Emotional intelligence
Emotional intelligence, often shortened to EQ, is a popular way of describing the skills involved in dealing with feelings: recognising them, keeping them in proportion, using them to keep going, reading them in others and handling them between people.
These are skills more than fixed traits. Most people are stronger in some areas than others, and all of them can grow with attention and practice. A score describes how you see yourself in each area today, not a limit.
See your own result
Your score and full report: $2.95 for 7 days of full access, then $29.95 every 4 weeks until you cancel.
Self-awareness
Noticing and naming your own feelings, and seeing how they shape what you do.
- Toward the high end
- People here usually know what they are feeling and why. They tend to spot their own moods early and understand how those moods affect them.
- Around the middle
- People here often know what they feel, though some reactions still take them by surprise.
- Toward the low end
- People here can find their own feelings hard to read from the inside. Naming feelings is a skill that grows with practice.
Self-control
Keeping strong feelings in check and calming yourself down.
- Toward the high end
- People here tend to keep their heads when emotions run high. They think before they react and recover quickly from upsets.
- Around the middle
- People here manage their reactions most of the time, with some situations that are harder than others.
- Toward the low end
- For people here, strong feelings can take over quickly, before there is time to choose a response.
Drive
Using your feelings to keep going toward goals.
- Toward the high end
- People here keep going when things get dull or hard. They tend to set their own goals and bounce back from setbacks.
- Around the middle
- People here push on with what matters to them, though some tasks are harder to start or finish than others.
- Toward the low end
- People here can find getting started and keeping going hard, especially without a clear goal.
Empathy
Picking up on how other people feel and seeing their side.
- Toward the high end
- People here read others well. They tend to notice how people feel and try to see things from their side.
- Around the middle
- People here pick up on how others feel much of the time, while some signals pass them by.
- Toward the low end
- Other people's feelings may not be the first thing people here notice.
How scoring works
Each statement has five response choices. A response contributes from 1 to 5 points to the scale it belongs to, and the points become a position from 0 to 100. Around 0–33 is the low third, 34–66 is around the middle and 67–100 is the high third.
Looking at the separate positions is more useful than treating them as one overall score: the profile shows where the answers sit on each scale.
The benefits of knowing your EQ profile
Seeing the five areas separately is often more useful than a single number. Someone can be very good at reading other people and still find it hard to calm down after an argument, or be highly driven while rarely stopping to notice how they feel.
Knowing which areas come easily, and which take more effort, gives you somewhere specific to start if you want to work on them.
Emotional intelligence in everyday life
Small habits help each area: naming a feeling before reacting to it, taking a pause before replying to a message that stung, asking a friend how they really are and listening to the answer, or noticing what keeps you going on a long task.
None of this means hiding feelings. It means having a little more choice about what you do with them.
How to take the test
MindScale's emotional intelligence test has 35 statements and no time limit. Choose the response that best matches how you usually are, not how you would like to be.
You can go back and change an answer. When you finish, you can unlock your score and full report: $2.95 for 7 days of full access, then $29.95 every 4 weeks until you cancel.
Your score and full report: $2.95 for 7 days of full access, then $29.95 every 4 weeks until you cancel.
Conclusion
Emotional intelligence covers five areas: self-awareness, self-control, drive, empathy and social skill. Each is a skill that can be practised, and most people have a mix of stronger and weaker areas.
If you'd like to see your own mix, the MindScale emotional intelligence test has 35 statements and explains your score in each area. The price is shown before you start.
See your own result
Your score and full report: $2.95 for 7 days of full access, then $29.95 every 4 weeks until you cancel.
Social skill
Handling conversations, disagreements and groups well.