Personality and Individual Differences 64 (2014) 2429

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Personality and Individual Differences

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/paid

Testing the incremental validity of Trait Emotional Intelligence:

Evidence from an Italian sample of adolescents
Federica Andrei a,, Giacomo Mancini a, Elena Trombini a, Bruno Baldaro a, P.M. Russo b
a
b

Department of Psychology, University of Bologna, Italy

Department of Specialised, Experimental, and Diagnostic Medicine, University of Bologna, Italy

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 21 December 2013
Received in revised form 5 February 2014
Accepted 6 February 2014
Available online 4 March 2014
Keywords:
Trait emotional self-efcacy
TEIQue
Incremental validity
Adolescence
Internalizing symptoms
Personality

a b s t r a c t
The present study was aimed at validating the Italian version of the Trait Emotional Intelligence
QuestionnaireAdolescent Full Form (TEIQueAFF), as well as at exploring its incremental validity over
emotional maladjustment. To this end, a sample of 351 (163 males) Italian adolescents was collected.
Overall, the Italian TEIQueAFF both replicated the original-English four-factor structure (Well-Being,
Self-Control, Emotionality, Sociability), and its construct validity was conrmed. However, reliability
coefcients for eight facets and two factors were low. In addition, at all levels of analysis (i.e., global, factor, facet) the TEIQueAFF was found to be a signicant incremental predictor of adolescents emotional
maladjustment, over and above gender, IQ, and the Big Five personality dimensions. At the factor level,
signicant effects were related to the contribution of the factor Well-Being thus supporting perspectives
arguing for a further renement of trait EI content domain. Implications of the ndings are discussed.
2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Trait EI refers to emotion-related dispositions and self-perceived abilities measured via self-reports. Specically the construct
of trait EI has been formally dened as a constellation of emotional
self-perceptions located at the lower levels of personality hierarchies (Petrides, Pita, & Kokkinaki, 2007). Studies on samples of adolescents have shown that trait EI may act as protective agent
against emotional maladjustment, as lower trait EI levels have
been found to be associated to internalizing symptoms such as
depression in clinical (Delhaye, Kempenaers, Stroobants, Goossens,
& Linkowski, 2012), as well as in normal samples (Williams, Daley,
Burnside, & Hammond-Rowley, 2010).
One of the main criticism raised against trait EI refers to its lack
of incremental validity, particularly considering the constructs
overlap with the basic personality dimensions (Harms & Cred,
2010). Yet, it has been argued that advancement of the construct
depends on whether EI is able to explain a signicant proportion
of incremental and unique variance in psychological outcomes
over and above known predictors (Fiori & Antonakis, 2011).
However, it is noteworthy that the construct of trait EI is thought
to be related to higher order personality traits rather than being
Corresponding author. Address: Department of Psychology, University of
Bologna, viale Berti Pichat 5, Bologna 40127, Italy. Tel.: +39 0512091845; fax: +39
051243086.
E-mail address: federica.andrei2@unibo.it (F. Andrei).
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2014.02.007
0191-8869/ 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

independent of them, thus justifying a certain degree of overlap

between dimensions.
Given the relevance of measurement to move towards a science
of EI (Zeidner, Roberts, & Matthews, 2004), in the present study the
incremental validity of the Trait Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire (TEIQue; Petrides, 2009) was systematically investigated over
anxiety and depression symptoms, as indicators of non-clinical
internalizing problems during adolescence. The TEIQue was developed in order to cover the 15 facets of the trait EIs sampling domain comprehensively, which in turn load on four-factors,
namely Well-Being, Self-Control, Emotionality, and Sociability. To
date, the TEIQue is one of the most widely used and valid measures
of trait EI (Martins, Ramalho, & Morin, 2010). As the full adolescent
form of the TEIQue (TEIQueAFF) allows for investigations at the
factor as well as the facet level, it appears to be particularly suitable for a complete test of the constructs incremental validity.
Investigations on the issue of incremental validity have been
performed mainly in adult samples. These studies have robustly
shown that trait EI, as assessed through the TEIQue, might be a
valuable explanatory and incremental predictor of criteria such
as life-satisfaction (Freudenthaler, Neubauer, Gabler, Scherl, &
Rindermann, 2008), and academic achievement (Sanchez-Ruiz,
Mavroveli, & Poullis, 2013) over and above the Big Five, perfectionistic concerns beyond Neuroticism (Smith, 2014), and cortisol
secretion under pressure after controlling for the effects of age
and anxiety (Laborde, Lautenbach, Allen, Herbert, & Achtzehn,

