The development of an adolescent measure of EI

Abstract

The purpose of this paper was to evaluate the reliability and validity of a modified adolescent version of the Swinburne University Emotional Intelligence Test (Adolescent SUEIT). Study 1 identified qualitative changes and rewording of items necessary to make the SUEIT more ‘adolescent friendly’. In Study 2 the adolescent modified version of the SUEIT was administered to a larger sample of adolescents (N = 1002) to gather information on internal reliability, and to perform validity testing via exploratory factor analysis. The sub-scale reliability of the Adolescent SUEIT was found to be moderate to high, and a four-factor model was most representative of the adolescent sample. It was also noted that the more basic emotional intelligence (EI) abilities were positively related to age; females reported higher levels of emotional perception; and mean scores for the adolescent sample were below the norm for an adult population. With the amount of EI research with adolescents increasing, it is important to have valid and reliable tests available for research into important social and educational outcomes for adolescents. This initial evidence suggests the Adolescent SUEIT is a reliable and valid tool, and should be used to further understand the role of EI in adolescence, and how EI relates to important life criteria.

Introduction

Emotions are internal events that coordinate many psychological sub-systems including physiological responses, cognition, and conscious awareness. They provide an emotional valence for a person’s changing relationships, helping to provide importance and meaning to an individual’s environment. The ability to understand one’s emotional states or emotional problems is an important indicator of healthy mental functioning (Repetti, Taylor, & Seeman, 2002). Thus, it has been proposed that the concept of intelligence should be expanded to include “emotional intelligence” (EI), generally defined as an ability to recognise the meanings of emotions and their relationships, and to reason and problem-solve on the basis of these emotions (Bar-On, 1997, Ciarrochi et al., 2001a, Cooper and Sawaf, 1997, Goleman, 1995, Mayer and Salovey, 1997, Palmer and Stough, 2001, Salovey et al., 1993, Salovey and Mayer, 1990).

The current conceptualisation of EI was originally proposed by Salovey and Mayer (1990); it offers perhaps the most promising theory of EI, considering both emotions and cognition equally (Mayer & Salovey, 1993). According to Mayer and Salovey (1997), EI reflects a composite of abilities: perceiving, understanding, reasoning and the regulation of emotions. Emotional intelligence was popularised by Goleman’s (1995) best-seller “Emotional Intelligence”, and since has headlined many popular books (e.g. Cooper and Sawaf, 1997, Gottman, 1997, Salerno, 1996, Segal, 1997). Amidst this excitement, a number of researchers attempted to develop self-report measures of EI or emotional intelligence-related constructs (Bar-On, 1997, Goleman, 1995, Salovey and Mayer, 1990, Schutte et al., 1998). As these tests were developed, some researchers (e.g. Davies, Stankov, & Roberts, 1998) discovered that many EI measures had poor internal reliability, did not distinguish from well-established personality factors, and have unstable factorial validity. More recent evidence suggests that some aspects of EI can be reliably measured in adults, and can reliably predict outcomes such as leadership style (Gardner & Stough, 2002), depression (Ciarrochi et al., 2001b, Ciarrochi et al., 2000, Ciarrochi et al., 2002, Ciarrochi et al., 2001a) and life satisfaction (Palmer, Donaldson, & Stough, 2002). Gender differences have also been reported in a number of previous studies (Ciarrochi et al., 2000, Mayer and Geher, 1996, Wertlieb et al., 1987, Wierzbicki, 1989), with findings suggesting that women are superior to men in perceiving emotion.

Palmer and Stough (2001) developed a self-report measure of EI named the Swinburne University Emotional Intelligence Test (SUEIT). It provides scores on five factors: Emotional recognition and expression (in oneself) (ERE) – the ability to identify one’s own feelings and emotional states, and the ability to express those inner feeling to others; emotions direct cognition (EDC) – the extent to which emotions and emotional knowledge are incorporated in decision making and/or problem solving; understanding of emotions external (UE) – the ability to identify and understand the emotions of others; emotional management (EM) – the ability to manage positive and negative emotions within both oneself and others; and emotional control (EC) – how effectively emotional states experienced, such as anger, stress, anxiety and frustration are controlled.

Despite the encouraging initial evidence of reliable measures of EI for adults, very little research has been done with respect to adolescents. Research measuring EI in young people has predominantly utilised performance measures, such as face recognition (Cassidy et al., 1992, Custrini and Feldman, 1989) and/or observations by peers, parents or teachers (Carlson-Jones et al., 1998, Eisenberg et al., 1995, Saarni, 1999). Surprisingly, little research has examined or employed the use of self-report measures of EI in adolescents (Ciarrochi et al., 2001b, Spirito et al., 1991). Despite this lack of research, a few more recent studies have made use of adolescent EI measures, with EI being found to be related to academic success (Parker et al., 2004, Petrides et al., 2004); deviant behaviour (Petrides et al., 2004); and smoking risk factors (Trinidad, Unger, Chou, & Anderson-Johnson, 2004). This early evidence concerning the role of EI across adolescence suggests that EI does play a significant role in adolescents’ everyday life. Given that intellectual capacities grow with age and experience from childhood to early adulthood (Dempster, 1985, Fancher, 1985), it is likely that EI is not fully developed in adolescents. Thus the development of EI related skills might provide adolescents with skills to deal with the emotional difficulties (Ciarrochi et al., 2001b) of everyday life.

Ciarrochi et al. (2001b) collected data from 131 students aged 13–15 years to investigate the reliability and validity of an older self-report measure of EI (SEI, Schutte et al., 1998). They reported that scores on the SEI were internally consistent, higher in females, and that EI was positively associated with skills in identifying emotional expressions, social supports, extent of satisfaction with social support, and mood management behaviour. This finding suggests that EI can be reliably measured in adolescents as young as 13 years using a self-report measure. In the present paper we examine the reliability and validity of a modified adolescent version of the SUEIT. There are a number of issues that are relevant when examining the utility of a psychometric scale developed for adults (e.g. the SUEIT), for use in adolescent samples. Firstly, the scale was initially developed for adult administration and requires a reasonably good level of verbal fluency, suggesting that the language of some items may need to be changed. Secondly, the developmental nature of EI in adolescents may result in the adult five-factor model of the SUEIT not being applicable for adolescents. Emotional intelligence is said to be developmental in nature (Mayer, Caruso, & Salovey, 2000), therefore, it is expected that EI as measured by the adolescent modified SUEIT will increase with age. Further, given that gender differences in EI have been reported in adults it is expected that similar gender differences will be found in adolescents.

To develop the SUEIT into a reliable and valid measure of EI for adolescent administration, two studies were conducted. In study 1, qualitative changes were identified and rewording of items was performed to make them more ‘adolescent friendly’. In study 2 the adolescent modified version of the SUEIT was administered to a larger sample of adolescents, to gather information on reliability, and to perform factorial validity testing.