Emotion recognition ability for voices, auditory intelligence, general mental ability, and extrinsic career success

Previous research has found that emotion recognition ability for faces (ERA-F) positively predicts occupational status after controlling for age based on the variance it shares with General Mental Ability (GMA). As the voice might also be an important source of information in social communication, we tested whether emotion recognition ability for voices (ERA-V) and auditory intelligence (AI) positively predict occupational status based on the variance they share with GMA. Contrary to expectations, ERA-V was not directly associated with either GMA (as opposed to AI) or occupational status after controlling for age. As expected, GMA and AI predicted occupational status, and AI predicted occupational status based on the variance it shares with GMA. Our study suggests that ERA-V differs from ERA-F in its ties to intelligence and career success and therefore warrants further consideration in both theorizing and in applied contexts.