F. Andrei et al. / Personality and Individual Differences 64 (2014) 2429

2014). Even though few studies have explored this issue across
samples of adolescents, their results are consistent with those obtained with adults (Davis & Humphrey, 2012; Mavroveli &
Sanchez-Ruiz, 2011). In such investigations the short form of the
TEIQue devoted to adolescents (TEIQueASF) was employed and
the incremental validity analyses were focused on the global trait
EI score, as was the case for studies run on adult populations. Despite this, those few studies focusing on the four factors of the
adult TEIQue versions have shown that the incremental validity
of trait EI derives mainly from the contribution of those facets
associated with the factors Well-Being and Self-Control (e.g.,
Mikolajczak, Luminet, & Menil, 2006). In addition, a recent study
employing the adult short form of the TEIQue suggests that the
constructs predictive power may be altered by those facets loading
onto the factors of Emotionality and Sociability domains (Siegling,
Vesely, & Saklofske, 2013), thus suggesting that the current content
domain of trait EI may still be too heterogeneous. To our
knowledge investigations of this assumption have focused on adult
populations only.
1.1. The present study
While there is little research on the incremental validity of the
TEIQue across adolescence, to our knowledge there is no published
investigations using the full adolescent form of the questionnaire,
and focusing on the predictive contribution of the lower level components of the construct. In order to ll such gaps, the present
study aimed at assessing the structure of the Italian TEIQueAFF,
as well as at examining its construct, criterion, and incremental
validity. Consistently with the theoretical expectation of a predictive effect of trait EI over relevant affect-related criteria, and in line
with relevance of the Big Five for psychological health (Ozer &
Benet-Martinez, 2006), internalizing symptoms, a construct generally referring to symptoms of depression and anxiety (Lonigan,
Carey, & Finch, 1994), was selected as indicator of emotional
maladjustment during adolescence.
Considering the contribution of each trait EI factor in the prediction of emotional maladjustment is an important step to ascertain
which element of the construct may compromise the predictive
power of trait EI at the global level. This evidence may ultimately
provide further directions for a potential renement of the construct, which in its current denition may not yet reect the underlying emotion-related personality trait (Siegling et al., 2013).
Moreover, showing whether and how trait EI predicts an incremental portion of variance at the lowest level of the construct
(i.e., facet level) beyond the Big Five will provide a ner perspective
on this issue. Thus, on the basis of the existing literature, it was
hypothesized that:

