What If We Fake Emotional Intelligence? A Test of Criterion Validity Attenuation

Abstract

We evaluate the extent to which established self-report measures of emotional intelligence (EI) are susceptible to socially desirable responding. A study was conducted to assess the relationship between EI and multiple outcomes across 3 experimental faking conditions. Using structural equation modeling, we found that the criterion validities of self-report EI measures in the prediction of life satisfaction, psychological distress, rational coping, and detachment coping are not attenuated in moderate social desirability settings, but are somewhat attenuated when faking is maximized. Moreover, partialing out social desirability does not yield any improvement of the predictive validity of self-report EI.

Acknowledgments

An earlier version of this article was presented at the annual meeting of Southern Management Association in 2008 at St. Petersburg, FL. We thank Carolyn MacCann and Hettie Richardson for their excellent theoretical and methodological suggestions. We also thank Myeong-gu Seo and Mark Brackett for their helpful comments on this article.