Beware of the Dark Side:
The Strategic Use of Emotional Intelligence in Highly
Political Organizations
Master Thesis, MSc., Human Resource Management University of Groningen, Faculty of Economics and Business
June 16th, 2019
Marie Schmidt S3750019
Van Heemskerckstraat 31A 9726 GC, Groningen
m.schmidt.14@student.rug.nl
+43 676 722 94 55
Supervisor: B. Verwaeren E-mail: b.verwaeren@rug.nl
Abstract. Research on Emotional Intelligence (EI) has become more and more interesting for organizational researchers, as the concept is known to be an important antecedent to desired work attitudes and outcomes. Many researchers, however, believe that EI has a dark side and is not only used for prosocial actions, as emotionally intelligent individuals possess the necessary abilities to use them self-servingly, at the possible detriment of others and/or the organization. I suggest that highly political organizations offer circumstances under which emotionally intelligent individuals would use their abilities for self-serving ends. Outcomes of regression analyses of the survey data collected from 239 employees did not confirm the aim of the research, as they did not attribute a dark side to emotional intelligence. However, the explanations I propose for the absence of findings offer interesting points in need of future research.
Keywords: Emotional Intelligence, Dark Side, Political Skill, Organizational Politics,
Self-Serving Behaviour
INTRODUCTION
Until the 1990s, the concept of emotional intelligence (EI) received little attention (Carmeli & Josman, 2006). The 1990s, however, were pivotal for this new kind of social intelligence. Since, it is one of the most controversial concepts that have been introduced and has, as of late, received much attention, not only in the field of psychology, but also in management. The reason for this is that emotional intelligence has been found to be an antecedent of desired attributes such as better social relationships (Brackett, Rivers, Shiffman, Lerner, & Salovey, 2006), higher life satisfaction (Ciarrochi, Chan & Caputi, 2000) and psychological well-being (Brackett & Mayer, 2003). Moreover, growing evidence shows that emotional intelligence is a crucial determinant of performance on both the
personal and the organizational level (Carmeli & Josman, 2006). Goleman (1998), one of the biggest proponents of the concept, argues that emotional intelligence, especially at the top of the organizational ladder, is crucial in order to distinguish between performers and superior performers. Indeed, a study performed by Cavallo and Brienza (2006) on 358 managers found a strong relationship between higher performing leaders and emotional competence. Furthermore, emotional intelligence has been positively related to work attributes such as job satisfaction and organizational commitment (Miao, Humphrey, & Qian, 2017). Because of the strong emphasis on these positive attributes, emotional intelligence is presumed to be part of positive psychology (Salovey, Mayer, Caruso, & Yoo, 2012).
performance. Similarly, several scholars (for examples see Caruso, Mayer, & Salovey, 2002; Cherniss & Goleman, 1998; Goleman, 1998) have suggested that emotional intelligence should be increased in the workplace and its abilities professionally developed, even though it remains controversial whether emotional intelligence can be taught and trained (Côté, 2014). However, because of the specificity of the skills an emotionally intelligent individual possesses, awareness needs to be raised on the circumstances under which these skills and abilities might be used strategically for undesired consequences and counterproductive goals motivated by self-interest.
A few scholars indeed abnegate the idea of emotional intelligence being the panacea to all human problems, in contrast to what has seemingly been previously suggested. Salovey and Grewal (2005) rightly observe that “emotional intelligence is a set of abilities that can be applied in prosocial and antisocial ways” (p.285). A small body of research has investigated whether there could be a dark side to emotional intelligence and under what circumstances it might surface. (For examples see Côté, DeCelles, McCarthy, van Kleef, & Hideg, 2011; Côté & Hideg, 2011; Jonason, Webster, Schmitt, Li, & Crysel, 2012; Jr, Humphrey, Pollack, Hawver, & Story, 2011; Kilduff, Chiaburu, & Menges, 2010). Even though most of these studies couldn’t prove the dark side of emotional intelligence, there clearly is the belief that the abilities could be linked to manipulation or counterproductive and self-interested
behaviour.
career aspirations with the skills they have when nothing seems to be guaranteed. The current research will investigate whether emotionally intelligent individuals, when they perceive their organizational environment as political, are likely to acquire political skill and use the
abilities that these two skills bring in order to further their own interests.
Previous research has mainly focused on emotions as being an expression of the self and the manifestations of inner attitudes (Kilduff et al., 2010) and has not related emotions to the possible achievement of goals. My research builds on previous literature that supports the existence of a dark side to the otherwise prosocial and positively connoted emotional
intelligence. Moreover, my work responds to recent calls for research on whether internal competition and the co-occurrence of (inter)personal abilities would lead to the activation self-serving behaviour in emotionally intelligent individuals (Kilduff et al, 2010). Also, further research on the interconnection between EI and political skill has been demanded (Momm, Blickle, Liu, Wihler, Kholin & Menges, 2015). I therefore contribute to the scarce literature on the dark side of emotional intelligence by investigating situational circumstances under which it is likely to occur, and I shed light on the effect of the interplay between
emotional intelligence and political skill on work attitudes and behaviours, as suggested by Meisler (2014).
Furthermore, I believe that this line of research is important for practitioners, as several researchers (see for example Miao et al., 2017; Salovey & Grewal, 2005; Caruso, Mayer & Salovey, 2002; Cherniss & Goleman, 1998) have suggested that, because EI has previously been linked to many desired work outcomes and attitudes, increasing EI in the workplace is a very cost-effective way of increasing organizational performance. However, because of the specificity of the abilities emotionally intelligent individuals possess,
organizations need to be aware of the circumstances that might lead to the individuals
motivated by self-interest. It is crucial for practitioners to be aware of all possible facets EI could have. This has also been suggested by Momm et al. (2015), as it still remains unclear “whether and when people apply their emotional abilities and political skill in the pursuit of self-interests rather than organizational interests” (p.159).
