Resident Advisor General Intelligence, Emotional Intelligence, Personality Dimensions, and Internal Belief Characteristics as Predictors of Rated Performance
Resident Advisors (RAs) have a significant hand in helping students adjust and thrive in college life. This study sought to examine how well general and emotional intelligence, personality, and ?internal belief? characteristics predict performance in the RA position, using hierarchical regression analyses. General intelligence, emotional intelligence, personality dimensions, and ?internal beliefs? survey data was obtained from 36 university RAs. Performance data was obtained from self-reports by the RAs and also from 189 resident students rating their RAs. RA emotional stability, conscientiousness, and confidence in ability were found to be predictive of rated performance. Scores of emotional intelligence were found to be significantly positively correlated with RA performance but did not have incremental validity above the contribution of other measures. Implications for improving the current process of RA selection at colleges and directions for future research are discussed.