Is there a validity increment for tests of emotional intelligence in explaining the variance of performance criteria?

Emotional intelligence (EI) has often been criticized to measure nothing more than intelligence and personality. Recent studies have shown that EI has an incremental validity concerning life outcome criteria, but inconsistent results have been found for achievement criteria. Two studies were conducted to examine if EI could predict achievement above and beyond intelligence and conscientiousness. In the first study, a sample of students (N = 227, age range = 17–20 years, M = 17.02, S.D. = 0.77) were recruited and school performance served as an achievement criteria. In the second study, education, social status of profession, and average income were taken as vocational performance criteria and examined in a sample of employed adults (N = 207, age range = 27–43 years, M = 33.82, S.D. = 3.96) from the local community. By means of structural equation modelling, the data of both samples were separately tested for sex differences as well as for a validity increment of EI. In both samples, EI could not explain any variance in the criteria beyond psychometric intelligence and conscientiousness. The tests for sex differences only showed sex-specific convergent validity of EI in the student sample, providing useful information on the developmental aspect of EI.