Consulting Psychology Journal, Vol 78(2), Jun 2026, 112-132; doi:10.1037/cpb0000315
Over the past two decades, emotional intelligence (EI) measures have been widely studied and applied in industry. The growing volume of studies documents the relevance of EI for many work and life behaviors and outcomes (e.g., leadership behaviors and psychological well-being). Presumably, lower EI is related to negative behaviors, but clear conclusions about its links to work counterproductivity are lacking. Therefore, using 193 effect sizes across published and unpublished studies, we quantitatively examined the relations between EI and counterproductive work behaviors (CWB). Our meta-analyses addressed two questions: (a) What is the criterion-related validity of EI in predicting CWB? (b) What is the incremental validity of EI above and beyond the Big Five personality and intelligence in predicting CWB? The findings support EI as a sufficiently strong negative correlate of counterproductive behaviors, with mixed support for its incremental validity. Only mixed-trait EI measures demonstrated tentative incremental validity for predicting CWB above personality and intelligence. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved)