Sex role identity, emotional intelligence and satisfaction at work

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.