What emotional intelligence is
An emotional intelligence test looks at how you handle feelings: noticing your own, making sense of them, steadying them, reading other people's and putting them into words. This one is free, takes about three minutes, and shows which of those five skills you lean on most and which you reach for least, rather than a single EQ number. The idea comes from the psychologists Peter Salovey and John Mayer, who described emotional intelligence in 1990 as a set of skills for recognizing, expressing and managing emotions in yourself and in other people. Daniel Goleman's 1995 bestseller made "EQ" a household word and stretched it to cover a broad mix of personality traits as well.
How to measure it is still argued over. Ability tests such as the MSCEIT give you emotional problems with better and worse answers, like reading the emotion in a face or predicting how a feeling will change. Trait questionnaires such as the TEIQue ask how you see your own emotional skills, and researchers treat the result as part of personality. The two don't line up well. In one set of studies, people's ratings of their own emotional skills were only weakly related to their scores on the ability test, and in another set, the people who scored lowest on an ability test were the most likely to overestimate how they did. This quiz relies on your view of yourself, like the trait questionnaires, so it describes your habits, not your ability.
How the quiz works
There are 14 questions about everyday emotional moments. Each has five answers, one for each skill, shown in shuffled order. Pick the one closest to what you actually do. Your result counts how often you chose each skill: the longest bar is the one you lean on most, and the shortest is the one you reach for least, which can be worth a look. Your answers stay in your browser and are not saved to an account unless you create one. We count anonymous stats, like which results come up most, to improve the quiz. If you want more than the tally, you can create a Vent Now account and Aspen, the AI companion in the app, will write a longer read of the same answers. Aspen's version includes a rough rating for each area. You don't retake the quiz.
The five emotional skills
Everyone uses all five. What differs is which one you reach for first when a feeling shows up, and each one has a version that helps and a version that gets overused. Your top result is the skill you lean on most. It isn't a measure of how good you are at it.
Noticing your feelings
Also called emotional self-awareness
Your first move with a feeling is to notice it: what it is, how strong it is, where it sits in your body. Researchers treat this as the base layer of emotional intelligence, because it's hard to make sense of or steady a feeling you haven't registered. The catch is that noticing a feeling doesn't tell you what to do with it, and on a hard day a feeling you see very clearly can take up a lot of room.
You will probably recognize it if:
- You can usually tell the difference between hurt, angry and just tired.
- Your body often tells you something is wrong before your mind catches up.
- You notice your mood shift even when nothing obvious happened.
- People sometimes call you sensitive because you register things they miss.
- You know what you feel, but not always what to do about it.
You often know you're upset before anyone else does, which gives you a head start on dealing with it. The friction comes when you know what you feel but keep it to yourself, so the people close to you are left guessing why you've gone quiet. Telling them the feeling in a few words, even before you've worked it all out, usually helps.
Try this. When you notice a strong feeling, ask one more question: "What does this feeling want me to do, and do I want to do it?" That small step from noticing to choosing is where awareness starts to turn into steadying.
Making sense of feelings
Also called understanding emotions
Your first move with a feeling is to make sense of it: what caused it, what it connects to, why it hit so hard this time. In the Mayer and Salovey model this is understanding emotions, and research links it more closely to general reasoning ability than the other skills. The catch is that understanding a feeling doesn't always make it go away, and the search for why can turn into replaying the same moment over and over.
You will probably recognize it if:
- You replay conversations to work out what really happened.
- You can often trace a bad mood back to something small earlier in the day.
- You notice patterns, like the same kind of moment getting to you every time.
- You find it easier to explain the situation than to name the feeling.
- Knowing why you're upset doesn't always mean you can let it go.
You can usually explain what went wrong and why, which makes repair easier. The risk is treating a feeling like a problem to solve, yours or someone else's, when what's needed is a minute of just sitting with it. Someone who is upset often wants you to get it before you explain it.
Try this. Give the replaying a time limit. When you catch yourself going over the same moment again, ask, "Am I learning anything new?" If not, write down what you know so far in two or three lines, then do something with your hands for ten minutes.
Steadying yourself
Also called managing your emotions, or self-regulation
Your first move with a strong feeling is to steady it: calm down, keep your voice level, let it pass before you act. That's a real skill, and probably the one people around you rely on in a crisis. The cost depends on how you do it. Rethinking a situation so it stings less tends to help, while keeping a straight face and pushing the feeling down tends not to, and research links that habit of hiding feelings with lower well-being and worse relationships.
You will probably recognize it if:
- People describe you as calm, even when you don't feel calm.
- You can often talk yourself into seeing a bad moment in a way that stings less.
- You'd rather let a feeling cool before you say anything.
- You say "I'm fine" and sort it out on your own later.
- You recover from a bad moment by doing something, not by talking about it.
- Sometimes you set a feeling aside and realize later it never left.
