so these findings provide relevant information for future studies. The results showed great heterogeneity within each instrument category, presenting large differences between different studies that used the same instrument to measure EI ( Sánchez-Álvarez et al., 2016 ). This variability could be caused by moderating variables such as sex, IQ, and personality traits, that moderate the EI–AP association when the same instruments are used ( Petrides et al., 2004b ; Furnham et al., 2005 ). Furthermore, they may be due to variations in adaptations to different languages or variations due to cultural differences ( Fernández-Berrocal et al., 2005 ; Ang and van Dyne, 2015 ). These results go beyond differences between the various instruments to evaluate EI, since they show differences despite using the same instrument. Although it is logical for each theoretical approach to develop and use its own instruments to analyse emotional skills, the results of this type of meta-analysis show the difficulties encountered when comparing the results of studies investigating this area of interest. This is certainly one of the sources of heterogeneity, and the consequent controversy about the results. To clarify this issue, it would be necessary for future studies to select instruments to evaluate emotional skills that have a robust trajectory and well-confirmed psychometric replicative properties in cross-cultural studies. Few studies have been conducted with Spanish-speaking samples. Therefore, more research is needed in Spanish and Latin American population.

The findings of this review should be considered with caution because there were several limitations. The current study was done without controlling for IQ, personality, and other variables that could influence the results. Other studies have been published in languages other than English and Spanish. On the other hand, EI integrates several dimensions, and this study did not take into account the individual associations that each of the dimensions of EI have with AP. It is possible that the associative effect of some dimensions of EI are greater than others, which implies that unifying all the dimensions of EI and analyzing the overall effect they have with AP could produce bias. Future studies should analyze each of the dimensions and their relationship with AP individually, and then compare them to analyze the differences.

These findings have several implications for research and application contexts. The school setting is one of the most important contexts for learning emotional skills and competencies ( Zeidner and Matthews, 2016 ). EI training improves other associated issues, as well as improving performance. Developing emotional skills in early stages of adolescence ( Herrera et al., 2020 ), will allow them to become consolidated personal resources to face risks and promote motivation oriented toward academic success and well-being. For this reason, this review study provides relevant information for the development of programs focused on increasing emotional skills in students, as well as providing tools for teachers and counselors, providing an empirical basis for the development of theoretical educational models oriented to AP. These findings cover the ages at which socio-emotional skills are most important, as well as relevant information for educators and teaching staff on the use of appropriate tools to assess EI in secondary education. We recommend that practitioners be cautious in choosing EI measurement instruments because of differences in their use. In the field of research, this meta-analysis provides information on which future studies should be conducted, helping to clarify the different EI concepts and evaluation measures. Future studies would need to replicate these findings with a larger sample and more of the different EI measures, including variables that may influence AP.

In conclusion, the results of this study found great heterogeneity in the outcomes assessed, so the findings should be considered with caution. The results of this meta-analysis show a moderate association between EI and AP. Future research should explore how other variables influence this relationship, improving our understanding of EI and how it influences our lives. This meta-analytic study presents a quantitative review of the association between EI and AP globally and categorically, shedding light on the gaps in previous studies on the topic on adolescents. This study also shows the inadequacies in the review of studies in this field and provides guidelines to be followed in future empirical studies on AP. These discoveries are of great relevance in the explanatory models intended to predict academic success in secondary education.

Data Availability Statement

The original contributions presented in the study are included in the article/supplementary material, further inquiries can be directed to the corresponding author/s.

Author Contributions

All authors listed have made a substantial, direct and intellectual contribution to the work, and approved it for publication.

This work was supported by Instituto de Estudios Giennenses. Diputación Provincial de Jaén. Convocatoria 2018 (Ref. 2018.160.3340.45100).

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Abdo, N. (2012). Academic Performance and Social/Emotional Competence in Adolescence . New York, NY: Yeshiva University.

Google Scholar

Abdullah, M. C., Elias, H., Mahyuddin, R., and Uli, J. (2004). EI and academic achievement among malaysian secondary students. Pakistan J. Psychol. Res. 19, 105–121.

Abel, N. R. (2014). Trait Emotional Intelligence, Perceived Discrimination, and Academic Achievement among African American and Latina/O High School Students: A Study of Academic Resilience . Mankato, MN: Minnesota State University.

Ang, S., and van Dyne, L. (2015). “Conceptualization of cultural intelligence: definition, distinctiveness, and nomological network,” in Handbook of Cultural Intelligence (New York, NY: Routledge) 21–33.

Aremu, O. A., Tella, A., and Tella, A. (2006). Relationship among emotional intelligence, parental involvement and academic achievement of secondory school students in Ibadan, Nigeria. Essays Educ. 18, 1–14.

Bar-On, R. (1997). The Emotional Intelligence Inventory (EQ-I): Technical Manual. Toronto, ON: Multi-Health Systems.

Bar-On, R. (2006). The Bar-on model of emotional-social intelligence (ESI). Psicothema 18(Suppl.), 13–25.

PubMed Abstract | Google Scholar

Bowles, S., and Gintis, H. (2007). “Broken promises: school reform in retrospect,” in Sociology Education A Critical Read , ed A. R. Sadovnik (New York, NY: Routledge), 53–70.

Brackett, M. A., Rivers, S. E., and Salovey, P. (2011). Emotional intelligence : implications for personal, social, academic, and workplace success. Psychology 1, 88–103. doi: 10.1111/j.1751-9004.2010.00334.x

CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar

Brackett, M. A., and Salovey, P. (2006). Measuring emotional intelligence with the Mayer-salovery-caruso emotional intelligence test (MSCEIT). Psicothema 18(Suppl.), 34–41.

Brackett, M. A., Warner, R. M., and Bosco, J. S. (2005). Emotional intelligence and relationship quality among couples. Pers. Relatsh. 12, 197–212. doi: 10.1111/j.1350-4126.2005.00111.x

Chamundeswari, D. S. (2013). Emotional intelligence and academic achievement among students at the higher secondary level. Int. J. Acad. Res. Econ. Manag. Sci. 2, 178–187. doi: 10.6007/IJAREMS/v2-i4/126

Ciarrochi, J., Deane, F., and Anderson, S. (2002). Emotional intelligence moderates the relationship between stress and mental health. Pers. Individ. Differ. 32, 197–209. doi: 10.1016/S0191-8869(01)00012-5

Ciarrochi, J., Heaven, P. C. L., and Supavadeeprasit, S. (2008). The link between emotion identification skills and socio-emotional functioning in early adolescence: a 1-year longitudinal study. J. Adolesc. 31, 565–582. doi: 10.1016/j.adolescence.2007.10.004

PubMed Abstract | CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar

Clark, P. R. (2004). An Analysis of Emotional Intelligence: Its Relationship to Student Performance and the Implications for Education . Jonesboro, AR: Arkansas State University.

Costa, A., and Faria, L. (2015). The impact of emotional intelligence on academic achievement: a longitudinal study in portuguese secondary school. Learn. Individ. Differ. 37, 38–47. doi: 10.1016/j.lindif.2014.11.011

CrossRef Full Text

Davies, M., Stankov, L., and Roberts, R. D. (1998). Emotional intelligence: in search of an elusive construct. J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 75, 989–1015. doi: 10.1037/0022-3514.75.4.989

DerSimonian, R., and Laird, N. (1986). Meta-analysis in clinical trials. Control. Clin. Trials 7, 177–188. doi: 10.1016/0197-2456(86)90046-2

Di Fabio, A., and Kenny, M. E. (2015). The contributions of emotional intelligence and social support for adaptive career progress among Italian youth. J. Career Dev. 42, 48–59. doi: 10.1177/0894845314533420

Di Fabio, A., and Palazzeschi, L. (2009). An in-depth look at scholastic success: fluid intelligence, personality traits or emotional intelligence? Pers. Individ. Differ. 46, 581–585. doi: 10.1016/j.paid.2008.12.012

Di Fabio, A., and Palazzeschi, L. (2015). Beyond fluid intelligence and personality traits in scholastic success: Trait emotional intelligence. Learn. Individ. Dif. 40, 121–126. doi: 10.1016/j.lindif.2015.04.001

Downey, L. A., Lomas, J., Billings, C., Hansen, K., and Stough, C. (2014). Scholastic success: fluid intelligence, personality, and emotional intelligence. Can. J. Sch. Psychol. 29, 40–53. doi: 10.1177/0829573513505411

Downey, L. A., Mountstephen, J., Lloyd, J., Hansen, K., and Stough, C. (2008). Emotional intelligence and scholastic achievement in Australian adolescents. Aust. J. Psychol. 60, 10–17. doi: 10.1080/00049530701449505

Drati, B. A. (2010). Closing the Achievement Gap: The Relationship between Emotional Intelligence, Race Identity Attitudes, and Academic Achievement with African American Adolescents . Fresno, CA: California State University.

Duncan, S. C., Duncan, T. E., and Strycker, L. A. (2006). Alcohol use from ages 9–16: a cohort-sequential latent growth model. Drug Alcohol Depend 81, 71–81. doi: 10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2005.06.001

Eccles, J. S., and Roeser, R. W. (2009). “Schools, academic motivation, and stage–environment fit,” in Handbook of Adolescent Psychology, 2nd Edn , eds R. M. Lerner and L. Steinberg (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons Inc), 404–434. doi: 10.1002/9780470479193.adlpsy001013

Eryilmaz, A. (2011). A model of subjective well-being for adolescents in high school. J. Happiness Stud. 13, 275–89. doi: 10.1007/s10902-011-9263-9

Fernández-Berrocal, P., Salovey, P., Vera, A., Extremera, N., and Ramos, N. (2005). Cultural influences on the relation between perceived emotional intelligence and depression. Int. Rev. Soc. Psychol. 18, 91–107.

Fernández-Castilla, B., Declercq, L., Jamshidi, L., Beretvas, S. N., Onghena, P., and van den Noortgate, W. (2019). Detecting selection bias in meta-analyses with multiple outcomes: a simulation study. J. Exp. Educ. 8, 1–20. doi: 10.1080/00220973.2019.1582470

Furnham, A., Monsen, J., and Ahmetoglu, G. (2009). Typical intellectual engagement, big five personality traits, approaches to learning and cognitive ability predictors of academic performance. Br. J. Educ. Psychol. 79, 769–782. doi: 10.1348/978185409X412147

Furnham, A., Moutafi, J., and Chamorro-Premuzic, T. (2005). Personality and intelligence: Gender, the big five, self-estimated and psychometric intelligence. Int. J. Sel. Assess. 13, 11–24. doi: 10.1111/j.0965-075X.2005.00296.x

Gannon, N., and Ranzijn, R. (2005). Does emotional intelligence predict unique variance in life satisfaction beyond IQ and personality? Pers. Individ. Differ. 38, 1353–1364. doi: 10.1016/j.paid.2004.09.001

Gil-Olarte Márquez, P., Palomera Martín, R., and Brackett, M. A. (2006). Relating emotional intelligence to social competence and academic achievement in high school students. Psicothema 18(Suppl.), 118–23.

Glickman-Rogers, A. (2010). How do Social and Emotional Competencies Influences the Grades That Male Students Receive? Hempstead, NY: Hofstra University.

Goleman, D. (1995). Emotional Intelligence, Why It Can Matter More than IQ . New York, NY: Bloomsbury Publishing.

Gutman, L., and Schoon, I. (2013). The Impact of Non-cognitive Skills on Outcomes for Young People. London: Education Endowment Foundation, 59

Hedges, L. V., and Olkin, I. (1985). Statistical Methods for Meta-analysis . Academic press.

Herrera, L., Al-Lal, M., and Mohamed, L. (2020). Academic achievement, self-concept, personality and emotional intelligence in primary education. analysis by gender and cultural group. Front. Psychol. 10:3075. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.03075

Higgins, J. P. T., and Thompson, S. G. (2002). Quantifying heterogeneity in a meta-analysis. Stat. Med. 21, 1539–1558. doi: 10.1002/sim.1186

Hogan, M., Parker, J., Wiener, J., Watters, C., Wood, L., and Oke, A. (2010). Academic success in adolescence: relationships among verbal IQ, social support and emotional intelligence. Aust. J. Psychol. 62, 30–41. doi: 10.1080/00049530903312881

Johnson, B. (2016). Review article impact of emotional intelligence on academic achievement and leadership. BMH Med. J. 3, 94–99.

Jones, D. P. (2013). The Relationship between Emotional Intelligence and Literacy Achievement of Secondary Students . Minneapolis, MN: Walden University.

Jordan, J. A., McRorie, M., and Ewing, C. (2010). Gender differences in the role of emotional intelligence during the primary-secondary school transition. Emot. Behav. Difficult. 15, 37–47. doi: 10.1080/13632750903512415

Kaliská, L. (2015). Three types of intelligences and their relationship to students' school performance. New Educ. Rev. 41, 275–286. doi: 10.15804/tner.2015.41.3.22

Khajehpour, M. (2011). Relationship between emotional intelligence, parental involvement and academic performance of high school students. Procedia Soc. Behav. Sci. 15, 1081–1086. doi: 10.1016/j.sbspro.2011.03.242

Killen, M. A. (2016). The Relationship between Parents' Perceptions of their Child's Emotional Intelligence and Academic Performance among Students with Autism Spectrum Disorder . Minneapolis, MN: Capella University.

Kumar, V. V., Mehta, M., and Maheshwari, N. (2013). Effect of emotional intelligence on the achievement motivation, psychological adjustment and scholastic performance of secondary school students. J. Indian Acad. Appl. Psychol. 39, 60–67.

Kvapil, L. (2007). The Impact of Emotional Intelligence on the Academic Performance of At-Risk High School Students . San Antonio, TX: University of the Incarnate Word.

Lawrence, S. A., and Deepa, T. (2013). Emotional intelligence and academic achievement of high school students in Kanyakumari district. Int. J. Phys. Soc. Sci. 3, 101–107.

Lipsey, W., and Wilson, D. (2000). Practical Meta-Analysis . Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Lui, M. M. (2009). Can I Succeed as an Adolescent Mother? Examining the Role of Emotional Intelligence in Predicting Self-efficacy, Academic Achievement, and School Attendance . Philadelphia, PA: Temple University.

