Emotional Intelligence and Academic Performance

Few areas of psychology have attracted as much controversy as that of intelligence. Some experts argue that intelligence is the most important aspect of individual differences, whereas others doubt its value as a concept (Deary 2014). Emotional intelligence (EI) was defined by Salovey and Mayer (1990) and seen as a subset of social intelligence and similar as that of intrapersonal intelligence. The concept involves the individual’s ability to appraise his own and other’s feelings and emotions, discriminate among these emotions and use the emotion information to accomplish tasks to reach goals. The specific aim of the study was to determine the relationship between general cognitive ability, emotional intelligence and academic performance. The instruments utilized were the Learning Potential Computerised Adaptive Test (LPCAT) and Emotional Intelligence Test Body-Mind (Jerabek 1996). The sample comprised of 32 third year students studying Human Resources Management. The results indicated a positive relation between academic performance and emotional intelligence. Inferential statistics proved that males and females do not differ significantly on the three dependant variables