Thesis (Ph.D.)--Liberty University, 2010. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2006. / Title from title screen (site viewed June 8, 2007). PDF text: 97 p. ; 5.12Mb. UMI publication number: AAT 3240048. Includes bibliographical references. Also available in microfilm and microfiche formats.

Emotional disorders are common in people with brain damage. It is often difficult to determine whether such disorders are a result of a deficit in recognition, expression, or regulation of emotion due to brain damage per se, or if they are reactive to other functional limitations. The Victoria Emotion Recognition Test (VERT) was developed to provide a standardized tool for the assessment of deficits in the recognition of facial and tonal affect. The VERT was constructed on the basis of neurophysiological and behavioural theories of emotion and neuropsychological theories of agnosia. The VERT consists of three subtests in which four emotions (angry, sad, happy and afraid) are presented at three levels of intensity. The visual subtest presents photographs of faces; the auditory subtest, audiotaped voice clips; and the auditory/visual subtest, both photographs and voice clips. Psychometric results of the standardization studies suggest that the VERT measures an aspect of the recognition of facial and tonal emotion that is independent of more basic skills in face recognition and auditory nonverbal memory. The theoretical construct of recognition of emotion was investigated within the framework of an "affective agnosia". The results suggest that a broader concept of agnosia is necessary in order to include failures in recognition of emotion within this framework. / Graduate

This multiple case study describes students who are highly emotionally competent yet have learning disabilities. The study sheds light on how such students perceive their educational experience and begins to answer inter-related questions, such as how emotional strengths assist with learning disabilities. A multiple case study design was used. The participant group ranged from 11 to 16 years of age and came from two separate schools which actively work with students diagnosed with learning disabilities. The study was divided into two phases. In the first phase, the Mayer—Salovey—Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test-Youth Version (MSCEIT-YV) was given to students in the two participating classes. The two students from each class who achieved the highest scores on the MSCEIT-YV were then asked to participate in the second phase of the study. Here, the researcher conducted observations of the participants within the school environment. Additionally, the participants attended a semi-structured interview, with interview questions based on the MSCEIT-YV and school related scenarios. Themes that emerged were then analyzed and compared within and between cases as well as with emotional intelligence research. Case study descriptions emerged from this analysis and a brief follow up interview was conducted with one family member and the participating student as a means of sharing and verifying findings. Participants revealed varying ability with emotional intelligence. However, all students demonstrated strong abilities with the ‘Strategic Emotional Reasoning’ Skills associated with Mayer, Salovey and Caruso’s (2004) theory of emotional intelligence. Moreover, all students showed a strong ability to use their emotional intelligence to improve academic functioning, with one student in particular displaying outstanding abilities and insights into emotional intelligence. The study contributes to our understanding of the complexity of ability and disability that can exist within students diagnosed with learning disabilities; this understanding, in turn, may be reflected in how these students are perceived and understood by researchers and teachers alike. / Education, Faculty of / Educational and Counselling Psychology, and Special Education (ECPS), Department of / Graduate

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M.A. / Psychological assessment is in a crisis in South Africa. Many local and imported inventories currently in use have not been tested for bias and have not been cross-culturally validated (Foxcroft, Roodt, & Abrahams, 2005). Others show various psychometric problems, such as low reliability and inappropriateness for previously disadvantaged groups (e.g. Meiring, Van de Vijver, Rothmann, & Barrick, 2005). The theoretical models on which these inventories are based were developed in the Western context ignoring South Africa’s multilingual and multicultural society. This may have resulted in inadequate selection of job applicants in organisational settings, and improper assessments of clients in the education and healthcare sectors. In order to make assessment suitable for the entire South African population, the development of indigenous theories, constructs and inventories that are valid for all cultural groups is therefore urgently needed. The present study aimed at the construction and validation of an indigenous Emotional Stability scale. Its development was based on the qualitatively derived Emotional Stability cluster of the SAPI1 (South African Personality Inventory), a project initiated in 2006 to develop a personality instrument, which is locally derived from indigenous conceptions of personality in all 11 official languages. The Emotional Stability cluster consists of six subclusters and 25 facets comprising person-descriptive terms, indicating positive and negative psychological adjustment. These person-descriptive terms were used to create a definition of the meaning of each facet for all languages ensuring coverage of the whole construct. Items were generated to represent these definitions. The final inventory consisted of a single list of 326 items, which was presented to a second year undergraduate psychology student sample, attending a course in personality psychology (N = 610). Participants also completed the Neuroticism scale of the Basic Traits Inventory (BTI, Taylor & De Bruin, 2006) and the items of the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS, Watson, Clark & Tellegen, 1988) to allow for external validation of the indigenous Emotional Stability scale. Factor analyses indicated that the positive and negative facets of the Emotional Stability cluster defined separate factors, which led to the exclusion of the positive facets, resulting in the scale measuring only those personality characteristics typically attributed to Neuroticism. To denote the difference, the final scale was renamed “indigenous Neuroticism scale”. Three comparison groups were formed to evaluate the psychometric properties of the indigenous Neuroticism scale across language groups, namely: Germanic (English and Afrikaans), Nguni (Zulu, Xhosa, Swati and Ndebele), and Sotho (Sepedi, Sesotho and Setswana). The results of the present study revealed a valid and reliable, multifaceted indigenous measure of Neuroticism. The Neuroticism factor consists of five facets, namely Despaired, Anxious, Dependent, Temperamental, and Impulsive. Factor congruence of the indigenous Neuroticism factor across all language groups assessed was demonstrated, indicating that the dimension Neuroticism has the same psychological meaning across all groups. Tucker’s phi obtained for the factor Neuroticism for each language group was: Germanic (pxy = 1.00), Nguni (pxy = 1.00) and Sotho (pxy = .99).