MacCann, C., and Fogarty, G. (2011). Coping mediates the relationship between emotional intelligence (EI) and academic achievement. Contemp. Educ. Psychol. 36, 60–70. doi: 10.1016/j.cedpsych.2010.11.002

MacCann, C., Jiang, Y., Brown, L. E. R., Double, K. S., and Bucich, M. (2019). Emotional intelligence predicts academic performance: a meta-analysis. Psychol. Bull. 146, 150–186. doi: 10.1037/bul0000219

Martins, A., Ramalho, N., and Morin, E. (2010). A comprehensive meta-analysis of the relationship between emotional intelligence and health. Pers. Individ. Differ. 49, 554–564. doi: 10.1016/j.paid.2010.05.029

Mateši, K. (2015). The relationship between cognitive and emotional intelligence and high school academic achievement. Coll. Antropol. 39, 371–375.

Mavroveli, S., Petrides, K. V., Shove, C., and Whitehead, A. (2008). Investigation of the construct of trait emotional intelligence in children. Eur. Child Adolesc. Psychiatry 17, 516–526. doi: 10.1007/s00787-008-0696-6

Mayer, J. D., Caruso, D., and Salovey, P. (1999). Emotional intelligence meets tradicional standards for an intelligence. Intelligence 27, 267–298. doi: 10.1016/S0160-2896(99)00016-1

Mayer, J. D., and Salovey, P. (1997). What is emotional intelligence? in Emotional Development and Emotional Intelligence: Implications for Educators , eds P. Salovey and D. Sluyter (New York, NY: Basic Books), 3–34.

Mayer, J. D., Salovey, P., and Caruso, D. R. (2002). Mayer–Salovey–Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT) User's Manual. Toronto, ON: Multi- Health Systems.

Menzie, T. A. (2005). Emotional Intelligence and Social and Academic Competence in Middle School Youth. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers the State University of New Jersey.

Mestre, J. M., Guil, R., Lopes, P. N., Salovey, P., and Gil-Olarte, P. (2006). Emotional intelligence and social and academic adaptation to school. Psicothema 18(Suppl.), 112–117.

Miao, C., Humphrey, R. H., and Qian, S. (2017). A meta-analysis of emotional intelligence and work attitudes. J. Occup. Organ. Psychol. 90, 177–202. doi: 10.1111/joop.12167

Mitrofan, N., and Cioricaru, M.-F. (2014). Emotional intelligence and school performance-correlational study. Procedia Soc. Behav. Sci. 127, 769–775. doi: 10.1016/j.sbspro.2014.03.352

Monreal, M. G., and Guitart, M. E. (2012). Some educational concerns grounded in the bronfenbrenner's ecological approach. Univ. Girona 15, 79–92. doi: 10.18172/con.656

Nelson, P. D. (2010). Emotional Intelligence and Academic Achievement in 11th Grade at-Risk Students . Minneapolis, MN: Walden University.

Ogundokun, M., and Adeyemo, D. (2010). “Emotional intelligence and academic achievement; the moderating influence of age, intrinsic and extrinsic motivation,” in The African Symposium, Vol. 10 (Nigeria), 127–141.

Palmer, B., and Stough, C. (2001). Workplace SUEIT: Swinburne University Emotional Intelligence Test–Descriptive Report . Melbourne, VIC: Organizational Psychology Research Unit, Swinburne University.

Parker, J. D. A., Creque, R. E., Barnhart, D. L., Irons, J., Majeski, S. A., Wood, L. M., et al. (2004). Academic achievement in high school: does emotional intelligence matter? Pers. Individ. Differ. 37, 1321–1330. doi: 10.1016/j.paid.2004.01.002

Pellitteri, J., and Smith, B. (2007). “Building academic success on social and emotional learning: what does the research say?,” eds J. E. Zins, R. P. Weissberg, M. C. Wang, and H. J. Walberg Reading Writing Quarterly, Vol. 23 (New York, NY: Teacher College Press), 197–202. doi: 10.1080/10573560600992837

Perera, H. N., and DiGiacomo, M. (2013). The relationship of trait emotional intelligence with academic performance: a meta-analytic review. Learn. Individ. Differ. 28, 20–33. doi: 10.1016/j.lindif.2013.08.002

Petersen, V. C. (2010). The Relationship between Emotional Intelligence and Middle School Students with Learning Disabilities . Madison, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University.

Petrides, K. V. (2009). “Psychometric properties of the trait emotional intelligence questionnaire (TEIQue),” in The Springer Series on Human Exceptionality. Assessing Emotional Intelligence: Theory, Research, and Applications , eds C. Stough, D. H. Saklofske, and J. D. A. Parker (New York, NY: Springer Science + Business Media), 85–101. doi: 10.1007/978-0-387-88370-0_5

Petrides, K. V., Frederickson, N., and Furnham, A. (2004a). The role of trait emotional intelligence in academic performance and deviant behavior at school. Pers. Individ. Differ. 36, 277–293. doi: 10.1016/S0191-8869(03)00084-9

Petrides, K. V., Furnham, A., and Crawshaw, J. (2004b). Estimates of emotional and psychometric intelligence. J. Soc. Psychol. 144, 149–162. doi: 10.3200/SOCP.144.2.149-162

Pintrich, P., and de Groot, E. (1990). Motivational and self-regulated learning components of classroom academic performance. J. Educ. Psychol. 82, 33–40. doi: 10.1037/0022-0663.82.1.33

Poropat, A. E. (2009). A meta-analysis of the five-factor model of personality and academic performance. Psychol. Bull. 135, 322–338. doi: 10.1037/a0014996

Pulford, B. D., and Sohal, H. (2006). The influence of personality on HE students' confidence in their academic abilities. Pers. Individ. Differ. 41, 1409–1419. doi: 10.1016/j.paid.2006.05.010

Qualter, P., Gardner, K. J., Pope, D. J., Hutchinson, J. M., and Whiteley, H. E. (2012). Ability emotional intelligence, trait emotional intelligence, and academic success in British secondary schools: a 5 year longitudinal study. Learn. Individ. Differ. 22, 83–91. doi: 10.1016/j.lindif.2011.11.007

Rice, D. M. (2007). An Examination of Emotional Intelligence: Its Relationship to Academic Achievement in Army JROTC and the Implications for Education . Minneapolis, MN: Capella University.

Ritchie, S. J., and Tucker-Drob, E. M. (2018). How much does education improve intelligence? a meta-analysis. Psychol. Sci. 29, 1358–1369. doi: 10.1177/0956797618774253

Rivers, S. E., Brackett, M. A., Reyes, M. R., Mayer, J. D., and Caruso, D. R. Salovey, P. (2012). Measuring emotional intelligence in early adolescence with the MSCEIT-YV: psychometric properties and relationship with academic performance and psychosocial functioning. J. Psychoeduc. Assess. 30, 344–366. doi: 10.1177/0734282912449443

Rodrigo-Ruiz, D. (2017). Evaluación de la Inteligencia Emocional capacidad en adolescentes españoles: Adaptación y validación del Situactional Test of Emotion Management (STEM) . Madrid: UNED.

