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Abstract
This study examined the relationships between trait emotional intelligence (EI) and tasks involving the
recognition of facial expressions of emotion. Two facial expression recognition tasks using the inspection
time (IT) paradigm assessed speed of emotional information processing. An unspeeded emotion recognition
task was also included, and a symbol IT task was used to assess speed of processing of non-emotional
information. It was found that scores on all three emotion-related tasks were strongly intercorrelated, as
were scores on the three IT tasks. The two emotional IT scores remained significantly correlated when
symbol IT performance was partialled out. This finding, together with the associations between the speeded
(IT) and unspeeded face tasks suggests that the association between the emotional IT tasks is not entirely
accounted for by general processing speed, and that a general emotion-processing ability also contributes to
performance on these tasks. An EI subscale assessing Appraisal of Emotions was significantly correlated
with performance on the emotional IT tasks, suggesting that self-reports of emotional perception ability do
relate to performance measures.
2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
Emotional intelligence (EI) is a topic of considerable current interest both amongst individual
differences researchers and the general public. The EI concept provides a psychometric framework
for the intuitive and appealing idea that people differ in their Ôemotional skillsÕ and that these
*
Tel.: +44-131-651-1305; fax: +44-131-650-34561.
E-mail address: elizabeth.austin@ed.ac.uk (E.J. Austin).
0191-8869/$ - see front matter 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.paid.2003.07.006
1856 E.J. Austin / Personality and Individual Differences 36 (2004) 1855–1864
differences would be expected to relate to real-life outcomes such as career and relationship
success. A personÕs overall EI score is expected to provide a general measure of their emotional
competence, whilst a number of sub-domains of EI involving the perception, control and use of
emotions in the self and in others have also been characterised (see for example Bar-On, 2000;
Mayer, Caruso, & Salovey, 2000). Although EI measures have been found to associate as pre-
dicted with outcomes such as life satisfaction and social network size and quality (Ciarrochi,
Chan, & Bajgar, 2001; Palmer, Donaldson, & Stough, 2002; Saklofske, Austin, & Minski, 2003),
there are unresolved problems associated both with the measurement of EI and with the under-
lying causes of observed EI differences between individuals.
1.1. EI measurement
1.2. EI mechanisms
EI is a complex construct which almost certainly operates at a number of levels ranging from
biological to social. In a recent conceptualisation Matthews et al. (2002) have proposed a
framework involving biological, cognitive architecture and knowledge components. At the lower
(biological) level, it seems plausible to suggest that individual differences in EI could be in part
underpinned by individual differences in the speed of processing of emotional information. The
E.J. Austin / Personality and Individual Differences 36 (2004) 1855–1864 1857
The main objective of the present study was to examine the associations between scores on a
trait EI measure and performance on tasks involving the recognition of facial expressions of
emotion. Two facial expression tasks using the IT paradigm were devised to assess speed of facial
emotion information processing. An essentially unspeeded task in which faces were displayed for
several seconds was also included. Positive associations between overall trait EI scores or relevant
trait EI subcomponent scores (i.e. those assessing emotion perception), and task performance
would provide evidence for the validity of the trait EI measure, in terms of it being related to
performance on tasks requiring emotion perception skills; a lack of association would suggest that
1858 E.J. Austin / Personality and Individual Differences 36 (2004) 1855–1864
trait EI scores do not relate to emotional task performance, i.e. people cannot self-report on their
abilities in this domain.
A second objective was to investigate the extent to which the speed of emotional information-
processing (as measured by the IT tasks) relates to the speed of processing of non-emotional
information and to psychometric intelligence. For this purpose a third IT task involving the
recognition of emotionally neutral symbols and a brief intelligence test were also included. Pos-
sible findings here would be correlations between all the IT tasks, indicating the existence of an
underlying Ôspeed of processingÕ factor independent of stimulus content, or a lack of association
between the emotional and neutral IT tasks, which might suggest that emotional information is
processed by a separate cognitive module from non-emotional information. In addition, the
possibility that emotional task performance might be linked to personality was investigated by
including a personality questionnaire in the study.
2. Method
2.1. Participants
The participants were 35 members of the departmental adult volunteer panel and 57 under-
graduate (mainly Psychology) students. Nationality of the participants was not formally recorded,
but the majority of both groups were British nationals. There were 21 males and 71 females; the
mean age was 32.7 years (standard deviation 17.4 years).