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
Emotional intelligence refers to “the ability to monitor one’s own and others’ feelings, to discriminate among them, and to use this information to guide one’s own thinking and actions” (Salovey & Mayer, 1990: 189). Later, Mayer and Salovey (1997), refined their definition of emotional intelligence and divided the concept into a set of four related abilities that hierarchically build on and include each other: perceiving, using, understanding and managing emotions. Their concept combines intellectual intelligence and emotion in a way that facilitates cognitive activities and clarifies the complex relationship between emotions and their emergence. The ability to perceive emotions refers to the most basic ability of correctly detecting and appraising emotions in others and to identify one’s own emotions. The second ability of emotional intelligence, using emotions, refers to using emotions in order to facilitate cognitive activities, like decision making, reasoning or problem solving. The third ability, understanding emotions, corresponds to the ability of perceiving the cause and consequences of emotions, recognizing the relationship between them and understanding their meaning and evolvement. Managing emotions, the fourth dimension, refers to
individuals being able to harness and regulate their own and others’ emotions in order to direct them towards (personal) performance and the achievement of intended goals (Mayer & Salovey, 1997).
proposed, which are based on the four different abilities ascribed to emotional intelligence. They posit that the first two abilities of emotional intelligence, perceiving emotions of the self and others, and the use of EI to facilitate thinking, are invaluable for focusing on strategically important targets. In other words, individuals being able to perceive and use emotions are able to selectively focus on those who are valuable in the pursuit of self-interest. All three other tactics request the ability of managing the emotions of the self and others, including the abilities of the levels below1. The second dark tactic Kilduff et al. (2010) offer, disguising and expressing emotions for personal gain, refers to the ability of displaying emotions as needed, even though they are not representative of someone’s inner state. The third tactic, stirring and shaping others’ emotions through sense-giving and misattribution, entails the ability of adapting the meaning of events to one’s interest and construing
“uncertain situations in terms that subtly advance their own agenda” (p.134). The final tactic is the strategic control of emotion-laden information. It involves emotionally intelligent individuals evoking emotions in others in order to influence their behaviour. Interestingly, the way Kilduff and colleagues depict the different tactics, it would be hard for anyone to detect self-interest behind the emotionally intelligent individuals’ strategic behaviour. They suggest that the way emotionally intelligent people further their personal goals is without violating social norms and often disguised as good citizenship behaviour. It can therefore be expected that it is hard to detect any malfeasance on the part of an emotionally intelligent individual, as they are very aware of how their actions are being perceived by others.
These described tactics are particularly powerful for the achievement of goals in a highly competitive organizational environment. However, especially in the organizational context it is important that the goals of the organizations and the goals of its employees are
aligned (Coyle-Shapiro & Shore, 2007) and that employees do not aim to satisfy their own goals first. However, organizations are political arenas in which resources are scarce
(Mintzberg, 1983). This can lead to individuals being thorough and strategic in the choice of the approach they use in order to compete for valued, scarce resources (e.g. promotion, power, rewards). One favoured way of acquiring these resources is through interpersonal influence strategies and by being sensitive to one’s surroundings (Momm, Blickle, & Liu, 2010). These abilities are combined within the construct of political skill.
Political skill is defined as “the ability to effectively understand others at work, and to use such knowledge to influence others to act in ways that enhance one’s personal and/or organizational objectives” (Ahearn, Ferris, Hochwarter, Douglas & Ammeter, 2004: 311). Political skill, moreover, refers to the ability of exercising influence through persuasion and negotiation (Mintzberg, 1983).
Conceptually, emotional intelligence and political skill share similarities in their definitions. Both are abilities contributing to social effectiveness. Moreover, both concepts possess aspects that lead to the self-regulation of the own behaviour in ways that influence the behaviour and reactions of others. Thus, both highly emotionally intelligent and politically skilled individuals are able to hide their intentions. However, there are also important differences between the two concepts. While EI focusses on the emotion-based aspect of interpersonal effectiveness, influence and control, political skill is said to
incorporate skills that go beyond emotions (Ferris et al., 2007). Emotional intelligence refers to a general behaviour, whereas political skilled behaviour describes a goal-directed
behaviour. Therefore, EI is more intrinsically motivated, whereas political skill is motivated by the possible achievement of a goal (Semadar, Robins, & Ferris, 2006). Moreover, I suggest that the abilities linked to emotional intelligence are abilities that facilitate the
use of these cues in order to further organization goals. Because of the similarities of these partly overlapping concepts, I further suggest:
Hypothesis 1: Emotional intelligence is positively related to political skill.