25

needs (n = 8), and those (n = 6) who missed more than 15% of the
items on the TEIQueAFF were excluded from subsequent analyses. The nal sample for the Factor Analysis was composed by
351 pupils (163 males), with age ranging from 14 to 18
(M = 15.31, SD = 1.80). Of these, a subsample of 174 (89 males,
Mage = 16.54, SD = 1.12) participants completed additional measures for personality, IQ, depression and anxiety.
2.2. Measures
2.2.1. Trait EI
Trait EI was appraised through the Italian translation of the TEIQueAFF (Petrides, 2009). The TEIQueAFF comprises 153 brief
statements responded to on a 7-point scale, ranging from completely disagree to completely agree. The TEIQueAFF was developed on the full form of the adult TEIQue and is intended to
yield scores on the same 15 facets and four factors. The items of
the TEIQueAFF were translated into Italian by one of the authors
(Russo, P.M.) and then back-translated into English by an independent English-native speaker. Item order was preserved and the Italian TEIQueAFF was pretested on a small group of subjects (N = 30)
assessing comprehension and ease of answering
2.2.2. Personality
The Big Five Questionnaire-2 (BFQ-2; Caprara, Barbaranelli,
Borgogni, & Vecchione, 2007) is aimed to assess the Big Five personality dimensions in adolescents and adults through 134 items
rated on a 5-point Likert scale. Cronbachs reliability coefcients
for the BFQ-2 scales were very good (.82 for Extraversion, .85 for
Agreeableness, .83 for Consciousness, .90 for Emotional Stability,
and .84 for Openness).
2.2.3. Cognitive ability
Ravens Standard Progressive Matrices (SPM; Raven, 2008) consist of a measure of pure non-verbal reasoning ability, comprising
60 items presented in ve sets of 12 each, and providing a global IQ
score.
2.2.4. Emotional maladjustment
The SAFA (Cianchetti & Sannio Fancello, 2001) is an Italian selfreport instrument aimed to assess mental health conditions in children and adolescents aged from 8 to 18. The SAFA displayed satisfactory psychometric properties (Franzoni et al., 2009). For the
purpose of the present study, a general index of internalizing
symptoms was obtained by computing a mean score from the
scales assessing depression and anxiety. The correlation between
the two scale was .56 (p < .01)
2.3. Procedure

H1: The 15 facets of the Italian TEIQueAFF will show a four

factor structure, thus replicating the one of the original English
version of the questionnaire.
H2: Trait EI will be distinct from cognitive ability, while it will
be associated with higher order personality traits, particularly
with the factor Emotional Stability.
H3: Trait EI will show incremental validity at all construct
levels over and above gender, cognitive ability and the Big Five
dimensions. Signicant incremental effects will be mainly due
to the factors Well-Being and Self-Control.
2. Method
2.1. Participants
Participants were 365 adolescents, recruited from secondary
schools in major Italian cities. Pupils with special educational

A letter explaining the aims and rationale of the study was sent
to the headmasters and teachers in each school. Informed consent
was obtained from parents/carers. After brief group explanations
on the purpose of the activities, condentiality, and the answer formats, participants lled out all measures in their classrooms.
2.4. Statistical analysis
The reliabilities of TEIQueAFF were estimated using
Cronbachs alpha, while Students t test for independent samples
was used for gender differences. Principal Axis Exploratory Factor
Analysis was conducted on the 15 facets of the TEIQueAFF. To
determine the number of factors to retain, we combined Parallel
Analysis (Horn, 1965), with Velicers minimum average partial
(MAP) test (Velicer, 1976), as suggested by OConnor (2000). In
the present study, Parallel Analysis was applied using the Marley

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F. Andrei et al. / Personality and Individual Differences 64 (2014) 2429

Watkins Monte Carlo PCA for Parallel Analysis program (Watkins,

2000), and the MAP test was performed using a SPSS syntax le
provided by OConnor (2000). We used the Marley Watkins Monte
Carlo PCA for Parallel Analysis program (Watkins, 2000) to obtain
the eigenvalues and standard deviations generated from completely random data (and necessary to perform parallel analysis)
using the following specications: 15 variables, 352 participants,
and 1000 replications. We then compared our observed eigenvalues to the 95th percentile of the eigenvalues generated from
these random data to reject factors that were most certainly obtained by chance (at p = .05). In order to test the incremental validity of trait EI on emotional maladjustment a three-block
hierarchical regression was performed at the global, factor and facet level of the TEIQue. All analyses were performed using PASW
(SPSS version 19.0 for Windows).
3. Results
3.1. Descriptive statistics and reliability of the TEIQueAFF
Descriptive statistics, number of items, and internal consistencies for the TEIQueAFF facets, factors and global score, are presented in Table 1. Factors and global score appear to be normally
distributed, as indicated by the KolmogorovSmirnov (KS) test
(e.g., global score KS(353) = .66; p > .05). Seven of the 15 facets
had solid internal reliabilities (between .72 and .84; Table 1), while
others are quite low (alphas below .70). The reliability of the TEIQueAFF was acceptable for three factors, varying between .67
and .82, with the exception of Self-Control (a = .63). Nevertheless,
the reliability of trait EI global score was satisfactory (a = .85). With
respect to gender differences, several signicant comparisons have
been found at the both the facet and factor levels (see Table 1).
3.2. Validation and factor structure of the TEIQueAFF
The theoretical factor structure of the TEIQueAFF, on which the
a priori scoring key is based (see Table 1), was evaluated by a Principal Axis Factor Analysis on the total sample. Based on the Velicer

