Wealth Code Unlocked: The Combined Effect of Emotional Intelligence and Intelligence Quotient

Intellectual quotient (IQ) is a measure of intellectual “ability” of performing, comprehension, and learning. Previous study reported that intelligence measures predict various measures of job performance and income. Emotional intelligence (EI) is the capacity of awareness, controlling and expression of one's emotions, seeking more feedback, and managing one's emotion to handle interpersonal relationships judiciously and empathically. These characteristics are also important for personal and professional success. Objective: This study tests a hypothesis whether the average national income rank is best predicted by the combined effect of the population's average intelligence quotient (one's ability to perform and learn) and emotional intelligence (emotional ability to express and handle interpersonal relationships). Method: The population average intelligence quotient, emotional intelligence, and indices of good governance, which include corruption perception index and educational expenses for each country were obtained from public data sources. The outcome variable for this study was the average national income rank. All the variables that are significant in univariate analysis were included in the multivariate regression analyses but excluded from the final model if not significant. Result: The total number of countries included in the final analysis was 81 because of missing values in different variables. The product of intelligent quotient (IQ) scores and emotional intelligence (EI) were found highly correlated at -0.75 ( p <0.05) with the national average income rank. The independent effect of intelligence quotient (IQ) and emotional intelligence (EI) was found not significant when their interaction effect (the product of IQ and EI) was introduced in the model. The R square value for the multivariate model with the interaction effect of intelligence quotient (IQ) and emotional intelligence (EI) was the highest at 0.73. The final model also included measures of good governance such as educational expense and corruption perception index (CPI). The corruption perception index (CPI) and educational expense were strongly correlated with measurements of good governance such as democracy index, functioning of government, electoral process and pluralism, political participation, and civil liberty, but these variables were found not significant in the multivariable model. Conclusion: The study concludes the effect of emotional intelligence and intelligence quotient are complementary to each other and holds the key to predicting average national income or wealth rank. This study also implies a nation may build more wealth if educational institutes focus on developing emotional intelligence (EI) and intelligence quotient (IQ).