According to the conservation of resources theory (Hobfoll, 1989), political skill gets activated in the light of scarce resources (e.g. money, promotion, rewards, power) within an organization and acts as mean to obtain these valuable resources (Frost, 1987). The likelihood of the activation of the skill depends on motivation and personal preferences, as not every individual attributes the same value to a resource (Jones, 1964). People develop goals and strivings that guide their work behaviour towards the achievement of their goals (Ferris et al., 2007). Ferris and colleagues further suggested that politically skilled individuals are not only comfortable in different social situations at work, but are able to do so in ways that disguise any ulterior, self-serving motives (Ferris et al., 2005). Therefore, politically skilled
individuals are able to influence effectively and seem sincere and genuine in social
interactions. In political arenas, individuals are likely to do the best they can with whatever skill they possess to advance their own career goals (Kilduff et al., 2010). One of the most useful skills for this is political skill. I therefore posit:
Hypothesis 2: Political skill is positively related to self-serving behaviour.
absent (Hochwarter et al., 2000). Organizational politics can evoke intense emotions (e.g. anger, frustration) in employees who participate in the political game and in those who observe it. Depending on the individual differences in personality, organizational politics can be perceived either as opportunity or threat (Byrne, 2017). For those who witness
organizational politics as threat, reactions can include undesired work outcomes such as lowered organizational commitment, increased turnover (intentions), stress and anxiety (Liu, Ferris, Treadway, Prati, Perrewé, & Hochwarter, 2006). Those, however, who perceive organizational politics as opportunity are very likely to engage in behaviours intended to make the best out of the circumstances and perhaps promote their self-interests (Buchanan & Badham, 1999; Kacmar & Ferris, 1991). Because individuals high in EI can regulate their emotions in order to maintain positive ones (Mayer & Salovey, 1997) and because they have the necessary predispositions (Byrne, 2017), I expect that they will perceive organizational politics as an opportunity to advance rather than a threat to their career goals. Therefore, I posit that the emotional reactions triggered by the perception of political acts will not induce undesirables work outcomes (Meisler & Vigoda-Gadot, 2014) in emotionally intelligent individuals, but will instead lead them to acquire necessary skills to engage in the political game. For this reason, I further suggest:
Hypothesis 3: High levels of organizational politics increase the positive relationship between emotional intelligence and political skill.
Kilduff et al. (2010) suggested that competition is likely to stimulate an individual’s self-serving behaviour, especially when the individual is highly skilled in emotional
of being skilled enough to gain access to scarce resources. Moreover, Ferris et al. (2007) suggested that “political skill is the mechanism through which goal-directed behaviour is activated in pursuit of interpersonal objectives and/or outcomes achievement” (p. 300). In this case, self-serving behaviour is the behaviour directed towards gaining advantages over colleagues in a work environment perceived as unfair. I therefore further expect that:
Hypothesis 4: High levels of organizational politics increase the positive relationship between political skill and self-serving behaviour.
The above-mentioned hypotheses are summarized in the moderated-mediation model depicted in Figure 1., in which political skill mediates the relationship between EI and self-serving behaviour. Moreover, (perceptions of) organizational politics moderate the
relationship between EI and political skill, as well as the relationship between political skill and self-serving behaviour. The current research will investigate the relationship between the different constructs and how they impact each other.
METHOD Participants and Design
The above-mentioned conceptual model and underlying hypotheses have been tested through an online survey. The questionnaire was distributed by myself and two of my
colleagues, wherefore it included other scales as well. Participants have been mobilized using our personal network (convenience sampling) and by using snowball sampling, as the only requirement they had to fulfil was to be employed. In order to fully accommodate to the participants, the survey was available in English, Dutch, German and French. Participants were requested to indicate their level of agreement or disagreement with the statements by answering on a five-point Likert-scale ranging from ‘totally disagree’ to ‘fully agree’. Participation was completely voluntary, and participants were able to quit at any time during the survey. The data is anonymous and has been handled with precaution, in order to preserve and protect the participants’ confidentiality and anonymity. Moreover, the data has been used only for academic purposes.
The sample consisted of 337 participants. However, of these participants, 98 didn’t fully complete the survey and therefore were excluded from further analysis. The sample size this research is based on is 239 participants (N=239). The average age of the participants is 32.47 years, with a gender distribution of 63.9% females, 35.7% males and one gender-neutral participant (0.4%). Regarding the nationalities of the responders, the majority of 156 participants (65.5%) indicated being Dutch, while the minority of the participants consisted of 56 Austrians (23.5%), 4 Senegalese (1.7%) and 22 participants from other countries
(9.2%). 101 participants were working full-time (42.4%), while 31 participants (13%) worked one day (8 hours) or less. The average organizational tenure of the participants was
Measurements2
Emotional Intelligence. Emotional intelligence has been measured using the Wong and Law Emotional Intelligence Scale (WLEIS; Law, Wong, & Kong, 2004; Wong & Law, 2002). The scale is in line with Mayer and Salovey’s (1997) ability model of EI and
incorporates items on the four distinct abilities. Furthermore, it specifically has been designed for use in organizations. A sample item is “I am quite capable of controlling my own
emotions”. (α=.743)
Political Skill. Political skill has been assessed through the Political Skill Inventory developed by Ferris et al. (2005). A sample item for the scale is “I am good at getting people to like me”. (α=.700)
Perceptions of Organizational Politics. Perceptions of Organizational Politics has been measured through a shortened version of the 12-items Perceptions of Organizational Politics Scale (POPs) developed by Kacmar & Ferris (1991) and further validated by Kacmar and Carlson (1997). A sample item is “People in this organization attempt to build
themselves up by tearing others down”. (α=.806)
Self-Serving Behaviour. Self-serving behaviour has been measured through a modified version of the Leader Self-Serving Behaviour Measure, developed by Rus, Van Knippenberg & Wisse (2010). A sample item of this scale is “I would negotiate a bonus for myself that is substantially higher than the bonus my colleagues received”. (α=.646)
Control Variables. I have controlled for gender, age, organizational tenure and working hours in this study, as these variables could have an impact on the outcome. Men and women reason differently when it comes to ethical issues (Gilligan, 1977). Since women are less likely to behave unmorally and engage in unethical behaviour (Kish-Gephart,
Harrison & Treviño, 2010), I expect men to be more likely to behave in a self-serving manner
than women. Moreover, moral reasoning changes with maturity in that younger employees are more likely to engage in unethical, self-serving behaviour (Kish-Gephart et al., 2010; Treviño, 1992). Also, working hours and organizational tenure could have an influence on the perception of organizational politics, as newer employees and employees who don’t spend much time in the organization are less likely to depict and understand the
organizational environment. Moreover, individuals develop greater self-insight when they become more experienced in their jobs (Edwards, Cable, Williamson, Lambert, & Shipp, 2006).