Saklofske, D. H., Austin, E. J., Mastoras, S. M., Beaton, L., and Osborne, S. E. (2012). Relationships of personality, affect, emotional intelligence and coping with student stress and academic success: different patterns of association for stress and success. Learn. Individ. Differ. 22, 251–257. doi: 10.1016/j.lindif.2011.02.010

Saklofske, D. H., and Zeidner, M. (2006). Springer Series on Human Exceptionality . New York, NY: Springer.

Salovey, P., and Mayer, J. D. (1990). Emotional intelligence. Imagin. Cogn. Personal. 9, 185–211. doi: 10.2190/DUGG-P24E-52WK-6CDG

Sánchez-Álvarez, N., Extremera, N., and Fernández-Berrocal, P. (2016). The relation between emotional intelligence and subjective well-being: a meta-analytic investigation. J. Posit. Psychol. 11, 276–285. doi: 10.1080/17439760.2015.1058968

Schneider, T. R., Lyons, J. B., and Khazon, S. (2013). Emotional intelligence and resilience. Pers. Individ. Differ. 55, 909–914. doi: 10.1016/j.paid.2013.07.460

Schutte, N. S., Malouff, J. M., Hall, L., Haggerty, D., Cooper, J., Golden, C., et al. (1998). Development and validation of a measure of emotional intelligence. Pers. Individ. Differ. 25, 167–177. doi: 10.1016/S0191-8869(98)00001-4

Shen, H., and Comrey, A. (1997). Predicting medical students' academic performances by their cognitives abilities and personality characteristics. Acad. Med. 72, 781–786. doi: 10.1097/00001888-199709000-00013

Team, R. C. (2012). R: A Language and Environment for Statistical Computing . Available online at: http://www.r-project.org/ (accessed April 03, 2013).

Trigueros, R., Aguilar-parra, J. M., Cangas, A. J., Bermejo, R., Ferrandiz, C., and López-Liria, R. (2019). Influence of emotional intelligence, motivation and resilience on academic performance and the adoption of healthy lifestyle habits among adolescents. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 16:2810. doi: 10.3390/ijerph16162810

Usán Supervía, P., and Salavera Bordás, C. (2018). Motivación escolar, inteligencia emocional y rendimiento académico en estudiantes de Educación Secundaria Obligatoria. Actual. en Psicol. 32:95. doi: 10.15517/ap.v32i125.32123

Usán, P., and Salavera, C. (2019). El rendimiento escolar, la inteligencia emocional y el engagement académico en adolescentes. Electron. J. Res. Educ. Psychol. 17, 5–26. doi: 10.25115/ejrep.v17i47.1879

Vidal Rodeiro, C. L., Emery, J. L., and Bell, J. F. (2012). Emotional intelligence and academic attainment of British secondary school children: a cross-sectional survey. Educ. Stud. 38, 521–539. doi: 10.1080/03055698.2011.643115

Viechtbauer, W. (2010). Conducting meta-analysis in R with the metafor package. J. Stat. Softw. 36, 1–48. doi: 10.18637/jss.v036.i03

Ward, A., Stoker, H. W., and Murray-Ward, M. (1996). Achievement and ability tests-definition of the domain. Educ. Meas. 2, 2–5.

Woitaszewski, S. A., and Aalsma, M. C. (2004). The contribution of emotional intelligence to the social and academic success of gifted adolescents as measured by the multifactor emotional intelligence scale - adolescent version. Roeper Rev. 27, 25–30. doi: 10.1080/02783190409554285

Wong, C. S., and Law, K. S. (2002). The effects of leader and follower emotional intelligence on performance and attitude: an exploratory study. Leadersh. Q. 13, 243–274. doi: 10.1016/S1048-9843(02)00099-1

Xu, J. (2018). Emotion regulation in mathematics homework : an empirical study. J. Educ. Res. 111, 1–11. doi: 10.1080/00220671.2016.1175409

Zeidner, M., and Matthews, G. (2016). Ability emotional intelligence and mental health: social support as a mediator. Pers. Individ. Differ. 99, 196–199. doi: 10.1016/j.paid.2016.05.008

Zeidner, M., Matthews, G., and Roberts, R. D. (2012). The emotional intelligence, health, and well-being nexus: what have we learned and what have we missed? Appl. Psychol. Heal. Well-Being 4, 1–30. doi: 10.1111/j.1758-0854.2011.01062.x

Table A1 . Studies included in the meta-analysis of the relationships between EI and AP.

Keywords: emotional intelligence, academic performance, secondary education, meta-analysis, instruments

Citation: Sánchez-Álvarez N, Berrios Martos MP and Extremera N (2020) A Meta-Analysis of the Relationship Between Emotional Intelligence and Academic Performance in Secondary Education: A Multi-Stream Comparison. Front. Psychol. 11:1517. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01517

Received: 14 April 2020; Accepted: 08 June 2020; Published: 21 July 2020.

Reviewed by:

Copyright © 2020 Sánchez-Álvarez, Berrios Martos and Extremera. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Nicolás Sánchez-Álvarez, nsa@uma.es

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

113 Emotional Intelligence Research Topics & Essay Examples

Emotional intelligence essays are an essential part of education for many professions that involve working with people, such as managers and teachers.

The concept is somewhat new, having been first introduced half a century ago and popularized at the end of the last century. As such, you have to approach the topic carefully and rely on the latest available evidence to avoid citing outdated ideas.

Furthermore, as with any psychology-related topic, you should exhibit general caution and avoid the numerous pitfalls associated with the study of the human mind. This article will help you understand what you should or should not do to write an excellent paper.

👍 Writing Tips for Projects on Emotional Intelligence

🏆 best topics on emotional intelligence & essay examples, 📝 simple & easy research topics on emotional intelligence, 💡 most interesting emotional intelligence topics to write about, ❓ research questions about emotional intelligence.

Remember that the purpose of psychology is to help people improve themselves, not to stratify society based on vague ideas. Emotional intelligence is not inherent and can be learned by most people, a concept your writing should reflect.

Be sure to discuss the difference between a fixed and a growth mindset, promoting the idea that anyone can adopt the latter and improve himself or herself. Discuss parts of the concept of emotional intelligence, such as patience, in-depth to make the idea easier to understand.

There is a variety of topics and emotional intelligence essay ideas you can utilize to create an engaging work and make your essay excellent and unique among the offerings of your peers.

As emotional intelligence is a skill set anyone may learn, you should avoid language that implies that it is an inherent trait, a quality that is often associated with its non-emotional counterpart.

Whenever you discuss the difference between people with developed communication skills and those whose abilities are somewhat lower, remember to do so in a positive context.

Someone is not inferior because his or her emotional intelligence is lower than another person’s.

However, he or she can benefit from undergoing appropriate training, especially if these skills are important in his or her work. As such, respect people’s individual approaches and offer suggestions instead of treating the theory as universal facts.

Here are some further tips for your work:

• Psychology relies on scenarios where a person’s behavior can be as free of outside factors as possible. Toddler observation and scholarly experiments with carefully selected conditions are excellent examples of such situations, and you should use them to ground your descriptions in reality.
• Be sure to adhere to academic guidelines, avoiding the use of first person, calls to action, and other additions that do not match the format. This approach is useful in general, as it applies to most essays and will be beneficial for future reports and similar submissions.
• Write an emotional intelligence essay introduction and conclusion at the end of your paper. They make your work easier to read by giving it structure and direction. The introduction should contain a description of the topic and a thesis statement, and the conclusion should sum up the main points.
• Try to set a central theme and address it in your essay instead of providing a general overview of the topic. There are many emotional intelligence essay questions that can be answered in considerable detail. As such, you should concentrate on one of them without getting distracted and sidetracked.