The main purpose of this research study was to determine, which emotional intelligence competencies are important from the customers perspective. Sales representatives need to build strong relationships in order to maintain long-term business relationships. Customer satisfaction relates to a customers emotional experience during the service encounter and that service providers with high emotional intelligence should be better able to create a positive emotional experience for customers. The customers opinions were requested as to which emotional intelligence dimensions are important to them and whether the different customers within various buying units have different opinions on the subject of emotional intellligence competencies. The dimension of the Bar-on Emotional Quotient Inventory was used as the basis for the questionnaire design. Respondents were asked to rate the various emotional intelligence dimensions. Copyright / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted

Employees who are able to use their emotions intelligently can contribute meaningfully towards building an emotionally intelligent organisation, one in which everyone take responsibility for increasing his or her own emotional intelligence, for using it in relations with others, and for applying the skills of emotional intelligence to the organisation as a whole. The lack of emotional intelligence, however, undermines both an individual’s and a company’s growth and success. Expressing emotions within the workplace has for many years been considered inappropriate and irrelevant to business. This research study points to the fact that an overwhelming amount of research shows that not only are emotions very much a part if the work experience but, to a large degree, set the course that companies should follow. This research study firstly discusses the core components of emotional intelligence and its impact on individuals and how they relate to others. The study further focuses on the impact that emotional intelligence has on aspects that contribute to organisational effectiveness. This study suggests that emotional intelligence within companies could result in a situation where employees communicate with understanding and respect and where confidence and enthusiasm in the organisation are instilled. Knowing one’s own emotions and controlling them; recognizing emotions in others and managing them; and self-motivation are key dimensions of emotional intelligence covered in the theoretical perspective of emotional intelligence discussed in Chapter Two. This study points to the benefits of emotional intelligence as an indispensable element not only in creating a profitable business but also in leading a successful life. The findings discussed in Chapter Six indicate a reasonable level of emotional intelligence amongst employees at GMSA who participated in the survey. Recommendations from the study indicated a need for training in various aspects of emotional intelligence in order to derive the benefits of improved organisational effectiveness and profitability.

Numerous decisions in organisations are made by teams, groups or committees. The need for group decision making is brought about by the increased complexity of many decisions which require specialised knowledge in numerous areas usually not possessed by one person. As such there has also been an inherent recognition that different members bring different contributions and that a marshalling of these contributions enhances decision-making. Most research about how to make teams more effective has focused on identifying the task processes that distinguish the most successful teams - that is specifying the need for collaboration, involvement and commitment to goals. The assumption seems to be that, once identified; these processes can simply be imitated by other teams, with similar effects but it is not the case since they do not take the level of the team’s emotional intelligence into consideration. Emotional intelligence should always be considered in a team setting since teamwork is an inherently social activity and as such emotions play an important role in team processes including decision making. Surprisingly the study of the effects of emotions and emotional intelligence in decision making at group level is a relatively new research avenue. Research indicates that emotional intelligence has been the subject of a significant amount of literature for a number of years. However little has been contributed to how the behaviours associated with emotional intelligence may be practically applied to enhance both individual and group decision-making. Druskat and Wolff (2001a and 2001b) proposed a model for emotional intelligence at the group level. According to their model, groups develop a set of behavioural norms called the Group Emotional Competence Norms (GEC norms) which guide the emotional experience in groups. The proposed model by Druskat and Wolff was used to define and measure group emotional intelligence in this study. The aim of the study was to establish whether there was a relationship between team emotional intelligence and team decision making at Transnet Port Terminal’s Ngqura Container Terminal. The findings of the literature study and the empirical study were combined to evaluate whether team emotional intelligence affected team decision making in the chosen population.The literature study suggested that there was a relationship between team emotional intelligence and team decision making. The empirical study confirmed the relationship between group emotional intelligence and group decision making but failed to confirm whether the chosen population consisted of teams.

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