Emotional Intelligence Testing

As a young boy, my parents always had me self-report my emotions. We had this magnet it on the fridge with the boy who had funky hair and various faces. Under each face would be a different emotion1. It would range from “ecstatic” all the way down to “disgusted”. Each day I would look at these funny faces and see which was the best image of how I felt. Although I grew out of the stage my life when my parents would ask me how I felt using a funny graphic, looking back on it in hindsight, I can see the testing they were doing on me to keep check of my emotional stability during the early impressionable years and monitor my behaviors to see if it went outside the norm for children my age. This is an informal way of observing emotional intelligence (EI) but true testing in the field of emotional intelligence is widely contested as some researchers and psychologists consider it to be a largely pointless and counterproductive exercise, stating that scores produced are not predictive of anything important.

According to John Mayer et al, emotional intelligence is defined as “the capacity to reason about emotions and emotions to enhance thinking. It includes the abilities to accurately perceive emotions, to access and generate emotions so as to assist thought, to understand emotions and emotional knowledge, and two reflectively regulate emotions so as to promote emotional and intellectual growth” (Mayer 197). In their study, “Emotional Intelligence: Theory, Findings, and Implications,” they implemented the Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligent Test (MSCEIT) which would consist of eight tasks, ultimately measuring each of the four branches of Emotional Intelligence. Results of this EI test would be used to prove their definition an...

... middle of paper ...

...h on Emotional Intelligence." Journal of Organizational Behavior 26.4 (2005): 411-24. Print.

Matthews, Gerald, Moshe Zeidner, and Richard D. Roberts. "Emotional Intelligence: A Promise Unfulfilled?" Japanese Psychological Research 54.2 (2012): 105-27. Print.

Mayer, John D., Peter Salovey, and David R. Caruso. "Emotional Intelligence: Theory, Findings, and Implications." Psychological Inquiry 15.3 (2004): 197-215. Calcasa. Web. .

Minardi, Henry. "Testing for Emotional Intelligence Raises a Number of Key Questions." Nursing Standard 26.26 (2012): 32. Web.

Roberts, Richard D., Moshe Zeidner, and Gerald Matthews. "Does Emotional Intelligence Meet Traditional Standards for an Intelligence? Some New Data and Conclusions." Emotion 1.3 (2001): 196-231. Print.

1 Emotions Vocabulary Chart