Professional Documents
Culture Documents
O Psycholoy~c~l
Reports 2002
'This study was supported by the Academic Research Program Grant GRCOOOB1607 from the
Royal Mihtary College to Danielle Charbonneau. Address correspondence to Danielle Charbon-
neau, Department of Military Psychology and Leadership, Royal Military Colle e of Canada,
P.O. Box 17000, Station forces, I n g s t o n , Ontario, Canada, K7K 7B4 or e-mail Ycharbonneau-
d@rmc.ca).
3 62 D. CHARBONNEAU & A. A. M. NICOL
predict that women will demonstrate more sportsmanship than men, given
their higher emotional intelligence as reported by Mayer, et al. (2000).
participants
Participants were 150 senior members of a youth organization run by
mihtary officers. After elimination of incomplete data sets, 134 participants
remained. The average age of participants was 15.5 yr. (SD=0.9), range 13
to 18. Of these participants, 72 were boys and 62 were girls. Participants
were involved in a 6-wk. military training camp during which they lived to-
gether in barracks. They were divided by trade into eight groups (two
music, three gunners, and three sailors), each comprising between 15 and 30
members. Participants had the opportunity to observe and evaluate their
peers for 6 wk. within each group. The camp included individuals from dif-
ferent regions in the country. Participants were selected for camp through
their involvement in their hometown organized military activities during the
previous year. Hence, some participants may have known each other prior to
camp if they lived in the same town or had been to camp together in previ-
ous summers.
Materials
A complete data set consisted of a self-report measures on emotional
intehgence and three to four peer ratings on organizational citizenship be-
haviors.
Emotional intelligence.-Schutte, et al. (1998) developed a self-report
measure based on an early model of emotional intehgence by Salovey and
Mayer (1990). This measure contains 33 items. Schutte, et al. reported ac-
ceptable internal consistency ( a = . 9 0 ) , construct validity, and predictive
validity for adult samples, including a sample with an average age of 18.9 yr.
A factor analysis indicated that all items loaded on one factor. Answers were
reported on a >-point rating scale anchored by 1: strongly disagree and 5:
strongly agree. The use of this scale was recommended by Abraham (1999)
because it is brief and has sound psychometric properties.
Organizational citizenship behaviors.-A 20-item organizational citizen-
ship behaviors scale was described by Niehoff and Moorman (1993). The
scale measures agreement with whether one displays certain behaviors (1:
strongly dsagree and 5: strongly agree). The scale contains five factors: Al-
truism (e.g., "helps others who have been absent"), Courtesy (e.g., "informs
me before taking any important actions"), Sportsmanship (e.g., "consumes a
lot of time complaining about trivial mattersu-reverse coded), Conscien-
tiousness (e.g., "is always punctual"), and Civic Virtue (e.g., "attends and
participates in meetings regarding the camp"). This measure was adapted to
ELMOTIONAL I N T E L L I G E N C E 3 65
the participants' age and the context. For instance, the item for Civic Virtue
"Keeps abreast of changes in the organization" was changed to "Keeps
abreast of changes in the camp."
Procedure
Participants completed the questionnaires during the last week of camp.
Nominal lists of senior members composing each group were obtained
ahead of time so that randomization of peer assessment could be done.
Thus, participants were equally k e l y to be assessed by any of their group
peers, regardless of sex. Individuals who greed to participate signed a con-
sent form and completed the questionna~rcs Participants rated themselves
on emotional intelligence and rated up to four peers on organizational citi-
zenship behaviors.
RESULTS
Participants were rated by 3.64 peers (SD=0.48). Responses from peers
were averaged for each participant. To assess the appropriateness of aggre-
gating peer ratings, within-group agreement indexes, rWg,were con~puted
(James, Demaree, & Wolf, 1984) for each participant, on each of che five
factors of Organizational Citizenship Behaviors. Analysis indicated that the
following percentages of groups had r,", greater than .70: for Altruism 83%,
for Courtesy 80%, for Sportsmanship 71%, for Conscientiousness 7 8 % , and
for Civic Virtue 85%. Because peers had been randomly selected to rate
participants, a certain amount of disagreement was expected amongst raters.
Nevertheless, these results were deemed adequate to justify an aggregation of
scores. Average scores were thought to provide a better representation of
what participants were r e d y Me.
Descriptive statistics and intercorrelations of all the study variables are
presented in Table 1. Internal consistencies of the variables are acceptable
(a=.69 or greater). Emotional Intelhgence correlated significantly with two
TABLE 1
DUCRIPTTVE
STATISTICS
A N D [N~ERCORREUTIONS ( N =130)
FOR STUDYVARIABLES
Variable M SD r
1 2 3 4 5 6
1. Emotional Intelligence 3.77 0.44 .84
Organizational Citizenship Behaviors
2. Altruism 3.07 0.67 .25* .88
3. Courtesy 3.15 0.61 .21 35" .83
4 . Sportsmanship 3.05 0.56 .06 .45" .52" .69
5.Conscientiousness 3.10 0.66 .20 .78* .79* 32" .84
6. Civic Virtue 314 0.53 .24* .84* .78* .49* .75* .78
7 . Age 15.49 0.90 .10 -.lo -.09 .09 -.04 -.01
Note.-Numbers in boldface represent measures of internal consistency (Cronbach alpha).
*p<.o1.
3 66 D. CHARBONNEAU & A. A. M. NICOL
TABLE 2
FORALLSTUDY VARLABLES
SEX DIFFERENCES
DISCUSSION
Self-ratings of emotional intelligence correlated significantly with peer-
ratings of nvo factors of organizational citizenship behaviors, thereby provid-
ing partial support for Abraham's theoretical arguments (1999) of a relation-
ship between emotional intehgence and organizational citizenship behaviors.
