Similarities and differences between typical- and maximum-performance in emotion management situational judgment tests

Emotion management is an important dimension of emotional intelligence (EI) and is commonly measured with situational judgment tests (SJTs), which can use either maximum-(MP) or typical-performance (TP) instructions. The goals of the current study were to identify the distinct relation of typical-and maximum-performance emotion management with several criterion variables, and to identify predictors of the difference between MP and TP emotion management. We conducted two studies, with samples from Croatia (N = 215, 65 % female, Mage = 20.91) and Australia (N = 138, 76.8 % female, Mage = 19.21). As predicted, MP emotion management was a significant predictor of college GPA, and TP was significant predictor of ego-resiliency. Polynomial regression analysis with response surface methodology showed that participants who scored higher on TP compared to their results on the MP on the same test had higher results on ego-resiliency. Conscientiousness significantly predicted the gap between typical and maximum-performance, indicating that conscientious individuals were more likely to perform to their maximum emotion management capacity. We suggest that typical performance may be an appropriate way to conceptualize emotion management as a behavioral tendency rather than a knowledge base, in line with interpretation and theory around emotion management.