Emotional Intelligence

This study is the impact of Emotional Intelligence (EI) on job performance on a sample of 101 working executives in a pharmaceutical company in Mumbai, India. The impact of EI on job performance is studied while controlling for General Mental Ability (GMA) and the personality factor of conscientiousness. The paper also investigates the moderating effect of job characteristics (specifically, the extent of interpersonal interaction required on the job) on the relationship between EI and job performance. Analysis of the data showed that EI did not show significant impact on job performance for the entire sample. However, for individuals having high interpersonal interaction on their jobs, EI was significantly related to job performance. On the other hand, for individuals having low interpersonal interaction on their jobs, EI was not related to job performance.

Key Words: Emotional Intelligence, Job Characteristics, Job Performance, Personality, Intelligence, Interpersonal Interaction

The term "emotional intelligence" was first used in 1990 by Peter Salovey and John D. Mayer. Salovey and Mayer (1990) defined EI as a subset of social intelligence and involving "the ability to monitor one's own feelings and emotions, to discriminate among

them, and use this information to guide one's thinking and actions" (p.189). There is hardly any concept in the study of human behavior, which is as controversial as that of emotional intelligence. Typically, it is defined as the ability to recognize and regulate emotion in oneself and others (Spector, 2005). Criticism from the academic community was largely spurred by the immense popularity of Goleman's (1995) book and the subsequent proliferation of models and scales for emotional intelligence, which claimed that emotional intelligence could guarantee success in almost any area of one's life

(Mayer, 1999). Some academicians have criticized the concept of emotional intelligence as suspect because most of its conclusions are based on data from proprietary databases, which are not available for scientific scrutiny (Landy, 2005). Others have questioned the very basis of the construct because emotion and cognition are distinct, and whatever is being claimed as emotional intelligence is merely an assortment of habits, skills, and choices (Locke, 2005).