The relationship between explicit and implicit personality: Evidence from the Big Five and trait emotional intelligence.

The main aim of this study is to introduce an implicit personality assessment method (e.g., implicit association test) to Kuwait. We adapted an existing personality-related implicit association test (IAT; Big Five IAT), while also constructed the first trait EI IAT based on Petrides' four-factor model. We investigated the psychometric properties of the implicit association test through assessing the reliability of scores and also their relationship with their corresponding explicit measures. The measures were administered to 1458 university students in Kuwait. The zero-order correlations showed that the explicit and implicit measurement approaches led to non-converging constructs in the case of both trait EI and the Big Five. Lastly, we believe that we were successfully able to introduce the concept of personality-related implicit association tests to the Kuwaiti sample. Subsequently, the IATs presented in our study will allow researchers to study a relatively new personality field, that is the implicit personality.

Trait emotional intelligence profiles of professionals in Kuwait.

Trait emotional intelligence concerns people's perceptions of their emotional world. Our aims for this study are to examine (a) the trait emotional intelligence (EI) profiles across different professions in Kuwait; (b) the incremental validity of trait EI in predicting job performance; and (c) the relationship between trait EI, job attitudes, and job performance. The sample comprised 314 professionals in Kuwait in seven different professions: Bankers, Engineers, Healthcare providers, Lawyers, Military, Policemen, and Teachers. Firstly, the results showed that the Military scored the lowest global trait emotional intelligence and three of four factors. Secondly, the results showed that global trait EI incrementally predicted job performance over job attitudes in Policemen and Engineers but not in other professions. Lastly, the results showed that job attitudes partially mediated the relationship between trait EI and job performance. These findings call for the importance of trait emotional intelligence trainings for professionals in Kuwait as it affects important job-related variables. The limitations of this study and the directions for future studies have been discussed.