RESULTS Validity & Reliability
I started the data analysis by assessing the internal consistency and construct validity of the individual measurement scales and see whether changes can be made in order to increase reliability and validity of the constructs. For this I conducted an exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and assessed the scales’ Cronbach’s alpha. All scales have a Cronbach’s Alpha equal or higher to the desired .70 (Nunnally, 1978), except self-serving behaviour (α=.646), which is not ideal but still acceptable (Cortina, 1993).
assess one’s ability of depicting and understanding the reasons of someone’s behaviour by interpreting their emotions and the way they are acting.
The measurement scale of emotional intelligence indicated a Cronbach’s α of .724, with following alphas for the subscales: .697 for others-emotions appraisal, .718 for use of emotions and .789 for regulation of emotions. The EFA revealed that every item highly (>.600) loaded on the right subscale, except two. “I am sensitive to the feelings and emotions of others” was the item with the lowest relative loading and also simultaneously loaded on two factors. The second problematic item (“I really understand what I feel”) was the only item of the first subscale of emotional intelligence. The item equally loaded on two of the three suggested factors. By excluding these two items from further analysis, the overall internal reliability of the scale increased to .743.
The internal consistency test of POPs revealed having a Cronbach’s alpha of .684. Two of the three subscales had good reliability (α=.745 for General Political Behaviour and α=.723 for Go Along to Get Ahead). The third subscale (Pay and Promotions Policies; PAPP) however, had an alpha of only α=.203. A potential explanation for this low value is that four out of the five items of this subscale are reversed scores. Furthermore, the EFA revealed that the items of PAPP (cross-)loaded on different factors. I decided to delete the whole subscale because of its poor reliability and validity. By omitting this subscale, the two factors could properly be distinguished, and the overall reliability of the scale increased to α=.806.
to take it myself, I would take the credit myself”) cross-loaded on both suggested factors. The scale’s alpha was .646.
Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA)
In the next step, I conducted a CFA in order to ensure the consistency between the expected factor structure and the data. The proposed four-factor model was tested for fit and compared to the fit indices of one-, two-, three-factor models (Anderson & Gerbing, 1988). The results of the factor analysis presented in Table 1. below revealed that the proposed four-factor solution was superior to the simpler models. Even though I showed that my proposed model fit the data better than simpler models, the fit was poorly and far from what would have been considered a good fit (CFI>.90; TLI>.90; RMSEA<.060; Hu & Bentler, 1999), which presents an important limitation of this research and will be further discussed later on.
Table 1. Fit statistics for one-, two-, three- and four-factor
CFI TLI RMSEA Chi-Square df
1-factor .289 .184 .109 2028.16 405
2-factor .480 .401 .094 1592.81 404
3-factor .538 .465 .088 1457.67 402
4-factor .605 .540 .082 1300.45 399
Common Method Bias
simple as possible (Conway & Lance, 2010). Second, I tried to reduce the participants’ evaluation apprehension and minder their social desirability by making them aware of the anonymity of their answers. Finally, I reminded them that there are no right or wrong answers and that they should answer as honest as possible (Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Lee, & Podsakoff, 2003).
After collecting the data, I tested the constructs for common method bias using Harman’s single factor test. According to this test, common method bias is not an issue as long as the majority of the variance (more than 50%) can be explained by a single factor (Harman, 1960; Podsakoff et al. 2003). Therefore, I conducted an additional EFA and constrained the number of factors extracted to one. When examining the unrotated factor solution, 14.6% of the variance in the model could be explained by one factor, which meant that common method bias wasn’t a relevant issue. However, even though Harman’s single factor test is widely used, there are more modern approaches to complement it (Podsakoff et al., 2003). I therefore also assessed whether common method bias was a relevant issue by performing an additional CFA. In this, I added a common latent factor (CLF) to the CFA AMOS model and compared the standardized regression weights from that model to the standardized regression weights of the same model without CLF. This method also confirmed that common method bias was not an issue, as the differences between values of the two models were only minimal, while differences up to .200 would have been accepted (William, Hartman & Cavazotte, 2010).
Correlations and Descriptive Statistics
variables should be considered during the analysis. From Table 2. it is visible that all control variables except organizational tenure significantly correlate with at least two of the main variables, which is why organizational tenure will not be included in the subsequent analysis. The correlations, furthermore, show a significant positive relation between the three
subscales of emotional intelligence (others-emotions appraisal, use of emotions and
regulation of emotions) and the two subscales of political skill (interpersonal influence and apparent sincerity). These are described in more detail in the following. For the further analysis, all subscales discussed below and shown in the table will be combined and treated within their respective construct.
Others-emotions appraisal shows significant positive relations with the variables go along to get ahead (r = .147, p < .05), interpersonal influence (r = .173; p < .01) and apparent sincerity (r = .161, p <.05). The variable use of emotions reports a significant positive
relation with apparent sincerity (r = .238, p <.01) and interpersonal influence (r = .168, p < .01). Regulation of emotions also shows a significant positive relation to apparent sincerity (r =.229, p < .01) and interpersonal influence (r =.256, p < .01). Moreover, general political behaviour is significantly and positively related to self-serving behaviour (r =.285, p < .01).
