Emotion recognition ability influences annual salary: study

A person's ability to recognize others' emotions has a demonstrable effect on their income, said a study on Monday.

The study has been published in the Journal of Organizational Behavior.

"The more effectively an employee of an organization can recognize the feelings of others, the higher his or her annual salary will be," said Prof. Jochen Menges, holder of the Chair of Leadership and Human Resource Management at WHU-Otto Beisheim School of Management.

Hence, emotion recognition is not only important for social reasons, but it is also given economic value, he added.

In the study conducted by WHU, the University of Bonn and Illinois State University with employees from a broad range of different jobs in different companies located in Germany, the researchers measured employees' emotion recognition ability by asking employees to identify emotions in pictures of faces and recordings of voices.

Furthermore, coworkers and supervisors reported about employees' social and interpersonal skills.

"And we got information about employees' annual salary," Menges said, "Thus we were able to connect all those pieces of information and found that those who are good at recognizing the emotions of others earn more money in their jobs than others."

The researchers also showed that this effect of emotion recognition on income is due to employees' social and interpersonal skills.

"Employees who accurately perceive the emotions of others are better able to use social skills at work and are more cooperative, considerate and helpful to others," Menges explained. Enditem