Come to IvyPanda for an emotional intelligence essay summary and sample sets as well as various titles that will help you begin your writing process!

• Emotional Intelligence To this end, Goleman states that EI is the combination of “emotional centers of the brain and the cognitive centers “.
• Emotional Intelligence in the Organizational Behavior Context Low EI might cause the leader to be insensitive to the mood of the followers and this will lead to frustration and lower the output of the team.
• Concept of Emotional Intelligence: Arguments Emotional intelligence is the “subset of social intelligence that involves the ability to monitor one’s own and other’s feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them and to use this information to guide one’s thinking and […]
• Emotional Intelligence and Effective Leadership In terms of the assessment of my personality, it portrays that a have to pay critical attention to the emotions and feelings of other individuals, as disregarding them will question my leadership and abilities to […]
• Cognitive Intelligence and Emotional Intelligence in Organisational Behavior The distinction between emotional intelligence and cognitive intelligence is evidenced in the psychometric tests of assessing cognitive ability and psychometric tests of intelligence.
• Leadership Behavior: Ratan Tata and Emotional Intelligence This shows that Ratan Tata, as a leader, was not eager to compete but rather searched for options to expand the market through acquiring businesses.
• The Effect of Students Emotional Intelligence on Academic Performance The findings of the study will be used to assist students to see the importance of controlling their emotions and teachers to realize the need of integrating the components of EI into the curriculum and […]
• Emotional Intelligence and Its Impact on Success As for me, I would define emotional intelligence as the ability to react to the situation in a proper way, to find the appropriate way out of a situation, and to make a decision successful […]
• Emotional Intelligence in Working Environment Emotional intelligence is a type of social intelligence that involves the ability to monitor own and others’ emotions in order to discriminate among them and to use the information to guide one’s thinking and actions.
• Emotional Intelligence: Research and Rationale The authors study the effect that altruistic behavior has on the relationship between emotional intelligence and subjective well-being, which is usually explored in an isolated context.
• Emotional Intelligence and Leadership in the UAE In this case, 45 middle and top managers of companies in the United Arab Emirates were asked to participate in the research to understand their level of emotional intelligence and its influence on the overall […]
• How Emotional Intelligence Influences Leadership In order to be an effective leader, a broad understanding of emotions and their impacts on others is imperative for leaders.
• Emotional Intelligence among University Hospital Nurses Even though it is challenging to overestimate the importance of self-management and its competencies, University Hospital nurses state that this domain brings a few inefficiencies in the medical organization.
• Emotional Intelligence: Self-Awareness Importance Leaders with high self-awareness are more likely to understand their own strengths and weaknesses, as well as their impact on others, which helps them make better decisions, manage stress and conflict effectively, and lead with […]
• Emotional Intelligence: Bluevine Case Analysis These are crucial for the leadership, the staff, and the company as a whole as it strives to enhance its productivity.
• Fostering Effective Communication and Emotional Intelligence in Conflict Resolution The capacity to recognize, comprehend, and react to the sentiments of others is just as important as the capacity to articulate and control one’s own emotions.
• Measuring Emotional Intelligence in Job Selection As a result, managers must be aware of the peculiarities of different generations in the company, as demonstrated by Margie to Rebecca, and behave appropriately.
• Change Leadership and Emotional Intelligence By providing essential information about the arrangement of the theater production, as well as coordinating numerous communication processes within it and leading a diverse team of experts, “Theater 1310” has expanded the range of my […]
• Areas of Emotional Intelligence Self-awareness is the initial step that forms emotional intelligence and allows other areas of the concept to participate in the process.
• Emotional Intelligence and Emotional Management Viewpoints on emotional intelligence as a trait and an ability have some conceptual differences, but both perspectives suppose that it is an essential element of business decision-making, as illustrated by the successful career of Warren […]
• Emotional Intelligence in Leadership Development I found the examples given very convincing and the logic behind the arguments solid and straightforward to follow. At the same time, I disagree that overvaluing one’s skills is connected to experience.
• The “Emotional Intelligence” Book by Goleman In his book, Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ, Daniel Goleman explains this concept and the value of this feature.
• Daniel Goleman Introduces Emotional Intelligence Self-awareness is important in order for a person to be knowledgeable about his or her inner feelings and emotions by being aware of their presence and impact on the individual psyche.
• Emotional Intelligence Coaching Emotional Intelligence Coaching does not focus of giving a person advice about the issues in their private life.
• Why Emotional Intelligence (EI) Training Will Help Your Organization to Prosper Emotional Intelligence comes from two words. Emotions refer to personal feelings arising from the state of the mind of a person.
• Clinical Experience: Emotional Intelligence The lack of clarity in the provided information may affect the accuracy of the diagnosis to a considerable extent. A fungal infection was suspected as the possible cause of the disease due to the rise […]
• Nurses’ Emotional Intelligence and Patient Satisfaction There is little available literature that offers evidence of the impact of the emotional intelligence of nurses on the relationship between patients and nurses, as well as patient satisfaction.
• Emotional Intelligence and Conflict-Handling Styles in Nurses This is a research critique that explores the research problem, the context of the study problem within the existing knowledge, the relevancy of the study to nursing, and the purpose of the research “The relationship […]
• Emotional Intelligence in Nursing Study by Winship The researchers identified their source of stories from a recently published book with inspirational stories about nursing and written by nurses.
• Emotional Intelligence and Effective Leadership in the Healthcare Environment It is also the ability to distinguish the impact of emotions in the life of the individual. He pointed out that EQ enables the individual to adapt to the challenges of the social environment.
• Stress, Emotional Intelligence, and Job Performance Correlation in Nursing Complexity science is important to this study because it enables a person to understand the causes of stress within a system.
• Emotional Intelligence’s Support for Teamwork and Teambuilding in Nursing In instances where a nurse lacks the luxury to pick a team with which to work, understanding others allows the individual to conduct amicable relations for the sake of proper execution of tasks, the health […]
• Emotional Intelligence and Ethical Climates in Places of Work The purpose of this paper is to analyze the importance of having an ethical climate and employees exhibiting high emotional intelligence within a place of work.
• Emotional Intelligence and Social Life The subjects of the study will be selected randomly from several population groups based on the social status of the subjects and their living conditions.
• Leadership and Emotional Intelligence Empathy is ability of a person to feel for another individual, to put oneself emotionally in the shoes of others and relate with their feeling. To be successful in leadership, it is important for a […]
• Psychology: Emotional Intelligence and Leadership Emotional intelligence pertains to the ability to realize your own emotions and those of others, the inspiration of yourself and the management of emotions within and outside relationships.
• Emotional Intelligence: Term Definition He also urges society to rethink about the pattern of education that today’s children are going through and to make them alive to emotional intelligence by way of brainstorming in the daily grind so that […]
• Emotional and Traditional Intelligence: Emotional Intelligence Quotient Emotional intelligence is often described as a capacity and ability, skill to assess and perceive and certain ability to manage personal emotions and emotions of others and group emotions.
• Emotional Intelligence and Solution Formation As a rule, EI is understood as the subject’s ability to effectively understand the emotional sphere of human life: to understand emotions and the psychological background of relationships and to use their emotions to solve […]
• Emotional Intelligence for Human Resource Management How can managers utilize and propagate the concept of EI to promote responsiveness and deliver their projects on time? Quality articles will be identified through the use of these keywords: emotional intelligence, resource management, and […]
• Personal Emotional Intelligence Analysis The completion of the survey is a valuable experience as I used to think I could manage my emotions and understand my own and other people’s feelings.
• Emotional Intelligence Training and Organizational Prosperity One of the fundamental assumptions made in the process of preparing this presentation is that emotional communication is universal regardless of the culture.
• Emotional Intelligence Assessment This is attributable to the fact that they are aware of our weaknesses and are in a better position to correct us accordingly.
• Inspiring Leadership: Social and Emotional Intelligence Finally, it’s prudent to note that the way one handles himself leads to outstanding individual performance and eventually success of an organization.
• Inspiring Leadership and Emotional Intelligence Sinek asserts that such leaders start with the ‘why’ and not the ‘what’ of business communication. Goleman believes that other people are the best assessors of one’s social intelligence.