2.2. Materials
(2002). The image size for the stimuli and mask was 20 · 20 mm. The mask consisted of a set of
broadened lines radiating out from a central point, including angles of 0, 90, 45 and 135 which
would overlay the lines defining the stimuli. Each stimulus was presented five times at each du-
ration, using the same set of durations as for the face tasks, with randomisation of the order of
stimulus/duration combinations. Thus each participant performed 10 trials at each duration and
140 trials in total.
2.3. Procedure
Each participant was randomly assigned to start the session with either the happy or sad face IT
task; the other face IT task was performed next, followed by the symbol IT task and then the
1860 E.J. Austin / Personality and Individual Differences 36 (2004) 1855–1864
NART if this was included (NART scores were obtained for 72 participants, 41 students and 31
volunteer panel members). Finally, student participants completed the EI and personality mea-
sures (the volunteer panel participants had already completed these as part of a postal survey). All
the computer tasks were presented on a 1700 colour monitor with screen refresh rate set to 120 Hz
and screen resolution 640 · 480 and were performed in a quiet cubicle with subdued lighting.
3. Results
Examination of the results from the IT tasks showed that response characteristics were ap-
propriate, with participants performing at around chance levels at the shortest durations and with
close to 100% accuracy at the longest duration for all three tasks. Means and standard deviations
for all tasks and tests are shown in Table 1.
Table 2 shows the correlations amongst the computer-based tasks and the NART. It can be
seen that there are large significant correlations amongst scores on the three IT tasks. Both
emotional IT tasks are also significantly correlated with the Ekman-60 task, whereas the symbol
IT task is not. NART scores are not correlated with any of the computer task scores.
Table 3 shows correlations between the EI scales and the computer tasks. It can be seen that
overall EI and the EI sub factors of Utilisation of Emotions and Optimism/Mood Regulation are
uncorrelated with performance on any of the tasks but that the Appraisal of Emotions sub-factor
is significantly correlated with performance on the two IT tasks involving emotional stimuli.
Table 1
Descriptive statistics for tasks and tests
N Mean Standard deviation
NART 72 34.93 6.21
Happy IT 92 88.50 8.40
Sad IT 92 82.66 8.23
Symbol IT 92 115.30 11.91
Ekman-60 87 50.49 4.04
EI 84 152.02 14.75
Appraisal 87 44.69 6.14
Utilisation 90 26.18 4.44
Optimism/MR 89 37.15 4.66
E 88 26.74 5.37
A 90 32.82 4.42
N 89 22.19 5.90
C 90 30.00 5.23
O 90 31.17 4.24
NART ¼ National Adult Reading Test (total correct), Happy IT ¼ happy face inspection time score (total correct), Sad
IT ¼ sad face inspection time score (total correct), Symbol IT ¼ symbol inspection time score (total correct),
EI ¼ emotional intelligence, Appraisal ¼ Appraisal of Emotions, Utilisation ¼ Utilisation of Emotions, Optimism/
MR ¼ Optimism/Mood Regulation, E ¼ extraversion, A ¼ agreeableness, N ¼ neuroticism, C ¼ conscientiousness,
O ¼ openness/intellect/imagination. Only 72 participants completed the NART; five participants did not complete the
Ekman-60 test due to computer failure; EI and personality scores were not obtained for all participants due to
questionnaire items being omitted.
E.J. Austin / Personality and Individual Differences 36 (2004) 1855–1864 1861
Table 2
Correlations amongst computer tasks and the NART
NART Happy IT Sad IT Symbol IT
Happy IT )0.09 (72)
Sad IT 0.07 (72) 0.42 (92)
Symbol IT 0.06 (72) 0.48 (92) 0.46 (92)
Ekman-60 )0.06 (67) 0.40 (87) 0.33 (87) 0.18 (87)
NART ¼ National Adult Reading Test (total correct), Happy IT ¼ happy face inspection time score (total correct), Sad
IT ¼ sad face inspection time score (total correct), Symbol IT ¼ symbol inspection time score (total correct). N for each
correlation is given in brackets.
p < 0:001.
Table 3
Correlations between EI scales and computer task scores
Happy IT Sad IT Symbol IT Ekman-60 NART
EI 0.11 (84) 0.09 (84) 0.15 (84) 0.17 (80) )0.19 (64)
Appraisal 0.22 (87) 0.25 (87) 0.19 (87) 0.22 (82) )0.13 (67)
Utilisation 0.03 (90) 0.07 (90) 0.10 (90) 0.13 (85) )0.03 (70)
Optimism/MR )0.01 (89) )0.14 (89) 0.04 (89) 0.05 (85) )0.14 (69)
NART ¼ National Adult Reading Test (total correct), Happy IT ¼ happy face inspection time score (total correct), Sad
IT ¼ sad face inspection time score (total correct), Symbol IT ¼ symbol inspection time score (total correct),
EI ¼ emotional intelligence, Appraisal ¼ Appraisal of Emotions, Utilisation ¼ Utilisation of Emotions, Optimism/
MR ¼ Optimism/Mood Regulation. N for each correlation is given in brackets.
p < 0:05.