MAP test, a four factor solution (explaining 39.1% of the variance)

would be appropriate. Results supported our theoretical expectations in that four factors were retained and rotated to simple structure via the Promax algorithm (j = 4). The factor pattern matrix is
presented in Table 2 and approximate to a simple structure. Despite four cross-loadings, the four factors were substantively identical to the original British structure (Petrides, 2009) and were thus
labelled accordingly: Well-Being, Sociability, Self-Control, and
Emotionality. This solution accounted for 62.24% of the total variance. The strength of factors intercorrelations was generally above
.30, with the exception of the factor Self-Control which correlates
less-consistently with Emotionality (.18) and Sociability (.19).
3.3. Intercorrelations among variables
Intercorrelations amongst study variables are presented in
Table 3. At the global level, the TEIQueAFF did not correlate significantly with cognitive ability, but it showed signicant positive
associations with all the Big Five dimensions, and negative with
emotional maladjustment. Each factor of the TEIQueAFF showed
signicant positive associations with at least three of the Big Five
dimensions, and a negative relationship with emotional maladjustment. However, results showed that the factor Self-Control did not
relate signicantly with emotional maladjustment.
Due to the large number of variables involved, bivariate associations at the facet level will be presented succinctly. With two
exceptions (i.e., Trait Empathy and Impulsiveness) signicant negative intercorrelations were found between each facet and emotional maladjustment, with r values ranging from
.548
(p < .001) for Trait Optimism, to .179 (p < .001) for Relationships
(see the Supplementary material). It is worth to notice that those
facets loading on the factor Well-Being showed stronger correlations with the criterion variable compared to the other facets.
Many of these comparisons resulted to have a signicant value
as conrmed by Fishers r-to-z transformations, which were performed to compare correlation coefcients. Particularly, correlation coefcients for Well-Being facets were signicantly higher
when compared with rs 6 |.395| for Trait Optimism (z = 1.83,

Table 1
Descriptives and gender differences for the TEIQueAFF facets, factors and global score.
Global sample
(N = 351)

Males
(n = 163)

Cronbachs a

SD

SD

SD

Self-Esteem
Emotion-Expression
Self-Motivation
Emotion-Control
Trait-Happiness
Trait-Empathy
Social Awareness
Impulsiveness (low)
Emotion Perception
Stress Management
Emotion-Management
Trait-Optimism
Relationships
Adaptability
Assertiveness

11
10
10
12
8
9
11
9
10
10
9
8
9
9
9

.77
.79
.62
.72
.84
.74
.74
.66
.67
.65
.65
.76
.52
.51
.50

4.68
4.41
4.51
3.89
5.44
4.59
4.74
4.17
4.70
4.11
4.58
4.88
5.19
4.00
4.63

.93
1.07
.79
.87
1.14
.94
.87
.94
.85
.87
.89
1.03
.80
.74
.80

4.59*
4.57*
4.54
3.61***
5.49
4.72***
4.74
4.21
4.75
3.95***
4.57
4.81
5.28*
3.94
4.60