• Public Health Leadership: Emotional Intelligence For example, the research by Ramchunder and Martins reveals that there is a significant positive correlation between EI and self-efficacy on the development of effective leadership, which can be applied to the public health sphere.
• Emotional Intelligence in Midwives’ Communication Communication is crucial because it helps the midwives to decide when it is appropriate to consult/ transfer the care of a pregnant woman to a relevant medical practitioner.
• Strengths and Emotional Intelligence in Management Emotional intelligence is more focused on different types of awareness and management that come with analysis and understanding of the actions of a person and their surroundings.
• Radiography Stereotypes and Emotional Intelligence The article explored the concept of EI as the means of improving communication and reducing the effects of sociocultural stereotypes on the quality of radiography.
• Emotional Intelligence and Substance Use: Correlations and Implications One of the articles deals with the association between drug and alcohol use and EI. The other article deals with the relationship between emotional intelligence and cocaine use.
• Emotional Intelligence Criticism by Steve Tobak The main idea of the article consists in the fact that the modern tendency of promoting EI is the result of the profit it generates, which is why its promoters tend to provide insufficient information […]
• Experiential Hospitality and Emotional Intelligence Such an image is even worse for an institution that is operating in the hospitality industry, where the capacity to anticipate and attend to the specific needs of clientele is the generalized hallmark of the […]
• Emotional Intelligence Strong and Weak Competencies However, it is agreeable that I have been unable to use the competence to coach and mentor others. The coach indicated that it was hard for me to act and lead others in accordance with […]
• Social and Emotional Intelligence in Education My education philosophy is based on the ideas of pragmatism that had given birth to the learning theory of progressivism and the concepts of social and emotional intelligence.
• Emotional Intelligence in Social Workers As Poulin explains, listening is one of the basic tools for building a link between the patient and the social worker and, therefore, contributing to the development of emotional intelligence in the former.
• Emotional Intelligence’ Elements at the Workplace The vast majority of men and women in business who are very successful demonstrate a level of honesty and trust that is above average.
• Relevance of Emotional Intelligence in Modern Organisations One should control those emotions, and respond to other people’s emotions in the right way; all the latter processes make the ability model. Such a trait allows one to know how people’s emotions change in […]
• Leadership and Emotional Intelligence Concept The goal is to show how I applied various leadership styles to help them in achieving their full potential. To accomplish my tasks, the staff members coached us on various leadership styles that would help […]
• Emotional Intelligence – Psychology Emotional intelligence is defined as the processes that are involved in the recognition, the use, and management of ones own emotional state and also the emotional state of others to solve emotion-laden problems and to […]
• Emotional Intelligence as a Factor of Professional Success American business companies noticed this and started to pay greater attention to the emotional competence of their workers, hire special consultants and advisors to help the employees deal with the emotional intelligence issues, conduct training […]
• Emotional Development and Emotional Intelligence This is based on the fact that emotional intelligence mostly comes from our environment and how we master the nature of occurrences in it.
• Emotional Intelligence, Burnout, and Job Insecurity In order to measure the place of EI as assessed by the 33-item self-report scale in the context of the big-five structure, scores on the 33-item scale were associated with the big-five personality aspects. In […]
• Emotional Intelligence’s Impact in the Workplace The aim of this reflection is to provide a solution on how Emotional Intelligence can be utilised to improve the workplace.
• Emotional Intelligence in Groups In their article, “Building the Emotional Intelligence of Groups”, Druskat and Wolff set out to discuss the concept of emotional intelligence and the role it plays in today’s organizational settings.
• Emotional Intelligence in HR The high scores recorded in the rise of IQ are because of the changing trend in evaluation taking a turn from strictly intellectual testing to testing of competence in the light of psychological statuses gauging […]
• Characteristics of Emotional Intelligence in Different Areas The researchers claim that EI is “the ability to feel, understand, articulate, manage, and apply the power of emotions to interactions across lines of difference”.
• Emotional Intelligence in Teamwork and Mutual Cooperation From this argument it is right to claim that the virtues of emotional intelligence contribute greatly to the aspects of personality and other individualistic provisions.
• Emotional Intelligence and Servant Leadership This is why it can be said that a leader can achieve much if he is able to understand the importance of inner-maturity and awareness such as the need to become a servant leader.
• Emotional Intelligence and Gender in Leadership Many authors have done a lot of research on the subject, and have found that gender and emotional intelligence determine the leadership style in an organisation. This will precede a criticism of the model and […]
• The Need to Improve One’s Self-Awareness Personal improvement is needed in this area because of the frequent loss of confidence and self-esteem in the process of acting on my emotions.
• Cultivating Emotional Intelligence in the Work Place For a longer period of time, it has been believed that the success of a person at the place of work depends on the level of intelligence of that person known as intelligence quotient.
• The Concept of Emotional Intelligence: A Critical Analysis Organisational behaviour and the behaviour of individuals can be understood through the adoption and practice of emotional intelligence in organisations. Emotional intelligence has to resonate from the management of organisation and entail the training of […]
• The Development of Emotional Intelligence and Its Application According to them, EI is “the subset of social intelligence that involves the ability to monitor one’s own and others’ feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them and to use this information to guide one’s […]
• Emotional Intelligence and Employee Performance Correlation The first dimension in the survey was the satisfaction of the organisation with employee performance while the second dimension used was the level of employee performance in the organisation.
• Emotional Intelligence Impact on Organization’s Performance The theoretical framework of such review adds to the knowledge within the field of relational view and firm’s competitive advantage[3]. This in turn increases the level of social communication and collaboration.
• The Concept of Emotional Intelligence and Its Models Contemporary developments in neuroscience have led to issues of locating and measuring intelligence in the brain. In addition, people have various ways of demonstrating competencies in the core components of emotional intelligence.
• Understanding Leader Emotional Intelligence and Performance On the other hand, behavioral leadership focuses on the behavioral traits of a leader to stimulate certain behavioral responses by people who are led by the leader to develop quality, dedication to duty, and talent […]
• Emotional Intelligence in the Workplace Emotional intelligence is a significant requirement for team work; there is a coherent link between successes attained in team work to the level of emotional intelligence held by the members of the team.
• The Concept of Emotional Intelligence We have learned what emotional intelligence is; it is the way that we deal with our emotions and relate to others.
• Does Emotional Intelligence Buffer the Effects of Acute Stress?
• On the Other Hand, Does Emotional Intelligence Have a “Dark Side”?
• Does Emotional Intelligence Help in Developing Consumer-Based Brand Equity Research Paper Samples?
• Does Emotional Intelligence Influence Employees, Customers, and Operational Efficiency?
• Does Emotional Intelligence Influence Job Satisfaction?
• Does Emotional Intelligence Mediate the Relation Between Mindfulness and Anxiety and Depression in Adolescents?
• Does Emotional Intelligence Moderate the Relationship Between Mental Health and Job Performance?
• Does Only Emotional Intelligence Matter?
• Does Perceived Emotional Intelligence and Optimism or Pessimism Predict Psychological Well-Being?
• Does Student Leadership Participation Enhance the Development of Emotional Intelligence?
• Do Managers Need Emotional Intelligence to Manage Successfully in the Workplace?
• How Can You Measure Your Current Emotional Intelligence?
• How Does Emotional Intelligence Help Children?
• How Can Emotional Intelligence Be an Effective Tool for Leaders?
• How Does Emotional Intelligence Contribute to Leadership?
• How Does Emotional Intelligence Help Build Effective Interpersonal Relationships?
• How Does Emotional Intelligence Influence Interpersonal Communication?
• How Can Managers Use Emotional Intelligence?
• How Might Action Learning Be Used to Develop the Emotional Intelligence of Public Administrators?
• What Are Social and Emotional Intelligence?
• What Is Some Emotional Intelligence?
• What Are the Implications of Emotional Intelligence for Leaders?
• Does Emotional Intelligence Play a Buffering Role in Adolescence?
• What Are the Relationships Between Traits of Emotional Intelligence and Personality?
• What Are the Links Between Self-Report Emotional Intelligence and Suicide Risk?
• What Are the Five Characteristics of Emotional Intelligence?
• What Are the Four Types of Emotional Intelligence?
• What Is an Excellent Example of Emotional Intelligence?
• What Makes a Person Emotionally Intelligent?
• Which Personality Type Is the Most Emotionally Intelligent?
• Burnout Questions
• Happiness Research Ideas
• Self-Awareness Research Topics
• Mindfulness Research Ideas
• Positive Psychology Titles
• Stress Management Paper Topics
• Critical Thinking Essay Ideas
• Self-Concept Questions
• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2024, February 27). 113 Emotional Intelligence Research Topics & Essay Examples. https://ivypanda.com/essays/topic/emotional-intelligence-essay-examples/

