The nature and measurement of emotional intelligence abilities: Basic dimensions and their relationships with other cognitive ability and personality variables

Dimensions of Emotional Intelligence (EI) were derived, and their place with respect to the cognitive ability and personality domains was examined. A factor analysis of 24 maximum-performance and self-report EI measures administered to an undergraduate sample(N = 176) yielded five factors: Emotional Congruence, Emotional Independence, Social Perceptiveness, Alexithymia, and Social Confidence. Emotional Congruence had low correlations with four cognitive ability factors and Big Five personality factors, indicating that it may represent either a new psychological construct or a method factor. Social Perceptiveness correlated significantly with cognitive abilities, indicating its place in this domain. The remaining three factors had moderate correlations with various personality dimensions and low correlations with cognitive abilities, indicating that they fall outside the latter domain. On the basis of the present results, only maximum-performance and not self-report measures of EI can be seen as tapping the cognitive ability domain.