Sex role identity, emotional intelligence and satisfaction at work
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Date
2015-09-03
Authors
De Freitas, Daniel Roberto
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Abstract
A South African study, based on a sample of 595 employees working across a wide range of
industries, was conducted in order to determine the emotional intelligence and job
satisfaction scores of different sex role identities. Three self-report questionnaires were
completed by the participants, namely the Extended Personal Attributes Questionnaire –
Revised edition (EPAQ-R), the Schutte’s Self Report Emotional Intelligence Test (SSREIT)
and the Job Satisfaction Survey (JSS), which measured sex role identity, emotional
intelligence and job satisfaction respectively.
Biological sex has been shown to be a poor proxy for measuring differences in emotional
intelligence and job satisfaction; therefore support for the analysis of sex role identity, instead
of biological sex, was provided due to the development and existence of ‘between sex’
differences and ‘within sex’ differences.
The results of the study suggested that there were significant differences between the positive
and negative sex role identities on emotional intelligence and job satisfaction scores. The
findings generally followed the proposed hypotheses with androgynous individuals
presenting with the most amount of significant differences, illustrating that such individuals
are associated with positive psychological and workplace outcomes when compared to the
negative identities. Negative masculinity proved to be an exception to the proposed
hypotheses, as negatively masculine individuals did not score differently from the positive
identities on utilisation of emotion, optimism and total job satisfaction.
Description
Master of Arts
Organisational Psychology
University of the Witwatersrand
February 2015