Table 2. Descriptive Statistics M SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 1. Age1 32.47** 13.36 2. Gender2 .65 .487 .063 3. Org. Tenure3 6.60** 8.56 .684** -.064 4. Working Hours4 .402 .491 -.172** .189** -.200** 5. Others-emotions Appraisal 3.99 .576 .070 .272** -.046 .050 6. Use of Emotions 3.83 .674 .182** -.091 .130 .-.167** .087 7. Regulation of Emotions 3.82 .738 .071 -.135* .052 -.061 .118 .320** 8. General Political Behaviour 2.47 .894 .045 -.044 .091 -.175** .125 -.003 -.108 9. Go Along to Get Along 2.57 .925 .107 .043 .021 .008 .147* .023 -.060 .536** 10. Apparent Sincerity 4.46 .552 .201** .179** .042 -.098 .161* .238** .229** -.013 -.058 11. Interpersonal Influence 4.03 .631 -.154* -.033 -.153* -.025 .173** .168** .256** -.001 -.007 .275** 12. Self-Serving Behaviour 2.54 .929 -.142* -.154* -.123 .006 .050 .005 .013 .285** .115 -.102 .040 Notes: N=239; *p < .05; p** < .01; **In years
1Age was coded “0” for 17-28 years, “1” for 29-40 years, “2” for 41-52 years, “3” for 53-64 years 2Gender was coded “0” for male and “1” for females.
3Organizational Tenure was coded “0” for 0-1 years, “1” for 1-5 years, “2” for 6-10 years, “3” for 11-30 years, “4” for 31-45 years.
4Working Hours was coded “0” for 3/5 working days or less and “1” for 4/5 working days or more (1/5 working days = 8 hours)
Regression Analyses
control variables (gender, age and working hours) alone. Then, I tested whether the addition of the (mean-centred) variables political skill and perceptions of organizational politics and their interaction improved the prediction of self-serving behaviour over and above the control variables. Finally, I used PROCESS (Hayes, 2012) to test the full moderated-mediation model. The statistical results from the multiple regressions analyses and the results from the PROCESS macro both offered the same results leading to the same conclusions.
Hypotheses 1 & 3
The full model of the control variables age, working hours, gender, the variables emotional intelligence, perceptions of organizational politics and their interaction (Model 3) to predict political skill was statistically significant, R²=.163, F(6,232)=7.512, p<.0005; adjusted R²=.138 and is summarized in Table 3.below. The addition of the independent variable emotional intelligence and perceptions of organizational politics to the prediction of political skill (Model 2) led to a statistically significant increase in R² of .145,
F(2,233)=20.176, p<.0005. Moreover, the output of the regression analysis showed support
Perceptions of organizational politics, therefore, doesn’t moderate the relationship between emotional intelligence and political skill. Thus, no support has been found for hypothesis 3.
Table 3. Regressions and Moderation Outcome Variable: Political Skill
Model 1 Model 2 Model 3
Intercept 4.220** (.059) 4.223** (.055) 4.223** (.055) Age -.003 (.028) -.027 (.027) -.028 (.027) Working Hours -.091 (.065) -.065 (.060) -.063 (.060) Gender .097 (.064) .109(.060) .108 (.060) Emotional Intelligence .393** (.062) .395** (.062) Perceptions of Organizational Politics -.015 (.036) -.015 (.036) Interaction -.057(.074) R² .015 .161 .163 DR² .145 .002
Note. N=239. Standard Errors between parentheses. *p<.05, **p<.01
Hypothesis 2 & 4
(b=-.011, t(232)=-.142, p=.887). Hypothesis 4 assumed that the positive relationship between political skill and self-serving behaviour would be even stronger at high levels of perceived organizational politics. There is no statistically significant interaction effect of the moderator perceptions of organizational politics on the relationship between political skill and self-serving behaviour (b=.022, t(232)=.228, p=.820). Hence, no evidence being in support of hypothesis 4 has been found. However, the results show a significant positive relationship between perceptions of organizational politics and self-serving behaviour b=.195,
t(232)=4.066, p<.0005. Furthermore, both control variables age (b=-.082, t(232)=-2.323, p=.021) and gender (b=-.186, t(232)=2.332, p=.021) have been found to be negatively related
to self-serving behaviour. Statistical results are displayed in Table 4. below.
Table 4. Regressions and Moderation. Outcome Variable: Self-serving Behaviour
Model 1 Model 2 Model 3
Intercept 2.209** (.075) 2.205** (.073) 2.206** (.073) Age -.072* (.036) -.082* (.035) -.082* (.035) Working Hours .015 (.082) .044 (.080) .043 (.081) Gender -.185* (.082) -.186* (.080) -.186* (.080) Political Skill -.012 (.080) -.011 (.081) Perceptions of Organizational Politics .194** (.048) .195** (.048) Interaction .022 (.099) R² .041 .105 .105 DR² .064 .000
Moderated-mediation Model
Testing the full conceptual model using the PROCESS macro (model 58) was statistically significant (R²=.109, F(7,231)=4.036, p<.0005). No evidence for a statistically significant relationship between emotional intelligence and self-serving behaviour has been found (b=.085, t(7,231)=.952, p=.342). The results in Table 5. below report that there is no support in favour of a mediation effect between emotional intelligence and self-serving behaviour, as well as of a moderation effect between emotional intelligence and political skill and political skill and self-serving behaviour. The moderated-mediation index shows that the confidence interval does include zero. Thus, no evidence in support for a
moderated-mediation effect has been found.
