Does a self-report measure for emotional intelligence assess something different than general intelligence?

One of the theoretical claims made regarding the concept of emotional intelligence is that it concerns a range of human abilities which are independent of the more familiar concept of intellectual ability. This study was conducted to evaluate the divergent validity of Bar-On's EQ-i as compared to the General Adult Mental Ability scale (GAMA), a measure of fluid intelligence. In a Dutch subject sample (n = 873), results indicated that the correlations between the EQ-i and the GAMA were very low, for both the total sample as well as for the sexes separately. These findings indicate that the two tests are psychometrically independent, in that the EQ-i is measuring something other than the GAMA. There were also some small age-related changes in the correlations between the EQ-i and GAMA. These results replicate and elaborate those reported by Bar-On [Bar-On, R. (1997). BarOn Emotional Quotient Inventory: technical manual. Toronto: Multi Health Systems]. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.