PANACEA OR PLACEBO? AN EVALUATION OF THE VALUE OF EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE IN HEALTHCARE WORKERS.

The purpose of this study was to empirically investigate the relationship between emotional intelligence and desirable nursing behaviors, measured as organizational citizenship beehavior (OCB). We used Mayer and Salovey's (1997) four-dimensional model of emotional intelligence and Organ's (1988) OCB construct to test the EI-OCB relationships. Using a sample of 137 clinical nurses, and analyzing the data with hierarchical multiple regressions, we obtained results indicating that the EI dimension perceiving emotion was linked to conscientiousness, and facilitating thinking wvas linked to civic virtue.