Table 5. Bootstrap Confidence Interval
POPs Effect 95%LLCI* 95%ULCI*
Low Level of Political Skill (-1 SD) -.797 -.028 -.176 .079 Average Political Skill .000 -.017 -.098 .062 Upper Level of Political Skill (+1 SD) .797 -.008 -.093 .087
DISCUSSION Hypotheses and Findings
The overall aim of this research was to investigate whether the usually pro-socially connoted emotional intelligence could reveal having a dark side and under what
circumstances it might come out. In this, I suggested that the relationship between EI and self-serving behaviour could be mediated by political skill. Moreover, I propounded that both relationships would be amplified in highly political organizational environments.
In a first instance, I investigated the relationship between emotional intelligence and political skill. The results reported, as expected, a positive relationship between the two interpersonal skillsets (hypothesis 1), which therefore is in line with recent literature (see for example Vigoda-Gadot & Meisler, 2010). As previously reported, EI and political skill are similar, partly overlapping constructs which are both contributing to social effectiveness (Ferris et al., 2007). Furthermore, Momm et al. (2015) suggested that emotional intelligence “allows people to effectively develop and apply political skill” (p.147). In this, the likelihood of possessing political skill is increased and its acquisition facilitated for emotionally
intelligent people.
Nonetheless, despite the prevalent disaccord, it can be said that political skill can be used to achieve organizational goals but also personal ones (Ferris et al., 2005).
Snyder (1983) argues that personality provides the motivation for goal-oriented behaviour and that dark personalities offer the predisposition for using political skill in a self-serving manner and for personal goal-attainment. Therefore, it is important to distinguish between having the ability to do something and the willingness to use that ability (Hyde & Grieve, 2014). Politically skilled being able to influence others and behave in a self-serving manner doesn’t mean that they are willing to do so. The willingness depends, as previously argued, on the personality of the individual, which is why the two concepts are not
necessarily related.
Furthermore, I believe that the absence of relationship between political skill and self-serving behaviour can also be attributed to the self-reported scale self-self-serving behaviour, which presents a limitation of this research and could have had a strong impact on the findings. While political skill measures a mixture of ability, self-confidence and motivation without any explicit negative connotation (Templer, 2018), self-serving behaviour is explicitly negative. This represents a strong likelihood for the occurrence of inflated responses due to social desirability, as self-serving behaviour is a rather ethically sensitive topic and not something many individuals would be proud or even comfortable to disclose. I will further address the downsides of the self-reported methodology in the part about the limitations of this research, as well as suggest alternatives that could offer improvement for future research.
Investigating whether the relationship between emotional intelligence and political skill (hypothesis 3) as well as between political skill and self-serving behaviour (hypothesis 4) would be reinforced in a highly political environment didn’t offer the results I had
intelligence and political skill, nor the relationship between political skill and self-serving behaviour is moderated by perceptions of organizational politics. I suggest that a possible explanation for these findings or rather for the absence of the moderation effect is that perceptions of organizational politics, as the concept already states, is a matter of perception and therefore subjective. Highly political organizations are organizations in which normative guidelines, organizational values and policies regarding career advancement are unclear or absent (Hochwarter et al., 2000). Hence, they don’t represent an ideal organizational environment but offer opportunities to act out of self-interest.
However, as I have argued before, organizational politics can be perceived as a threat or an opportunity, which depends on the individuals predispositions (Byrne, 2017).
Emotionally intelligent individuals possess the ability to regulate their emotions in order to only perceive positive ones, quickly recover from setbacks in order to put themselves back in positive states and feel like they are more in control of their own success compared to less emotionally intelligent people (Mayer & Salovey, 1997). Indeed, Vigoda-Gadot & Meisler (2010) found that, when acting as a moderator between perceptions of organizational politics and desired work outcomes, EI minimized the negative effect of perceptions of organizational politics on the outcomes. Similarly, political skill encompasses the ideal abilities for
advancement in highly political organizations (Ahearn et al., 2004), by being sensitive to one’s surroundings and by being interpersonally adept (Momm et al., 2010). Thus, both emotionally intelligent and politically skilled individuals are adequately skilled to get their way and advance, even in highly political organizations. In this, because they would perceive themselves as enough skilled to handle their environment, they should perceive their
relationship between organizational politics and outcome variables, as has been found by Vigoda-Gadot & Meisler (2010).
Finally, this research wasn’t able to attribute a dark side to emotional intelligence, as no link has been found between EI and self-serving behaviour. The way Kilduff et al. (2010) delineate the way EI can be used strategically through their dark side tactics is very intuitive in theory. However, humans are complex beings. Interestingly, Kessler and colleagues investigated whether political skill and EI were linked to the construct Organizational Machiavellianism, which refers to a behaviour (and not to the Machiavellian personality) defined as “the belief in the use of manipulation, as necessary, to achieve one’s desired ends in the context of the work environment” (Kessler et al., 2010: 1871). Their findings showed that political skill was linked to the two rather positive subscales of organizational
Machiavellianism3, maintaining power and management practices, but not to the third one, manipulativeness, which is associated with traditionally negative variables. Similarly, EI was found to be related only to maintaining power (Kessler et al., 2010). This research shows that emotionally intelligent and politically skilled individuals possess the abilities for
advancement within organizations, but that these abilities are rather anchored in the socially acceptable context, without violating social norms. They further suggest that “employees with strong political skills might find a better way of managing those around them” (p.1886) but through manipulation and other negatively connoted behaviour. This proposes a possible explanation as to why neither a relationship between political skill and self-serving
behaviour, nor a dark side to EI could be found. Interpersonal skills are only linked to self-serving behaviour when used by a dark personality.
