Ability measures
Ability approaches treat emotional intelligence as a form of mental skill. The best known test, the Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test, asks people to solve emotional problems. Answers are scored against consensus or expert judgment. Scoring against consensus has attracted criticism, since it is not obvious what makes an emotional answer correct.
Trait and self-report measures
Trait approaches treat emotional intelligence as a set of self-perceptions, and they use questionnaires such as those developed by Nicola Schutte and by K. V. Petrides and Adrian Furnham. These measures are easy to administer, but they tend to overlap with personality traits and can be affected by how a person wishes to appear.
Does it add anything?
A central question is whether these measures predict outcomes beyond existing measures of intelligence and personality. A major meta-analysis found that the answer depended on the type of measure and on the emotional demands of the job. Claims that emotional intelligence matters more than IQ have not been supported.
Further reading
- Mayer, J. D., Salovey, P., Caruso, D. R., & Sitarenios, G. (2003). Measuring emotional intelligence with the MSCEIT V2.0. Emotion, 3, 97-105.
- Petrides, K. V., & Furnham, A. (2001). Trait emotional intelligence: Psychometric investigation with reference to established trait taxonomies. European Journal of Personality, 15, 425-448.
- Joseph, D. L., & Newman, D. A. (2010). Emotional intelligence: An integrative meta-analysis and cascading model. Journal of Applied Psychology, 95, 54-78.