Comparing measures of emotional intelligence - Research Paper Example

Comparing measures of emotional intelligence Introduction Leadership is an integral part of human relations because it serves as the basis by which various forms of human interactions that include the running of business, the governance of countries, the nurturing of children and most other forms of interpersonal correspondences are managed (MacCann, 2005). Without leadership, there is no denying the fact that the whole world would be plunged into a state of anarchy and chaos. This not withstanding, leadership is not good just for the fact that it exists but also for the fact that it is well utilized. In this manner, the virtues possessed by various leaders become important in determining the kind of leadership style they would exhibit and whether or not they would constitute good leaders (Ekman, 1973). One of the commonest areas used in assessing the quality of virtue of leaders have been identified to be the degree of emotional intelligence possessed by these leaders. Indeed, if leaders were corporate entities, it would be said that the degree and among of emotional intelligence possessed by one leader over the other could serve as a major competitive advantage (Legree et al, 2005). Given how important emotional intelligence is to leadership, many researchers in the field of psychology have often looked for ways in measuring the emotional intelligence possessed by various leaders. This has also paved way for the institutionalization of a number of systems of assessing leadership, one of which is the Mayer-Salovey-Caruso emotional intelligence test commonly referred to as the MSCEIT. The present research note thus tries to examine various researches that have been conducted to subject the MSCEIT to scrutiny to come to terms with the reliability and validity of the system. Based on the analysis of these researches, the present writer would also draw his own conclusions on the reliability and validity of the MSCEIT. Description of the instrument There is presently a newer version of the MSCEIT known as the MSCEIT v2.0. This means that there have been earlier versions of the instrument (Hall and Bernieri, 2001). As it resounds in the name, in the MSCEIT v2.0 was created by three psychologists namely John D. Mayer, Peter Salovey and David R. Caruso. The creation of the instrument was necessitated by the importance that the psychology world ataches to emotional intelligence (EI) especially after the days of Goleman (1998, p. 31) when he hypothesized that emotional intelligence by be twice as important as intelligent quotient. After Goleman, a lot of attention was drawn to emotional intelligence and how it may affect crucial areas of human endeavor such as in leadership. The instrument was created and popularized in the year 2004 by the three psychologists who created it. The popularization of the instrument was done through the writing of personal articles on the instrument as well as reviewing other instruments for measuring leadership and comparing the effectiveness of those instruments to the MSCEIT. Today, MSCEIT has become widely popular and useful by several psychologists who may hold different schools of thought on the subject of emotional intelligence and its relationship to leadership. One aspect of the MSCEIT that has made it gain so much popularity in the measurement of leadership in people is the fact that its provision for usage has been made in such a way that it cuts across several age group and classification of people. For example there are components of the instruments specially designed for adults whiles there are components for children of 12 years to 18 years. This means that almost every person who can have the exhibition of emotional intelligence in one way or the other can have the instrument being used in his or her assessment of leadership (Lopes et al. 2003). The mode of creation of the instrument is well incorporated in how the instrument functions or is used to assess or measure leadership. Generally, the MSCEIT functions in the form of a test and this is how the instrument was created. This means that MSCEIT is essentially a test item instrument. It would be noted that emotional intelligence deals now just with the emotional characteristics of a person but that of other people around that person also (Lopes, 2004). In essence, creators of the instrument incorporated this idea to ensure that the test “directly assesses a person's capacity to identify emotions in others, to use emotions to facilitate thought, to understand emotional meanings, and to know how to manage emotions” (Mayer et al., 2012). This means that the instrument sees in a good leader the need to have a big heart, not just to accommodate one’s self but also accommodate the emotions of other people. Because of this, the instrument bases on the degree and extent to which a respondent is able to interpret other people’s emotions and the degree to which interpreted emotions can be dealt with to assign a grade to a person’s leadership measure (Hall and Bernieri, 2001). Because of this, there are four major areas that the test looks at and these are: (a) Perceiving Emotions (Faces, Pictures); (b) Facilitating Thoughts (Facilitation, Sensations); (c) Understanding Emotions (Blends, Changes); and (d) Managing Emotions (Management, Relations) (Roberts et al., 2006). Reliability Researchers have not used the MSCEIT without the need to criticize it. Much of the criticism has been focused on the need to come to terms with the reliability of the instrument in critically measuring and assessing leadership. Two of such research reports are discussed under this section to come to terms with the reliability of the Mayer-Salovey-Caruso emotional intelligence test. The first is an Australian based research led by Richard D. Roberts and Ralf Schulze of the Center for New Constructs, Educational Testing Service, Sydney. The researcher tested the reliability of the MSCEIT from a number of perspectives. First, they identified the evidence of the MSCEIT testing for intelligence. When compared to WAIS Verbal IQ, SAT, College Grades and College Admission Indices, the researchers found that indeed emotional intelligence relates to acculturated intelligence and so in essence, the MSCEIT measures intelligence (Roberts et al 2006, p. 664). On this score, they concluded that MSCEIT is reliable in measuring leadership on the basis of using the instrument to authenticate the measure of intelligence. Another standard used by the researchers to measure the reliability of the MSCEIT instrument was the scope of designated measures that the instrument could do. On this score, it was realized that even though exists only for major categories, these categories come with as many as 120 questions that identifies several components and areas of a person’s knowledge on emotions of one’s self and that of others. This means that results and conclusions from the instrument can be trusted to be reliable because they have wider