Moreover, I believe that the differentiation in personality types for interpersonally skilled individuals can further explain the absence of relationship. Influencing others’ emotions to promote the own interests is emotional manipulation (Austin, Farrelly, Black & Moore, 2007). Emotional manipulation encompasses the ability to influence others’
emotions, similarly to EI. However, emotional intelligence and emotional manipulation are not related to each other (Austin et al., 2007). This clearly shows that having the ability to manipulate doesn’t mean that there is the willingness to use it (Hyde & Grieve, 2014). Ability and willingness have to be treated separately and are dependent on the predispositions of the individuals and their motivations (Hyde & Grieve, 2018). The positive, prosocial nature and the desire to bring out positive outcomes for the self and others is at the core of the
emotionally intelligent competency (O’Connor & Athota, 2013).
Another crucial core component of EI is empathy (Eisenberg & Miller, 1987;
Goleman, Boyatzis & McKee, 2013). When investigating whether EI could be related to the Dark Triad (Psychopathy, Narcissism, Machiavellianism), Miao and colleagues concluded that, even though both personality types had similar interpersonal abilities, no link could be established between the concepts (Miao, Humphrey, Qian, & Pollack, 2019). The crucial difference between the emotional intelligent and the dark triad personality type offers a possible explanation for the absence of willingness to use their skills for callous, self-serving ends in emotional intelligent individuals: emotional intelligent abilities include affective empathy (feeling what others feel and being able to relate to it), while dark individuals with interpersonal skills might only possess cognitive empathy (understanding what others feel; Nagler, Reiter, Furtner & Rauthmann, 2014). In order to be able to behave self-servingly and influence others’ emotions for self-serving outcomes, the ability to understand others’
order to behave self-servingly and manipulate and exploit others, emotional detachment is needed, which is very unlikely to occur in emotionally intelligent individuals who can relate to and feel what others feel (Geis, 1970). Affective empathy therefore seems to act as a barrier between ability and willingness and is a possible explanation as to why no dark side could be found in emotionally intelligent individuals.
Theoretical and Practical Contributions
Even though my research didn’t offer the results I hoped for, I believe that its contributions are quite important. This study adds to the still scarce literature investigating the dark side of EI (for examples see Grieve & Mahar, 2010; Kessler et al., 2010; Megías, Gómez-Leal, Gutiérrez-Cobo, Cabello, & Fernández-Berrocal, 2018; Miao, Humphrey, Qian & Pollack, 2019; O’Connor & Athota, 2013). However, none of these scholars were able to attribute a dark side to EI. O’Connor & Athota (2013) concluded that emotionally intelligent individuals are rather “nice, friendly and good people” (p.751). Even though my research came to the same conclusion, I have gone a step further and offered a potential explanation for the (absence of) findings. To my knowledge, I have been the first one to reason that the type of empathy an interpersonally skilled individual possesses (affective or cognitive) offers a possible explanation of whether these skills will be used prosocially or self-servingly. This line of thinking should be further investigated in the future.
As previously mentioned, several scholars have suggested augmenting EI in
goal is to achieve personal gains through interpersonal skills, managers should be aware of who these people might be. This is especially important as social skills tend to get valued more by managers than moral integrity in the recruitment process (Cook & Emler, 1999). Since employees with a darker predisposition are able to do great harm to their organizations, their potential underlying dark traits should be identified in the selection phase. It is therefore advisable to not only look for social skills in potential employees, but also whether the individual would have the willingness to employ them in exploitative ways, especially when it comes to important positions. This can be done by assessing their moral integrity, the kind of empathy they possess, the disposition of their personality to be dark (for instance by assessing how they score on any dark triad traits) or simply by conducting thorough background and reference checks.
Limitations and Future Research
There are several limitations of this research that need to be considered. First, the sample consisted of single source and cross-sectional data, which makes it more difficult to accurately draw causal inferences. Moreover, the sample was a convenience sample and therefore consisted of mainly young people, often at the beginning of their respective careers and/or working side jobs to their studies. When individuals become more experienced within their jobs, they also tend to develop greater self-insight with the maturity (Edwards et al., 2006). In this, the participants with lower organizational tenure and lower maturity might be lacking the necessary ability to reflect on themselves as well as on their organizational environments.
Salovey’s research (1997) and have measured EI through the self-report model. Two other models measuring the ability have been suggested: the performance-based ability model and the self-report mixed model. The performance-based ability model considers EI to be a form of mental ability based on emotional capabilities that can, similar to cognitive intelligence, only be assessed in an objective way, through questions and problems that can be answered in a right and wrong way (Mayer et al., 2000). The self-reported model sees EI in the same way but uses self-report instruments and measures the ability in a subjective way with questions having no correct or incorrect answers. The self-report mixed model also employs self-report instruments but sees EI as a much broader concept including several other factors (Mayer et al., 2008). While some argue that EI should be measured through the performance-ability model (Megías et al., 2018) and that self-reports do not adequately measure abilities as they are based on subjective measures (Brackett et al., 2006; Webb et al., 2013), others suggest that the self-report approach is the only way to measure EI (Wong & Law, 2002) and that issues due to self-reports may not be too serious (Miao et al., 2019). Nonetheless, the consideration of distorted responses should be acknowledged, as self-reported ratings are limited in several ways (Fazio & Olson, 2003). First, subjective measures are susceptible to response bias such as impression management and social desirability (Kämpfe, Penzhorn, Schikora, Dünzl, & Schneidenbach, 2009). Second, the self-reported method requires a certain level of self-knowledge and its verbalization (Kämpfe et al., 2009). Third, the perception and the understanding of the own and others’ feelings is often not consciously processed (Rosip & Hall, 2004), but is automatically infused into decision making and is the result of implicit mechanisms (Barsade, Ramarajan, & Westen, 2009). I believe that,
a strong impact on the outcomes of the research. As political skill and EI are related to each other, political skill comes with ease and is less likely to be consciously acquired if EI is an implicit ability. If EI, however, is learned (as far as this is possible), then the individual would be more likely to actively acquire political skill in the light of a certain goal.