Indeed, adolescents who reported higher emotional intehgence were rated
by their peers as being more altruistic and having more civic virtue. Further-
more, there was a tendency for peers to rate as more courteous and more
conscientious those who obtained high scores on Emotional Intelhgence.
Contrary to expectation, rated Sportsmanship did not correlate significantly
with Emotional Intelhgence. That is, the abiltty to regulate one's mood and
to remain optimistic in the face of challenge was not correlated with the abil-
ity to foster a positive atmosphere by refraining from complaining and from
EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE 3 67
inflating the severity of problems. Therefore, the extent to which others per-
ceive someone as a complainer and a pessimist does not correlate with how
one views oneself on emotional intelhgence. One possible explanation may
be that items describing Sportsmanship focus on behaviors that may be less
prosocial in nature. For example, one item depicts someone who does not
spend a loc of time complaining about trivial matters. Interestingly, the inter-
correlationships of Sportsmanship with the other dimensions of organiza-
tional citizenship behaviors are the lowest in the matrix.
Four explanations can account, at least in part, for the low to moderate
magnitude of the correlations obtained in this study. The first explanation
concerns the source of information. Self-rating measures of individual char-
acteristics, such as intelligence and personahty, do not typically correlate
highly with ratings of one's behavior by others. The reason this was nonethe-
less used in this study is that participants may not have gotten to know each
other well enough within 6 wk. to rate each other accurately on the items
that compose the emotional intelligence scale. Also, for ~ersonnelselection
purposes, self-report may be the only means of acquiring this kind of infor-
mation.
Second, Martinez-Pons (1998) differentiated between self-oriented and
other-oriented emotional intelhgence
- in adolescents. The first dimension con-
terns the actention to, understanding of, and control of one's emotions and
moods. The other-oriented aspect of emotional intehgence characterizes the
attention to, understanding of, and control of the emotions and moods of
others. Both dimensions were assessed via self-reports using 3-item explora-
tory measures. Using a path analysis, Martinez-Pons found that the other-
oriented aspect had a more direct influence on self-perceptions of social
functioning than the self-oriented aspect, whose effect on self-perceptions of
social functioning was indirect. An examin~c~on of the questionnaire of
Schutte, et a/. (1998) shows a majority of the Items assess different aspects of
one's emotions and mood changes and would assess more the self-oriented
aspect than the other-oriented aspect of emotional intelhgence. As there was
no known psychometrically sound measure of the other-oriented aspect of
emotional intelhgence at the time of data collection, we selected the Schutte,
et al. measure (1998) despite its lower association with social func-
tioning. Although our results may fall on the conservative side, they are
significant. Furthermore, they suggest that further developnlent of the other-
oriented dimension would be worthwhile.
Third, Carson and Carson (1998) found that emotional intelhgence was
positively associated with career commitment which, in turn, was related to
organizational citizenship behaviors in adults (see also Abraham, 1999). A
comparable variable, such as participants' commitment to a future mditary
career, may also medate the relationship between emotional intelligence and
368 D. CHARBONNEAU & A. A. M. NICOL
organizational
- citizenship behaviors in adolescents. The presence of such a
mediator may result in a low correlation between emotional intelligence and
organizational citizenship behaviors. Carson and Carson did not report the
correlations between emotional intelligence and organizational citizenship
behaviors so a direct comparison of results cannot be made.
Finally, correlates of Schutte, et al.'s measure of emotional intelhgence
(1998), such as positive affect, optimism, and lack of depression, may posi-
tively influence prosocial behaviors and, in turn, peer-ratings of participants'
behaviors. Indeed, the contribution of positive mood to helping behavior is
well known in social psychology (see Myers, 1996).
Anocher point is worthy of mention. The average total emotional intelh-
gence score in our sample (M= 127.4 and M = 121.8, for girls and boys,
respectively) is lower than in Schutte, et al.'s (1998) female (M= 130.9) and
maL (M= 124.8). Schutte, et al.'s sample comprised therapists
(assumed high in emotional intelligence), and female prisoners and clients in
a substance abuse treatment program (participants from the latter two groups
assumed to be low in emotional intelligence). Although Schutte, et al.'s adult
sample may not be representative of the average adult population, this lim-
ited information is consistent with Mayer, et al.'s findings (2000) that emo-
tional intelligence increases from early adolescence to young adulthood. It is
noteworthy that age did not correlate significantly with any of the study vari-
ables in the current study, probably because the range of participants' ages
was restricted. Alternatively, indviduals involved in a mhtary environment
may differ somehow in emotional intelligence from those not involved in
such youth organizations.
Consistent with other findings in the literature, the girls scored higher
than boys did on the measure of emotional intelhgence (Schutte, et a/., 1998;
Mayer, et a/., 2000). The results also partly support our predictions of sex
differences on the organizational citizenship behavior factors. As expected,
female participants scored higher than male participants on Altruism, Con-
scientiousness, and Civic virtue but not on Courtesy and Sportsmanship.
However, these results must be interpreted with caution because the use of
multiple t tests increases the chance of making a Type I1 error. This warning
is particularly valid for Altruism, Conscientiousness, and Civic virtue for
which a sex difference is more speculative. Our results highlight the possibil-
~ -
ity that women may be more lkely to volunteer to help others in an organi-
zational environment. This would be consistent with suggestions that women
are more Uely to help individuals whom they know well (Eagly & Crowley,
1986). Furthermore, women may have been more punctual, may have obey-
ed the camp rules more, may have participated more in camp meetings, and
may have kept better informed about new developments in the camp. These
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