Based on theoretical and methodological approaches, EI measures are categorized in three main streams: ability-based measures (e.g. MSCEIT), self-reports of abilities measures (e.g. SREIT, SUEIT and WLEIS), and mixed-models (e.g. AES, ECI, EI questionnaire, EIS, EQ-I and GENOS), which include measures of EI and traditional social skills.
Ability model Salovey and Mayer's define EI within the confines of the standard criteria for a new intelligence. Their initial definition of EI had been "the ability to monitor one's own and other people's emotions, to discriminate between different emotions and label them appropriately, and to use emotional information to guide thinking and behavior". It proposes that individuals vary in their ability to process information of an emotional nature and in their ability to relate emotional processing to wider cognition. The model claims that EI includes four types of abilities: • Perceiving emotions: the ability to detect and decipher emotions in faces, pictures, voices, and cultural artifacts—including the ability to identify one's own emotions. Perceiving emotions is a basic aspect of emotional intelligence, as it makes all other processing of emotional information possible. • Using emotions: the ability to harness emotions to facilitate various cognitive activities, such as thinking and problem-solving. The emotionally intelligent person can capitalize fully upon his or her changing
moods in order to best fit the task at hand. • Understanding emotions: the ability to comprehend emotion language and to appreciate complicated relationships among emotions. For example, understanding emotions encompasses the ability to be sensitive to slight variations between emotions, and the ability to recognize and describe how emotions evolve over time. • Managing emotions: the ability to regulate emotions in both ourselves and in others. The emotionally intelligent person can harness emotions, even negative ones, and manage them to achieve intended goals. The ability EI model has been criticized for lacking
face and
predictive validity in the workplace. However, in terms of
construct validity, ability EI tests have great advantage over self-report scales of EI because they compare individual maximal performance to standard performance scales and do not rely on individuals' endorsement of descriptive statements about themselves. Moreover, MSCEIT scores were associated with some gene candidates (COMT, HTR2A and DRD2), while self-report questionnaires were not.
Measurement The current measure of Mayer and Salovey's model of EI, the
Mayer–Salovey–Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT), is based on a series of emotion-based problem-solving items. Consistent with the model's claim of EI as a type of intelligence, the test is modeled on ability-based
IQ tests. By testing a person's abilities on each of the four branches of emotional intelligence, it generates scores for each of the branches as well as a total score. Central to the four-branch model is the idea that EI requires attunement to
social norms. Therefore, the MSCEIT is
scored in a consensus fashion, with higher scores indicating higher overlap between an individual's answers and those provided by a worldwide sample of respondents. The MSCEIT can also be expert-scored so that the amount of overlap is calculated between an individual's answers and those provided by a group of 21
emotion researchers. In a study by Føllesdal, the MSCEIT test results of 111 business leaders were compared with how their employees described their leader. It was found that there were no correlations between a leader's test results and how he or she was rated by the employees, with regard to
empathy, ability to motivate, and leader effectiveness. Føllesdal also criticized the Canadian company Multi-Health Systems, which administers the test. The test contains 141 questions, but it was found after publishing the test that 19 of these did not give the expected answers. This has led Multi-Health Systems to remove answers to these 19 questions before scoring.
Other measurements Various other specific measures also assess ability in emotional intelligence. These include: • Diagnostic Analysis of Non-verbal Accuracy (DANVA) • Japanese and Caucasian Brief Affect Recognition Test (JACBART) • Situational Test of Emotional Understanding (STEU) • Situational Test of Emotion Management (STEM).
Criticism Goleman's model of EI has been criticized in the research literature as "
pop psychology". Similarly, Locke claims that the concept of EI is a misinterpretation of the intelligence construct, and he offers an alternative interpretation: it is not another form or type of intelligence, but intelligence—the ability to grasp
abstractions—applied to a particular life domain: emotions. He suggests the concept should be re-labeled and referred to as a skill.
Measurement Two measurement tools are based on the Goleman model: • The Emotional Competence Inventory (ECI), which was created in 1999, and the Emotional and Social Competence Inventory (ESCI), a newer edition of the ECI, which was developed in 2007. The Emotional and Social Competence – University Edition (ESCI-U) is also available. These tools, developed by Goleman and
Boyatzis, provide a behavioral measure of emotional and social competencies. •
The Emotional Intelligence Appraisal, which was created in 2001 and which can be taken as a self-report or
360-degree assessment.
Trait model Konstantinos V. Petrides proposed a conceptual distinction between the ability-based model and a
trait-based model of EI, developing the latter over many years in a number of publications. Trait EI is an individual's self-perceptions of their emotional abilities — as defined by Petrides, "a constellation of emotional self-perceptions located at the lower levels of personality." An alternative label for the same construct is trait emotional
self-efficacy. The trait EI model is general and subsumes the Goleman mixed model. The conceptualization of EI as a
personality trait leads to a construct that lies outside the
taxonomy of human
cognitive ability, distinguishing its operationalization and theory from other models. including the EQ-i, the Swinburne University Emotional Intelligence Test (SUEIT), and the Schutte EI model. As limited measures of trait emotional intelligence, these models do not assess intelligence, abilities, or skills. Originally known as the
BarOn EQ-i, it was the first self-report measure of emotional intelligence available, and the only measure predating Goleman's bestselling book. The Petrides model is operationalized by the Trait Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire (TEIQue), which encompasses 15 subscales organized under four factors:
well-being,
self-control,
emotionality, and
sociability. In a 2007 study, the
psychometric properties of the TEIQue have been found to be
normally distributed and
reliable. Researchers have found TEIQue scores to be unrelated to
Raven's matrices of non-verbal reasoning, which has been interpreted as support for the personality trait view of EI. TEIQue scores have also been found to be positively related to
extraversion,
agreeableness,
openness,
conscientiousness, while being inversely related to
alexithymia,
neuroticism. A number of quantitative genetic studies have been carried out within the trait EI model, which have revealed significant genetic effects and heritabilities for all trait EI scores. Two studies involving direct comparisons of multiple EI tests yielded favorable results for the TEIQue. == Correlations ==