A third limitation of this study is the poor model fit that has been revealed through the CFA. As previously mentioned, the model fit of the four-factor model I proposed was far from acceptable (CFI=.605, TLI=.540, RMSEA=.082). I tested more than 20 different models and the best model fit I could come to was a nine-factor model (i.e. using the subscales of every scale; CFI=.878; TLI=.846; RMSEA=.047) However, I decided to move forward with the four-factor model for the further analysis. There was one important
motivation behind this decision: even though using the subscales of every scale would have resulted in a better model fit, differentiating between the subscales didn’t enhance the reasoning I proposed. In other words, there was no necessity to differentiate between the subscales, as my model was built on the whole concepts and not on any subscales.
Finally, another important limitation concerns the self-reported scale self-serving behaviour. As previously mentioned, the use of self-reported measures always includes the risk of inflated results due to impression management and social desirability (Kämpfe et al., 2009). This could present an even bigger issue here, as the scale has an explicit negative connotation and concerns such a sensitive topic as behaving in a self-serving manner.
might be more likely to positive inflate their answers in a more socially desirable way than actually lie about how they have behaved in the past. Another potential way to enhance the instrument would be to additionally have a third party, a co-worker for instance, report on the self-oriented behaviour of the focal person. In this, the observer ratings would capture the focal individual’s reputation based on observable behavioural cues, as suggested by Hogan’s socio-analytic theory (1996).
Treviño, den Nieuwenboer, & Kish-Gephart (2014) stated that individuals need to inhibit and regulate their ethical values before engaging in unethical behaviour. Given that emotionally intelligent individuals are very adept in regulating negative emotions such as guilt or remorse in order to only perceive positive ones (Kilduff et al., 2010), future research should continue considering the dark side of EI by investigating the conceptual model I proposed in a different organizational context. Vriend, Jordan & Janssen (2016) have shown that (the proximity to) top ranks elicit unethical intentions and behaviour in individuals competing against each other. Similarly, Pierce and colleagues found that, when individuals are told that they should compete against each other, they are more likely to be unethically motivated and to engage in opportunistic, morally unaccepted behaviour (Pierce, Kilduff, Galinsky & Sivanthan, 2013). I would therefore suggest that an organization that
encompasses ranking systems could elicit an emotionally intelligent person’s dark side. In this, the emotionally intelligence individual would be explicitly invited to compete and inhibit their ethical values, because this environment explicitly requires employees to compete against each other, compared to highly political organizations, in which employees still decide on their own how to conduct. Similar organizational environments could be up-or-out organizations or other highly competitive internal promotion procedures.
desired outcomes have been attributed to EI, future research should explore the possible existence of curvilinear relationships of EI and outcomes variables, especially with organizational-related ones such as performance. Is knowing how one feels and
understanding one’s moods always helpful, no matter the situation? Future research should try to answer these questions, as Davis & Nichols (2016) suggested that individuals highly able to recognize emotions might be too aware of negative emotions, which could lead to psychological discomfort. In this, by investigating whether being too emotionally intelligent can have detrimental outcomes, a different path on the investigation of the dark side of emotional intelligence is being struck.
CONCLUSION
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APPENDIX A Emotional Intelligence
Others-Emotions Appraisal (OEA)
1. I always know my friends’ emotions from their behaviour. 2. I am a good observer of others’ emotions.
3. I have good understanding of the emotions of people around me.
Use of Emotion (UOE)
6. I am a self-motivating person.
7. I would always encourage myself to try my best.
Regulation of Emotion (ROE)
8. I am able to control my temper so that I can handle difficulties rationally. 9. I am quite capable of controlling my own emotions.
10. I can always calm down quickly when I am very angry. 11. I have good control of my own emotions.
Political Skill
Interpersonal Influence
1. I am able to make most people feel comfortable and at ease around me.
2. I am able to communicate easily and effectively with others.
3. It is easy for me to develop good rapport with most people.
4. I am good at getting people to like me.
Apparent Sincerity
5. When communicating with others, I try to be genuine in what I say and do.
6. It is important that people believe I am sincere in what I say and do.
7. I try to show genuine interest in people.
Perceptions of Organizational Politics
General Political Behaviour
1. There has always been an influential group in this organization that no one ever crosses.
2. People in this organization attempt to build themselves up by tearing others down. 3. Favouritism rather than merit determines who gets ahead around here.
4. There is a group of people in my organization who always get things their way because no one wants to challenge them.
Go Along to Get Ahead
6. Employees are encouraged to speak out frankly even when they are critical of well-established ideas (Reversed Score).
7. People here usually don’t speak up for fear of retaliation by others.
Self-serving Behaviour
1. I would negotiate a bonus for myself that is substantially higher than the bonus my colleagues receive.
2. I would use my position at work to obtain benefits for myself.
3. I would pursue my personal interests, even if those interests are not serving my team’s interests.
4. Even if I was partly to be blamed, I wouldn’t take personal responsibility for my team’s failure if it wouldn’t be noticed.
