Faking Good on Self-Reports Versus Informant-Reports of Emotional Intelligence

Area of Science:

• Psychology
• Organizational Behavior
• Human Resources

Background:

• Previous research confirms individuals can exaggerate their emotional intelligence (EI) on self-report measures.
• The extent to which others (informants) can also falsify EI ratings remains largely unexplored.
• Understanding potential response biases is crucial for accurate EI assessment in applied settings.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate whether informants can fake emotional intelligence ratings on behalf of a target individual.
• To compare the degree of faking in self-reports versus informant-reports under simulated job selection conditions.
• To examine the impact of different response instructions (honest vs. job simulation) on EI scores.

Main Methods:

• Employed a 2x2 between-subjects design with 81 community volunteers and 151 university students.
• Participants completed the Trait Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire-Short Form (TEIQue-SF) under either self-report or informant-report conditions.
• Two instruction sets were used: 'answer honestly' and 'job simulation' to induce potential faking.

Main Results:

• Both self-reported and informant-reported EI scores were significantly higher under job simulation instructions compared to honest response instructions.
• Substantial faking was evident across both self-report (d = 1.47) and informant-report (d = 1.56) measures.
• Informant reports showed a slightly larger effect size for faking than self-reports.

Conclusions:

• Individuals can intentionally misrepresent emotional intelligence, not only for themselves but also when providing ratings for others.
• The findings highlight the vulnerability of both self-report and informant-report EI assessments to response distortion in selection contexts.
• Implications for the validity of EI assessments in applied psychology and human resource management require careful consideration.