You're steady in hard moments and rarely say things you regret. People close to you may still feel shut out, because they can't tell something is wrong until it has been wrong for a while. Letting someone see a feeling while it's still small gives them a chance to help.
Try this. After you steady yourself, add one step: name what you were feeling, to yourself or to someone you trust. "I was more hurt by that than I let on" is enough. Calming down and then naming the feeling keeps steadying from turning into storing things up.
Reading other people
Also called empathy, or social awareness
Your first move in an emotional moment is to tune into the other person: their tone, their face, what they're not saying. Perceiving other people's emotions is part of all the major models of emotional intelligence, and it makes you a good person to have around in a hard week. The cost is that their feelings can crowd out your own. Researchers separate empathy, where you feel with someone while knowing the feeling is theirs, from emotional contagion, where that line blurs and their mood becomes yours.
You will probably recognize it if:
- You can tell when "I'm fine" means something else.
- You notice a shift in the room before anyone says anything.
- Other people's bad moods can stick to you for hours.
- You understand what others feel better than what you feel.
- When someone lets you down, you think about their reasons first.
People feel understood around you, and you're often the first to notice a friend is struggling. The risk is that you get so focused on how they're doing that your own needs go unsaid, or that you assume you know what they feel without asking. Checking your read out loud, like "You seem quieter than usual. Am I right?", keeps it accurate.
Try this. After time with someone who is upset, take a minute to sort out what is theirs and what is yours. Ask, "What am I feeling right now, and how much of it did I walk in with?" Keeping that line clear lets you stay caring without carrying their whole mood home.
Putting feelings into words
Also called emotional expression
Your first move with a feeling is to put it into words and bring it into the open: tell someone, ask what's going on, raise a problem before it grows. Expressing emotion was part of the very first definition of emotional intelligence, and it's how feelings get handled between people instead of inside one person. The catch is timing. Saying it right away can land before you or the other person is ready, and if you only find out what you feel by talking, you can end up needing someone else around to know your own mind.
You will probably recognize it if:
- You'd rather talk it out than let a problem sit.
- You often figure out how you feel by saying it out loud.
- Friends usually know where they stand with you.
- You'd rather ask "what's wrong?" than guess.
- Sometimes you bring things up before you've cooled down.
People rarely have to guess what's going on with you, which makes you easy to be close to, and you tend to raise problems while they're still small. The friction comes with people who need time before they talk. To them, "Can we talk about this now?" can feel like pressure. Agreeing on when to talk can matter as much as what gets said.
Try this. Before you bring something up, take ten seconds to name the feeling to yourself in one or two words. Then lead with it: "I felt left out" usually goes better than "You always...". The pause also gives you a moment to check whether now is the right time.
How we built and scored it
We started from the emotional intelligence quiz inside the Vent Now app, kept its 14 moments, and rewrote the answers so each of the five in a question points to one skill. Every answer is a real first move, and each skill shows up in both its helpful and its overused form, like rethinking a moment so it stings less or pushing a feeling down to stay calm. That way there's no right answer to pick. The order is shuffled on screen.
The five skills come from Mayer and Salovey's ability model. Its first branch, perceiving and expressing emotion, is split here into noticing your own feelings, reading other people's and putting feelings into words. Understanding emotions becomes making sense of feelings, and managing emotions becomes steadying yourself. We left out the model's remaining branch, using emotions to help you think, because it's hard to ask about in everyday moments, and a 2010 meta-analysis by Joseph and Newman built its model of emotional intelligence on perceiving, understanding and regulating alone.
Your result counts how many times you chose each skill. If two finish within one answer of each other, we call it a blend rather than force a single label. This is not a validated test and it doesn't rate how good you are at anything. A long bar means you reach for that skill often, not that you do it well, and a short bar means you reach for it less, not that you can't.
What the quiz cannot tell you
- It measures habits, not ability. It shows how you see yourself, and research finds that self-ratings of emotional skill line up only loosely with ability tests, especially for people who score lowest.
- It forces a choice. Picking steadying over reading other people in one moment doesn't mean you can't do both.
- It is not a validated scale and gives no EQ score. Validated measures exist: the MSCEIT, the STEU and the STEM test ability, and the TEIQue and the Bar-On EQ-i measure trait emotional intelligence. Psychologists and researchers use them, usually with proper scoring norms.
- It is a snapshot. A stressful month, a new relationship or a hard loss can change which skill you reach for first.
When it is worth talking to someone
It's worth talking to a therapist if feelings regularly get too big to steady, like anger that scares you or the people around you, if you often feel numb or can't tell what you feel at all, if other people's moods leave you drained for days, if you lean on alcohol, drugs, food or shutting down to get through hard feelings, or if you hurt yourself to get through them. Low mood or worry that sticks around for weeks and gets in the way of work, school or relationships is worth raising with a doctor too. Many therapists teach emotion skills directly, and dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) includes emotion regulation as one of its core skill sets. If you are under 18, a parent, school counselor or doctor can help you find someone. Vent Now is not a crisis service. If you are thinking about hurting yourself or someone else, contact local emergency services (911 in the US) or call or text 988.