"113 Emotional Intelligence Research Topics & Essay Examples." IvyPanda , 27 Feb. 2024, ivypanda.com/essays/topic/emotional-intelligence-essay-examples/.

IvyPanda . (2024) '113 Emotional Intelligence Research Topics & Essay Examples'. 27 February.

IvyPanda . 2024. "113 Emotional Intelligence Research Topics & Essay Examples." February 27, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/topic/emotional-intelligence-essay-examples/.

1. IvyPanda . "113 Emotional Intelligence Research Topics & Essay Examples." February 27, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/topic/emotional-intelligence-essay-examples/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "113 Emotional Intelligence Research Topics & Essay Examples." February 27, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/topic/emotional-intelligence-essay-examples/.

Academia.edu no longer supports Internet Explorer.

To browse Academia.edu and the wider internet faster and more securely, please take a few seconds to  upgrade your browser .

Enter the email address you signed up with and we'll email you a reset link.

• We're Hiring!
• Help Center

A Review of Two PhD Theses on Emotional Intelligence

2013, IOSR Journal of Humanities and Social Science

Related Papers

Ovidius University Annals: Economic Sciences Series

GHEORGHE MORARU

Emotions are equivalent to &quot;the spirit that moves us&quot;. These can lead us to a better mobilization, no matter how logical and rational we are, even if we are on the wrong paths. Although it is frequently discussed about emotional intelligence, it has not yet reached its full strength. We still continue to focus on education, self-improvement, intelligence, experience and we still think that the intellect is separate from emotions, even superior to them. Things would be different if we understand that intellect and emotions are not mutually exclusive, but have a similar importance and impact in our lives. The purpose of this paper is to highlight the reasons why emotional intelligence is decisive in professional success, but also in personal life.

Beetle streets

This work sets out to emphasise the importance of Emotional Intelligence at the present time, from a theoretical point of view. To this end, some of the most relevant contributions made by authors who have worked in this field over the last decade, are presented. The importance that this field entails in the life of an individual is underlined and it becomes clear throughout all these works that to encourage emotional intelligence is to promote good health, thanks to putting into practice emotional competencies.

Nicolae Sfetcu

The critical reflection of the aspects of emotional intelligence can be put on account of the different epistemological perspectives, reflecting a maturity of the concept. There is a need to find consistent empirical evidence for the dimensionality of emotional intelligence and to develop appropriate methods for its correct and useful measurement. A concern of researchers is whether emotional intelligence is a theory of personality, a form of intelligence, or a combination of both. Many studies consider emotional intelligence to be a personal factor associated with competence. But most researchers consider emotional intelligence as an emotional awareness of oneself and others, in addition to professional efficiency and emotional management. DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.19339.11045

1.N.Gayathri, 2.Dr. K.Meenakshi

IJOAR Journal

This paper traces the evolution of emotional intelligence as a theory and goes on to give a literature review of the same. It discusses the different concepts and beliefs pertaining to emotion and cognition and how it culminated in the theory of emotional intelligence. It also discusses the three major models of emotional intelligence, their contribution to the theory and finally closes with a brief discussion on future improvement of the theory

Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences

Mariya Islam Mun

Natalio Extremera

Emotional Intelligence (EI) has generated a broad interest both in the lay and scientific fields. Since the development of the concept, research on EI is increasing exponentially. Prestigious scientists from different lines of research contribute to this Special Issue on EI, assessing important theoretical and empirical topics on this construct. The first section of the Special Issue comprises manuscripts reviewing current models and approaches to EI, together with theoretical aspects of the concept. One of the most important topics on EI regards the measurement of the concept, the second section of this issue deeply assesses this matter presenting original investigations on the three approaches available for the measurement of EI. Subsequently, the impact of EI on applied fields, specifically on health, education, and organizations is described and supported by scientific papers in the last section of this Special Issue.