.94
1.11
.82
.86
1.18
.92
.89
.95
.85
.90
.88
1.10
.81
.76
.80

4.78*
4.22*
4.49
4.22***
5.38
4.43***
4.74
4.12
4.63
4.31***
4.60
4.96
5.09*
4.07
4.67

.91
.99
.76
.77
1.09
.94
.85
.92
.84
.78
.90
.94
.75
.71
.81

Well-Being
Self-Control
Emotionality
Sociability

27
31
38
30

.82
.63
.74
.67

5.00
4.06
4.72
4.65

.89
.68
.69
.67

4.96
3.92***
4.83**
4.64

.92
.68
.68
.67

5.04
4.22***
4.59**
4.67

.87
.65
.67
.68

153

.85

4.57

.51

4.56

.50

4.58

.53

Facets/factors

Global Trait EI

N of items

Note. Signicant two-tailed gender differences are displayed in bold.

p < .05.
**
p < .01.
***
p < .001.
*

Females
(n = 188)

27

F. Andrei et al. / Personality and Individual Differences 64 (2014) 2429

Table 2
Factor pattern matrix for the TEIQueAFF subscales (N = 351).

Table 4
Summary of the hierarchical regressions testing the incremental validity of the
TEIQueAFF at the global, factor, and facet level (N = 174).

Factors
WellBeing
Trait Happiness
Trait Optimism
Self-Esteem
Self-Motivation
Emotion-Perception
Trait Empathy
Emotion Expression
Relationships
Emotion Control
Stress Management
Impulsiveness (low)
Adaptability
Emotion
Management
Social Awareness
Assertiveness

Emotionality

SelfControl

Emotional maladjustment

Sociability
Predictor

.86
.80
.61
.58
.05
.15
.10
.39
.08
.19
.20
.04
.10

.07
.01
.19
.01
.67
.66
.57
.49
.10
.13
.15
.18
.15

.02
.07
.07
.05
.08
.12
.15
.08
.91
.62
.30
.19
.07

.11
.05
.36
.11
.14
.05
.12
.17
.02
.06
.18
.16
.63

.07
.40

.30
.14

.03
.07

.59
.47

df1 (df2)

DR2

2 (171)

.029

Block 1
Gender & IQ

2.56

Block 2
Big Five

8.44*

10.51*

5 (166)

.23

13.76*
12.16*
7.8*

37.82*
14.03*
5.8*

1 (165)
4 (162)
15 (151)

.14
.19
.27

Block 3
TEIQueAFF
Global
Factors
Facets
*

DF

p < .001.

tested by entering the 15 TEIQueAFF facets as the third block,

accounting for an additional 27% of variance. Precisely, only two
facets of Emotionality, namely emotion expression (b = .18,
t = 2.45, p < .05) and trait empathy (b = .23, t = 3.26, p = .001),
and a facet of the factor Well-Being, Trait Optimism (b = .22,
t = 2.33, p < .05), had signicant coefcients.

Note: TEIQueAFF = Trait Emotional IntelligenceAdolescent Full Form. Coefcients

that should theoretically dene each factor are displayed in bold.

p < .05, one-tailed), rs 6 |.344| for Self-Esteem (z = 1.85, p < .05,

one-tailed), and rs 6 |.237| for Trait Happiness (z = 2.39, p < .01,
one-tailed).

4. Discussion
The present study systematically suggests that the TEIQueAFF
can be considered as a strong incremental predictor of adolescents
emotional maladjustment at the global, factor, and facet level of
the construct, over and above the Big Five, non-verbal cognitive
ability and gender. Additionally, besides the English original and
a non-Western (i.e., Chinese; Mavroveli & Siu, 2012) versions, to
our knowledge this is the rst investigation conrming that even
the full adolescent form of the TEIQue, in its Italian translation,
has a four-factor structure (H1). Despite this, internal consistencies
of the Italian TEIQueAFFs facets as well as of the factors SelfControl and Sociability should be improved as they were generally
not as good as those reported for both the original adult TEIQue,
and its translations (e.g., German: Freudenthaler et al., 2008;
Greek: Petrides et al., 2007).
Moreover, with the exception of the factor Self-Control, which
signicantly correlated with IQ but not with Emotional Stability,
trait EI did not show relevant associations with IQ, whereas it did
with both higher order personality dimensions and non-clinical
form of emotional maladjustment, at the global, factor and facet
levels (H2). These results are analogue to those obtained by several

