Political skill and emotional cue learning via voices: a training study

Abstract

The ability to discern emotional expressive cues represents an important interpersonal emotional skill at the workplace. In a training study with 123 employee–peer dyads, we examined whether political skill enhances the learning of emotional expressive cues via voices. Controlling for the effects of extraversion and self‐monitoring, it was found that political skill was significantly related to the accurate recognition of emotions via voices after a training session. As predicted, other‐reported political skill was found to be a stronger predictor of such learning than self‐reported political skill. In addition, social astuteness and networking ability were the most predictive of emotional cue learning among the different dimensions of political skill. Implications and limitations are discussed.

A Review of Political Skill: Current Research Trend and Directions for Future Research

“…While emotional intelligence focuses predominantly on the emotion-based aspects of interpersonal relations, political skill is considered as a unification of knowledge and skill that go beyond emotions ). Momm et al (2013) reported that politically skilled individuals show greater improvement on emotional recognition after training than those who are politically unskilled. Therefore, we suggest that emotional intelligence is more general and fundamental, and is required for the effective application of political skill.…”

“…However, some studies have revealed that self-and other-rated political skills do reflect somewhat different as well as overlapping facets Meurs et al 2010;Momm et al 2013). However, some studies have revealed that self-and other-rated political skills do reflect somewhat different as well as overlapping facets Meurs et al 2010;Momm et al 2013).…”

“…Since political skill includes the ability to discern subtle social cues, it can promote the improvement of emotional intelligence. Momm et al (2013) reported that politically skilled individuals show greater improvement on emotional recognition after training than those who are politically unskilled.…”

“…These are summarized in Table 1. Although all the dimensions of political skill work together, they are not equally important for specific types of outcome (Momm et al 2013). Dimensional analysis is essential for further understanding of the influential mechanisms underlying political skill.…”

“…Most empirical studies on political skill use selfrated political skill. However, some studies have revealed that self-and other-rated political skills do reflect somewhat different as well as overlapping facets Meurs et al 2010;Momm et al 2013). While some studies showed negative leniency and no distortion in self-rated political skill (Blickle and Schnitzler 2010;Westbrook et al 2013), self-rated political skill can include intentional faking and unintentional false reports, especially in high-stakes self-assessment such as personnel selection (Blickle et al 2011d).…”