What do we know about EQ?
EQ tests can provide invaluable insight into the minds of test-takers, giving employers and educational institutes security in their employee selections – or can they? In the wake of reports of biassed and skewed EQ tests, this article aims to clear up confusion and reveal the truth about emotional intelligence tests.
IQ vs EQ
Like IQ (intelligent quotient) tests, EQ tests assess your intelligence, specifically your emotional intelligence. The test results can then be used to predict your skills and aptitude in specific fields or scenarios, providing a more holistic picture of a person’s overall intelligence.
Unlike IQ tests, however, the focus is primarily on how well you know yourselves and others, and how well you can temper your emotions in stressful situations. Neither IQ nor EQ tests are wholly accurate, however, nor are they fully indicative of someone’s overall intelligence.
More importantly, EQ tests are usually self-reported, which can result in skewed answers that are chosen to appear more acceptable. And with high EQ scores purportedly being more important in life than a high IQ, it’s not hard to see why people cheat.
There are other ways to test EQ, with clinical training courses providing a thorough assessment of someone’s aptitude in care, for example. Such courses can be found online, such as here: https://www.tidaltraining.co.uk/clinical-training-courses/.
Biassed Self-Reporting
Emotional intelligence is difficult to measure with just a piece of paper – particularly one that can be manipulated so easily. When someone’s livelihood is at stake, with a potential job offer dictating their future, people will take any chance they can to get the role.
You may have heard of the ‘halo effect’, a cognitive bias that affects our judgments of others based on one trait. For example, if someone is nice to you, you may assume they are also smart, funny, and generous.
Similarly, ‘informant ratings’, which are reports provided by someone else, are just as likely to be biassed, as people close to the individual will of course do whatever they can to help. As a result, a reliable source of EQ can be hard to come across.