Table 4
Partial correlations amongst the emotion task measures and self-reported emotional appraisal controlling for symbol
inspection time performance
Happy IT Sad IT Ekman-60
Sad IT 0.28
Ekman-60 0.40 0.28
Appraisal 0.11 0.27 0.20
N ¼ 79, NART ¼ National Adult Reading Test (total correct), Happy IT ¼ happy face inspection time score (total
correct), Sad IT ¼ sad face inspection time score (total correct), Appraisal ¼ Appraisal of Emotions.
p < 0:05, p < 0:001.
Correlations between personality and the computer tasks were also examined; only one sig-
nificant correlation was found (conscientiousness/symbol IT r ¼ 0:23, p ¼ 0:027, N ¼ 90). There
were no significant correlations between NART score and the personality scales.
Since performance on the symbol IT task can be regarded as a measure of general processing
speed, the effect of partialling out symbol task performance on the correlations amongst the
emotion task performance measures and the Appraisal of Emotions factor were examined. These
partial correlations are shown in Table 4. The correlation between the happy and sad face IT tasks
1862 E.J. Austin / Personality and Individual Differences 36 (2004) 1855–1864
remained significant when performance on the symbol task was partialled out, suggesting a
contribution to the correlation related to the specific emotional content of the two tasks when
general speed of processing is controlled for. Correlations between the Ekman-60 task and the two
emotional IT tasks also remained significant, as did the correlation between Appraisal of Emo-
tions score and the sad face IT task.
In order to examine the multivariate associations in the data in more detail, a regression model
was constructed with a composite measure of emotional IT task performance (combined score for
the happy and sad IT tasks) as the dependent variable and EI subscales, symbol IT performance,
Ekman-60 task performance, NART and personality traits as independent variables. The sig-
nificant predictors were found to be Appraisal of Emotion, symbol IT performance and Ekman-
60 performance.
4. Discussion
The findings of this study on the correlations amongst performance on speeded and unspeeded
emotional tasks, an IT task using neutral symbols and a trait EI measure provide both interesting
information and suggestions for further work. Large significant correlations were found between
all three IT tasks, suggesting that a common processing speed factor accounts in part for per-
formance on all of them. However the two emotional IT tasks remain significantly correlated
when processing speed (as assessed by the symbol IT task) is controlled for, and performance on
these tasks is also strongly correlated with performance on the Ekman-60 unspeeded task; these
results suggest that an underlying emotion-processing factor also contributes to emotional IT
performance. The regression model for combined emotional IT task performance supports the
idea of two underlying factors with general processing speed (symbol task performance), mea-
sured emotion recognition ability (Ekman-60) and self-reported interpersonal ability all acting as
predictors.
Turning to the associations with trait EI, overall EI score and scores on the two EI factors
related to the intrapersonal EI aspects of mood regulation and emotional utilisation were not
significantly associated with performance on any of the emotional tasks, but scores on the in-
terpersonal factor relating to emotion perception were significantly associated with performance
on the two emotional IT tasks, although the correlation with the Ekman-60 task failed to reach
significance. This patterning of correlations provides support for the validity of the trait EI
measure, in that self-reports of interpersonal emotion perception ability are related to (interper-
sonal) emotion task performance, whilst self-reports of intrapersonal aspects of emotion man-
agement are unrelated to performance on these tasks.
Two null findings are a lack of association of NART scores and personality with task per-
formance. The results for the NART are surprising, as psychometric intelligence is well-known to
be associated with performance on IT tasks, although the use of a verbal measure could explain
the result, since intelligence/IT associations are stronger for performance IQ measures (Deary,
2000). For this particular sample there may also have been problems of restriction of range in
cognitive ability as it was drawn from university undergraduates and volunteer panel members
who were mainly of above-average educational level. The finding of no associations between
emotion task performance and personality trait scores is an interesting one. Given that the traits
E.J. Austin / Personality and Individual Differences 36 (2004) 1855–1864 1863
Acknowledgements
Tim Bates and Peter Caryl contributed valuable advice on the design of the inspection time
tasks. Support from the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland and the Edinburgh
University Moray Endowment Fund is gratefully acknowledged.
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