Anju Nandan

Emotional intelligence is a talking point that is gaining a considerable amount of popular attention in all fields with abet of abundant international media attention. Emotional intelligence is the ability to sense, recognize, and efficiently apply the power and acumen of emotions as a source of human energy, information, association and influence. Exploration on Emotional Intelligence has initially appeared to be in scholarly articles in the beginning of 1980`s. The idea of emotional intelligence can be traced from the work of Darwin (1872) in his book entitled, on the origin of species by means of natural selection, discussed the importance of emotional expression for survival and adaptation. By the contribution of these dimensions one can easily find out the level of emotional intelligence that a particular individual posses.

editor of J E T I R Research journal , Editor IJRAR

By Pallavi Panguluri and N. Deepa Mohan

Priyam Dhani

The concept of Emotional Intelligence (EI) has generated unparallel interest both in the lay and scientific fields; it has also become a topic of rapid interest for researchers and academicians. EI is considered to be one of the hottest buzzwords in today's corporate world because it has overshadowed other less spectacular classical psychological concepts such as Intelligence Quotient (IQ) and personality. The present study is an attempt to summarize the literature available on EI by discussing the evolution of the term Emotional Intelligence and various definitions of EI. It also clarifies the concept of EI by reviewing different models of EI and discussing the various measures used to access EI. The paper further throws light on EI in the Indian Context by finding the roots of EI in The Bhagavad-Gita. Further it will reason why EI is important for both personal and professional growth and well being.

https://sites.google.com/site/imtpages/

Immanuel Thomas

Loading Preview

Sorry, preview is currently unavailable. You can download the paper by clicking the button above.

RELATED PAPERS

Chitra Bajpai

BEST: International Journal of Humanities, Arts, Medicine and Sciences (BEST: IJHAMS)

Dr. Visweswara Rao Chenamallu

Personality and Individual Differences

Donald Saklofske

Richard Roberts

Intelligence

Monica Triculescu

Pablo Fernandez-Berrocal

Journal of Education and Learning (EduLearn)

Ailish Jameson

Gerald Matthews

Namrata Punia

Estudos e Pesquisas em Psicologia

Marcelo Mendes

Farhad Alisherov

International Journal for Research in Applied Science & Engineering Technology

IJRASET Publication

Johanna Vanderpol

Peter Anyebe

daniel mara

Journal of Clinical Nursing

Elisabeth Severinsson

Yaser Tedadi

Elixir Psychology

Noordin Yahaya

Saleh Al-Busaidi

International Journal of Recent Technology and Engineering (IJRTE)

namita gupta

Opción: Revista de Ciencias Humanas y Sociales

Valentina Jiménez Acosta

•   We're Hiring!
•   Help Center
• Find new research papers in:
• Health Sciences
• Earth Sciences
• Cognitive Science
• Mathematics
• Computer Science
• Academia ©2024

• thesis help
• topics to stay away from
• developing a strong topic
• education thesis prompts
• marketing problems to explore
• writing on anaesthesia
• health & psychology
• learning & development
• nursing education problems
• sports history topics
• risk management problems
• writing about wildlife
• good topics on nutrition
• writing on emotional intelligence
• good topics in astrophysics
• great topic suggestions
• dissertation topics in law
• computer engineering topics
• thesis topic solutions in finance
• IR dissertation titles
• Art dissertation topic ideas
• Environmental law thesis title
• Picking topics on interior design
• Business topic ideas to explore
• Chemical engineering topics
• Graphic design thesis titles
• 15 topics on pediatric nursing
• Ideas about network security
• Topics on structural engineering
• Economics dissertation topics
• Selection of topics in finance
• Financial markets topic ideas
• Women's studies thesis topics
• deciding on a title
• the secrets of good writing
• writing a thesis in 5 steps
• structuring your paper
• medical paper samples
• Master's paper samples
• writing a purpose statement
• writing a literature review
• PhD thesis methodology
• Doctoral thesis formatting
• tips for undergraduates
• creating a law dissertation
• writing a medical college thesis
• drafting the conclusion
• PhD thesis paper writing hints
• MBA dissertation writing tips
• A thesis on Martin Luther King
• A thesis paper in criminal justice
• Getting a custom dissertation
• Writing a proposal in history
• How to format a cover page
• Finding a finance thesis sample
• APA format bibliography section
• How to make in-text citations
• Marketing thesis writing guide
• Preparing a defense presentation
• Getting a biology thesis sample
• Marketing dissertation proposal
• Purchasing a thesis on the web
• Writing on evaluation of training
• APA thesis acknowledgements
• Using a dissertation database
• Order a dissertation safely
• writing services

Top 15 Dissertation Topics On Emotional Intelligence

Emotional intelligence is seen as an important element in daily living. It can help determine how you interact and react in certain situations. A dissertation can show how emotional intelligence helps people sustain positive relationships on the job or at home with family and friends. In this case, a dissertation would explore deeper elements related to emotional and mental health.

Defining Emotional Intelligence to Help Understand What You Can Write

If you conduct a search of what emotional intelligence means or a definition, you may come across several explanations. You can come up with your own definition to help you determine a good topic idea for your dissertation. As you develop a better understand this makes selecting a topic easier. As a student learning the subject matter your definition may be different from others, but it is a chance to develop something new based on your perception.

Seek Sample Dissertation Papers on Related Subject Matter for Inspiration

Sample dissertation papers can be found through academic databases online. Many college universities recommend to their students specific databases online because of paper quality. Your school may provide this information on their website, but you can research this information and come across schools offering related tips.

15 Ideas to Help You Develop Your Own Dissertation Topic

Here are 15 ideas to act as writing prompts when developing your own dissertation topic.

• What are important attributes contributing to emotional intelligence?
• Why is it important for people to develop social awareness?
• How can people change the way they react to stress?
• Why is emotional intelligence important to physical health?
• How can people exercise and build stronger communications with each other?
• What are effective ways of raising emotional intelligence?
• How is nonverbal communication just as important as verbal communication?
• What are techniques people can use for solving conflicts while remaining confident about the result?
• What are skills people can develop in establishing positive emotional intelligence?
• How can people change how they respond to stress and how can they identify elements of stress?
• How do experiences from the past effect a person’s emotional intelligence?
• The importance of analyzing feelings and emotions.
• How can people be more positive during hardships?
• Why is it so difficult for people to learn forgiveness?
• How does one handle conflicts that may not have a solution?

Popular Blogs

Tips and tricks.

• Thesis proposal sample related to tourism
• Where to get affordable assistance
• Crafting the introductory section
• 5 places to get free samples
• A winning results section
• Writing a paper in physics
• Where to find sample Master's proposals
• MBA dissertation proposal examples
• Discovering US history topics
• How to stay on the right track
• Free dissertation prospectus examples
• Working on an HRM degree paper
• APA formatting instructions
• Getting a dissertation template
• Creating a solid paper in a month
• Hiring a dissertation writer
• Writing a report on marketing
• Writing an introduction
• 3 places to get MBA paper samples
• How to buy papers at a low cost
• Professional thesis writing manual
• Creating the discussion section
• Searching for thesis paper writing help
• Where to find someone who will do my thesis
• Organizing a law thesis methods section
• Studying history questions
• PhD paper prospectus samples
• Custom writing services
• How to select an academic writing company
• Acknowledgement templates
• Geography thesis conclusion section

2024 ©. All Rights Reserved. Morey-Editions.com.

• My Shodhganga
• Receive email updates
• Edit Profile

Shodhganga : a reservoir of Indian theses @ INFLIBNET

• Shodhganga@INFLIBNET
• Madurai Kamaraj University
• Department of Management Studies

Items in Shodhganga are licensed under Creative Commons Licence Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0).