Emotional intelligence correlates only weakly with mathematics achievement (r = .16), less than with achievement in the humanities¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · review r3 · q3 · i1 small · n=30 meta-analyses, 66 correlations from 13,853 effect sizes (~4.66 million participants)
Currency · newest study 2025 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person

Emotional intelligence correlates r = .16 with mathematics achievement (MacCann et al. 2020, k = 258, n = 9,750), the weakest of the aptitude variables. These are correlations compiled across meta-analyses: they describe how strongly the characteristic goes with mathematics achievement, not what causes it.

Subclaims¶

Reading the evidence codes

q is the design tier, i the impact, n the sample, and the kind with its r the rigour judged within that kind: what each code means.

This claim: no standardized effect is recorded in observations/ for it yet, so no benchmark reading is possible.

q3 i1 Emotional intelligence correlates r = .16 with mathematics achievement (MacCann et al. 2020, k = 258, n = 9,750), the weakest of the aptitude variables. → Breit et al. 2025

Evidence¶

Breit et al. 2025¶

Breit, M., Schneider, M., & Preckel, F. (2025). Mathematics achievement and learner characteristics: A systematic review of meta-analyses. Learning and Individual Differences, 118, 102621. doi:10.1016/j.lindif.2024.102621

q3 · systematic review of meta-analyses · i1 · small effect, r = .16 (k = 258) · n=30 meta-analyses, 66 correlations from 13,853 effect sizes (~4.66 million participants) · review · r3

The review compiles zero-order correlations from published meta-analyses (each with at least ten effect sizes, the largest one kept where several covered a variable), found by a systematic PsycINFO search in July 2024. It pools nothing further and controls for nothing: many of these characteristics correlate with one another, so a correlation here says how strongly the characteristic goes with mathematics achievement, not that it causes it. Emotional intelligence r = .16 (MacCann et al. 2020, 258 effect sizes, corrected for unreliability). MacCann et al. found the relation stronger for the humanities than for STEM (r = .38 against .21).

Discussion¶

The authors suggest emotional knowledge is more relevant to humanities content, which deals with people and their motives, than to mathematics.

Learner Variables¶

Emotional Intelligence — predictor: learners who differ on it differ in outcomes

Mathematics achievement correlates more strongly with learners' knowledge, skills and cognitive abilities than with their personality traits, goals or emotions

Page metadata

Field	Value
`type`	`claim`
`id`	`emotional-intelligence-correlates-weakly-with-math-achievement`
`title`	`Emotional intelligence correlates only weakly with mathematics achievement (r = .16), less than with achievement in the humanities`
`status`	`review`
`evidence_strength`	`moderate`
`newest_evidence`	`2025`
`generated`	by `claude/unspecified` on `2026-10-16`
`trust`	unverified — no one has confirmed this page's content
`sources`	1 — `breit-et-al-2025`

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