Common questions
Is this an EQ test?
It's an emotional intelligence quiz, but it won't give you an EQ score. Fourteen self-report questions can't measure ability, and a number would suggest a precision the quiz doesn't have. Validated tests that do report scores compare you with large reference groups. For the MSCEIT, a 2003 study of 2,112 people from its standardization sample found that the most common answers largely matched those of 21 emotion experts.
Does emotional intelligence matter more than IQ?
The research doesn't support that. The phrase comes from the subtitle of Goleman's 1995 book, not from study results. A 2011 meta-analysis found that the three main ways of measuring emotional intelligence correlated with job performance at about .24 to .30 after statistical corrections, a real but modest link, and some of those measures add a little beyond IQ and personality. A 2010 meta-analysis found that ability-based emotional intelligence was linked with better performance in jobs with a lot of emotional labor, like care work and customer service, and slightly worse performance in jobs with little emotional labor.
Can you improve your emotional intelligence?
There is reasonable evidence that you can. A 2018 meta-analysis pooled 24 studies of emotional intelligence training in healthy adults and found moderate improvements, mostly measured as change from before to after training, that held up at follow-up. Results varied with how emotional intelligence was defined and measured and with how long the training ran. Everyday practice counts too: naming feelings, pausing before reacting and checking your read of other people are all skills that get easier with repetition.
Which emotional skill should I work on first?
Your shortest bar can be worth a look, but it isn't a weakness. If it's steadying because you rarely push feelings down, that isn't a problem. If you're not sure, start with noticing. In Joseph and Newman's model, perceiving emotions comes first, understanding builds on it, and regulating builds on both, which matches common sense: it's hard to steady a feeling you haven't spotted.
What if I can't tell what I'm feeling?
There is a name for that: alexithymia, a trait (not a diagnosis) that involves difficulty identifying and describing your own emotions. It shows up more often alongside a range of mental health and neurological conditions, and it can make other emotional skills harder too. A simple place to start is giving a feeling a rough label, even just "bad" or "tense." In a 2007 brain imaging study, putting a word to the emotion in a picture reduced activity in the amygdala, part of the brain's threat response, more than other ways of processing it. If naming feelings has always been hard for you, a therapist can help you practice.
Sources
- Salovey and Mayer (1990), Emotional Intelligence, Imagination, Cognition and Personality
- Mayer, Caruso and Salovey (2016), The Ability Model of Emotional Intelligence: Principles and Updates, Emotion Review
- Mayer, Salovey and Caruso (2008), Emotional Intelligence: New Ability or Eclectic Traits?, American Psychologist
- Mayer, Salovey, Caruso and Sitarenios (2003), Measuring Emotional Intelligence With the MSCEIT V2.0, Emotion
- Petrides, Mikolajczak, Mavroveli, Sanchez-Ruiz, Furnham and Pérez-González (2016), Developments in Trait Emotional Intelligence Research, Emotion Review
- Brackett, Rivers, Shiffman, Lerner and Salovey (2006), Relating Emotional Abilities to Social Functioning: A Comparison of Self-Report and Performance Measures of Emotional Intelligence, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
- Sheldon, Dunning and Ames (2014), Emotionally Unskilled, Unaware, and Uninterested in Learning More: Reactions to Feedback About Deficits in Emotional Intelligence, Journal of Applied Psychology
- Joseph and Newman (2010), Emotional Intelligence: An Integrative Meta-Analysis and Cascading Model, Journal of Applied Psychology
- O'Boyle, Humphrey, Pollack, Hawver and Story (2011), The Relation Between Emotional Intelligence and Job Performance: A Meta-Analysis, Journal of Organizational Behavior
- Hodzic, Scharfen, Ripoll, Holling and Zenasni (2018), How Efficient Are Emotional Intelligence Trainings: A Meta-Analysis, Emotion Review
- MacCann and Roberts (2008), New Paradigms for Assessing Emotional Intelligence: Theory and Data, Emotion
- Gross and John (2003), Individual Differences in Two Emotion Regulation Processes: Implications for Affect, Relationships, and Well-Being, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
- Singer and Klimecki (2014), Empathy and Compassion, Current Biology
- Lieberman et al. (2007), Putting Feelings Into Words: Affect Labeling Disrupts Amygdala Activity in Response to Affective Stimuli, Psychological Science
- Hogeveen and Grafman (2021), Alexithymia, Handbook of Clinical Neurology
- 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline
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Written by the Vent Now team. Last updated . Vent Now is an AI emotional support companion, not therapy and not an emergency service. If you might hurt yourself or someone else, contact local emergency services or a crisis line now. In the US, call or text 988.