delimitation. Finally, Roberts et al (2006) criticize the fact that some of the subtests are interrelated and thus makes the whole analysis very complex. In their estimation, this may strongly affect the reliability of conclusions because of the complexities in analyzing results (p. 665). The second group of researchers who tested the reliability of the MSCEIT was Mayer et al (2003). Like the other researchers, Mayer et al (2003) dwelt so much on the number of tasks undertaken in the conduct of the test to determine its reliability. The idea was that leadership and for that matter the measure of emotional intelligence should incorporate as many areas of the human characteristics and behavior that settling for just some few tasks will not be enough. Recognizing that the MSCEIT involves varying tasks such as Perception, Facilitating, Understanding, and Management, the researchers categorized the instrument as non-homogenous and thus qualified it for use under the split-half reliability coefficients where other studies have judged the “test–retest reliability of the total MSCEIT score as r(60) = .86(Brackett & Mayer, 2001). A score that is highly commendable for ascribing the whole instrument as reliable. Validity Just as with the determination of the reliability of the instrument, a couple of studies have been conducted on the validity of the instrument as well. Mayer et al (2004) approached the issue of validity of the MSCEIT from a perspective where the viability of emotional intelligence in general in the assessment of leadership qualities is concerned. This was done because the main focus of the MSCEIT is to test for emotional intelligence of users and score them. Invariably, if emotional intelligence is viable in determining or measuring leadership, then the MSCEIT as an instrument is valid in its function. Much of the research work of these researchers centered on the scientific viability of emotional intelligence. In their first finding, they concluded that emotional intelligence is indeed a scientific phenomenon and that “EI has been said to matter twice as much as IQ (Goleman 1998, p. 31). Noting that like the measurement of IQ, the measurement of EI requires the assessment of key cognitive abilities, Mayer et al (2004) concluded that emotional intelligence is indeed scientific. On the viability to measure leadership, they concluded that leadership also emotional several inter-cognitive reactions to how subjects behave and react. For this reason, a person mst show a high sense of competence in not just coping with one’s own emotions but that of others. According to the researchers, a refusal to perform this key inter-cognitive task would mean that a leader would fail, in his or her quest be being tagged as a good leader. If a cognitive task, which is a scientific task, could fail a leader, then clearly emotional intelligence, which is a cognitive task is valid to measure leadership. Roberts et al (2006) were also highly concerned about the validity of the MSCEIT instrument of leadership measurement. The focus of their research was to use established emotions measures. That is, their research critically analysed how viable the specific emotional characteristics qualified in determining the measure of leadership. The difference here therefore is the fact that the research did not consider the viability of emotional intelligence in totality but the viability of the individual components of emotions that the instrument measures. The approach of the researchers in validating the emotions measures that come with the emotional intelligence test of the MSCEIT was to make 138 participants undergo a combination of emotions measures and intelligence tests. The idea was that if both tests produced synchronizing results, then it could be said that the instrument was valid in testing oe measuring emotional intelligence because the test combines concepts from the two phenomena. After their research, it was found that “The emotions measures loaded on the same factor as intelligence measures. The validity of certain EI components (in particular, Emotion Perception), as currently assessed, appears equivocal” (p. 663). Conclusion The researches that have been analysed so far give several accounts on the validity and reliability of the MSCEIT instrument as a way of measuring leadership. But the most important highlights of the study has to do with the fact that there was no clear cut criticism against the reliability of the instrument. Based on the fact that not just one researcher confirmed the reliability of the instrument and also due to the fact that several thematic components were used in judging the reliability of the instrument: including scientific basis for the instrument, I would personally conclude that the MSCEIT is a reliable instrument for measuring emotional intelligence. With reference to its validity in using results of emotional intelligence also to measure leadership, it would be said that the instrument needs to be incorporated with several scientific tasks and components of people’s abilities to lead well before it can be generally said to be valid. For now, it possesses some level of validity but not entirely so. REFERENCE LIST 145. and Individual Differences, 35, 641–658. Brackett, M., & Mayer, J. D. (2001, October). Comparing measures of emotional intelligence. Paper presented at the Third Positive Psychology Summit, Washington, DC. Ekman, P. (1973). Darwin and facial expressions. New York: Academic Press. Goleman D. (1998). Working with Emotional Intelligence. New York: Bantam Hall, J. A., & Bernieri, F. J. (Eds.). (2001). Interpersonal sensitivity: Theory and measurement. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Kafetsios, K. (2004). Attachment and emotional intelligence abilities across the life course. Personality and Individual Differences, 37, 129– Legree, P. J., Psotka, J., Tremble, T., & Bourne, D. R. (2005). Using consensus based measurement to assess emotional intelligence. In R. Schulze & R. D. Roberts (Eds.), Emotional intelligence: An international handbook (pp. 155–179). Cambridge, MA: Hogrefe & Huber. Lopes, P. N., Salovey, P., & Straus, R. (2003). Emotional intelligence, personality, and the perceived quality of social relationships. Personality MacCann, C. (2005). [New approaches to the assessment of emotional intelligence]. Unpublished raw data. Mayer et al (2003). Exploring the Validity of the Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT) with Established Emotions Measures. American Psychological Association. Emotions. 2003, Vol. 3, No. 1, 97–105 Mayer et al. (2012). About the Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Tests (MSCEIT's). accessed August 12, 2012 from http://www.unh.edu/emotional_intelligence/ei%20About%20the%20MSCEIT/eiMSCEIT%20Intro.htm Roberts et al. (2006). Exploring the Validity of the Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT) with Established Emotions Measures. Accessed August 11, 2012 from http://www.jreid.com.au/pubs/jr_roberts.pdf Read More