3.4. Incremental validity

Table 4 provides the statistical indices (F, DF, DR2) for each
Block of the three regression models. In each model, gender and
IQ were entered as Block 1, resulting in a non signicant model
(b = .14, t = .30, p = n. s., and b = -.08, t = .77, p = n. s., respectively).
At Block 2 the Big Five dimensions were added to the equation.
Emotional Stability (b = .402, t = 5.38, p < .001), Extraversion
(b = .396, t = 4.77, p < .001), and Openness (b = .335, t = 3.21,
p < .01), were individually signicant predictors and the model
gained additional explanatory power. In the rst model, global trait
EI was entered as the third block, causing a signicant incremental
contribution, whereby trait EI was a signicant predictor
(b = .425, t = 6.15, p < .001).
Analyses were rerun entering as the last block the four TEIQue
factors in place of the global trait EI score. This change resulted
in a signicant model, with a signicant contribution only from
the factor Well-Being (b = .451, t = 5.75, p < .001). To further
investigate the incremental validity of trait EI, a last model was

Table 3
Descriptive statistics and intercorrelation matrix for study variables.
Variable

10

11

12

[1] Emotional Maladjustment

[2] IQ
[3] Emotional Stability
[4] Openness
[5] Consciousness
[6] Extraversion
[7] Agreeableness
[8] Well-Being
[9] Self-Control
[10] Emotionality
[11] Sociability
[12] TEI
M
SD

.087
.192*
.001
.53
.129
.093
.364**
.096
.296**
.245**
.365**
62.06
7.76

.231**
.322**
.291**
.144
.205**
.023
.219**
.066
.043
.062
53.27
4.31

.357**
.275**
.195**
.265**
.242**
.561**
.171*
.113
.363**
47.91
11.48

.
.639**
.516**
.651**
.109
.153*
.107
.196**
.207**
48.39
13.89

.529**
.602**
.166*
.230**
.174*
.149*
.266**
47.63
14.68

.332**
.338**
.043
.141
.559**
.213**
53.00
13.26

.083
.007
.367**
.108
.378**
52.42
14.32

.296**
.427**
.606**
.829**
4.97
.86

.222**
.158**
.550**
4.02
.70

.430**
.724**
4.70
.64

.749**
4.58
.69

4.53
.50

Note: TEI = Trait Emotional Intelligence.

p < .05.
**
p < .01.
*

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F. Andrei et al. / Personality and Individual Differences 64 (2014) 2429

