SCENARIO 1 / 12 · PERCEIVING0 of 12 answered
You cancel dinner plans with a friend an hour before. They reply:
"Fine. Do whatever you want." What are they most likely feeling?
What emotional intelligence is, in short
Emotional intelligence (EI) is the ability to notice emotions in yourself and others, use them to help your thinking, understand how they arise and change, and manage them well. Those four abilities are the branches of the model Salovey and Mayer proposed in 1990.
This test follows the ability approach: it asks what's going on or what works best, rather than how emotionally skilled you think you are. Answers are keyed to what most people and emotion researchers would agree is the best response. The scenarios are our own and the scores aren't normed.
By What's Your IQ · Reviewed 4 Oct 2026- Format
- 12 scenarios, 3 per area, 4 options each
- Areas
- Perceiving, using, understanding, managing
- Scoring
- 0–2 per scenario, 0–24 total
- Also called
- EI, EQ
UNDERSTANDING EMOTIONS · SCENARIOS 7 TO 9
Emotions mix, and they grow
Robert Plutchik arranged eight basic emotions in a ring, with opposites facing each other. Click two neighbours to see the feeling they blend into, and see how each one changes as it intensifies.
BLENDS INTOAggressiveness
THE BLENDAnger and anticipation: getting ready to attack or push forward.
HOW ANGER INTENSIFIESNaming the milder form early (annoyance rather than rage) is one of the simplest ways to manage an emotion before it escalates.
MILDAnnoyanceBASICAngerINTENSERage
Beyond IQEI predicts grades even after IQ and personalityA 2020 meta-analysis of over 1,200 effect sizes found ability EI was linked to academic performance on top of intelligence and Big Five traits, with understanding and managing emotions showing the strongest links.4
1980The emotion wheel. Plutchik proposed eight basic emotions that combine into more complex feelings, the model behind the wheel above.1
1990Named and defined. Peter Salovey and John Mayer described emotional intelligence as a set of abilities, separate from general intelligence.2
1995Popularised. Daniel Goleman's bestseller made "EQ" a household term, and broadened it to include motivation and social skills.3
2020 · metaMeasured against school results. MacCann and colleagues pooled studies of students and found the ability-based measures predicted best, more than self-rated EI.4
- Plutchik, R. (1980). Emotion: A psychoevolutionary synthesis. Harper & Row.
- Salovey, P., & Mayer, J. D. (1990). Emotional intelligence. Imagination, Cognition and Personality, 9(3), 185–211.
- Goleman, D. (1995). Emotional intelligence. Bantam.
- MacCann, C., Jiang, Y., Brown, L. E. R., Double, K. S., Bucich, M., & Minbashian, A. (2020). Emotional intelligence predicts academic performance: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 146(2), 150–186.