studies using the short adolescent form of the TEIQue (e.g., Davis &
Humphrey, 2012), and showing that trait EI has stronger associations with variables pertaining to the realm of personality and
emotion, than with those referring to the cognitive domain. Particularly, higher levels of trait EI were positively associated with Emotional Stability and negatively with emotional maladjustment. The
conrmation of this hypothesis reects the theoretical nature of
the construct as a personality dimension, and provides evidence
of the cross-cultural stability of the TEIQue. Additionally, given
the moderate signicant effect sizes (Cohen, 1988), it also suggested for an absence of substantial overlap between measures.
The incremental validity of trait EI was substantial at all construct levels (H3), thus putting to the test criticisms raised against
its utility as a predictor of relevant psychological outcomes (Landy,
2005). Particularly, in line with the existing literature on adults,
the relevant role of Well-Being emerged, as it was the only factor
of the TEIQueAFF having signicant incremental effects over emotional maladjustment. Despite this, our last hypothesis was partially supported, as a non-signicant effect (at both the bivariate
and regression level of analysis) of the factor Self-Control was
found, thus contrasting results obtained across adult samples as
well. Nevertheless, it is worth to notice that the low levels of internal consistencies found in the present analyses, particularly for the
factor Self-Control, may have inuenced the predictive value of this
factor.
While at the facet level trait EI still shows incremental validity
over the criterion variable, our results are not consistent with ndings obtained at the factor level. However, the low levels of reliability (i.e., alpha values) of some facets may have compromised
their contribution. Despite this, and in line with our ndings at
the factor level, bivariate analyses provided support for the crucial
role of Well-Being. Such results were further reinforced by comparing the correlation coefcients of the relationship between
the three Well-Being facets and emotional maladjustment, with
those obtained from relating the other facets with the criterion
variable. Although our results provide further evidence for the
inclusion of trait EI within the personality hierarchy, as it resulted
to be interrelated to higher order level traits but still distinct from
them, it appears that constructs explanatory power may be due
mainly to the intrapersonal components of the sampling domain
(i.e., Well-Being factor). Such evidence, together with the existing
literature on adult samples, provide further support to the notion
that the sampling domain of trait EI may be too broad (Siegling
et al., 2013) and that additional research efforts are needed in order
to further rene it.
4.1. Limitations and directions for future studies
This investigation presents several methodological limitations,
particularly the mono-method assessment (i.e., self-evaluative) of
both predictors and criteria, as well as the cross-sectional nature
of the study design, raise concerns about common-method bias.
In addition, the small sample size of Italian students may limit
the generalizability of results. Consequently, further research using
larger samples, triangulation of data and longitudinal designs is
needed. Particularly, it would be important to understand how
individual differences in such disposition act in the path from emotional difculties to the development of psychopathology during
adolescence. Moreover, in order to further expand these ndings
it would be benecial for future studies to control for other potential source of bias, such as social desirability.
As mentioned above, the heterogeneity of facets together with
the low internal consistencies found for some of them and for
two factors, may have compromised the contribution of trait EI
at the factor and global composite level, respectively. Indeed, the
incremental validity of a measure may be underestimated when

the lower scales of such measure suffer from non-satisfactory levels of reliability (Smith, Fischer, & Fister, 2003). Thus, future studies
are urged to improve the levels of internal consistencies of such
measure and to subsequent attempt to replicate these analyses.
Such steps will help to ascertain that low reliabilities found in
the present study for the TEIQueAFF did not bias these ndings.
Last, future studies may take into consideration the use of Item
Response Theory (IRT) to improve and examine self-report
measures (e.g., Levine & Leucht, 2012; Levine, Rabinowitz, &
Rizopoulos, 2011). In the eld of EI, IRT has been already employed
to test the psychometric properties of the TEIQue short form
(Cooper & Petrides, 2010).
4.2. Conclusions
Results from the present study suggest that trait EI as assessed
through the TEIQueAFF is a stronger predictor of emotional maladjustment than the higher order personality traits covered by the
Big Five model. This pattern was consistent at all construct levels.
Such results challenge once more those claims for a redundancy
between the construct of trait EI and the Big Five dimensions. Additionally, these ndings add to the growing body of literature demonstrating the crucial role of the emotion-related aspects of
personality over adolescents emotional health, and to the TEIQue
as a potential tool for the assessment of such individuals dispositions. This evidence should be useful for practitioners working in
applied settings (e.g., schools). However, the predictive effect of
the TEIQue appears to be due mainly to the factor Well-Being.
Thus, more research is needed to further investigate the contribution of the lower levels of the construct, as new consistent ndings
may ideally lead to a ner specication of the trait EI construct.
Acknowledgments
We wish to thank Dr. K.V. Petrides for providing us with
reliability analyses, and B. Bastelli for her help in data entry.
Appendix A. Supplementary data
Supplementary data associated with this article can be found, in
the online version, at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2014.02.007.
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