Emotional Intelligence (EQ) Test: See Your Profile Across Five EQ Skills
This emotional intelligence (EQ) quiz explores how you perceive your emotional awareness, regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skills. Get a self-report profile informed by Goleman's model for reflection.
Reviewed by Michael Callans, MSW 
Emotional Intelligence (EQ) Test is a free, confidential 20-question self-assessment, based on Goleman's five-part EQ model. It takes about 7 minutes, runs entirely in your browser, and gives you a plain-language profile of your strongest style plus an optional in-depth report. It is an educational screening, not a diagnosis.
Five parts of emotional intelligence, not one score
Emotional intelligence concerns recognizing, understanding, and managing emotions in yourself and responding to emotions in others. This self-assessment uses Goleman's model to describe your perceived habits, helping you choose an area to practice without treating the result as a measure of your worth.
Knowing yourself
Self-awareness and self-regulation: recognizing your own emotions as they happen, understanding what drives them, and managing impulses and moods rather than being run by them.
Driving yourself
Motivation: a drive to grow and achieve for reasons beyond money or status, plus optimism and persistence in the face of setbacks.
Connecting with others
Empathy and social skills: reading other people's feelings accurately, and using that to communicate, influence, and build genuine relationships.
| Feature | Typical free quiz | Psychology.com |
|---|---|---|
| Based on Goleman's five-part model | Sometimes | Yes, all five |
| Full profile, not one number | No | Yes, five bars |
| Names your strength and growth area | No | Yes |
| Growth-oriented, learnable framing | Often fixed | Yes |
| Clinician-reviewed interpretation | Rarely | Yes, clinician reviewed |
| Optional in-depth personalized report | No | Yes, written to your exact scores |
| Confidential (no data sent) | Often tracked | Runs in your browser |
The 5 patterns this test measures
- Self-awareness: Recognizing your own emotions and what drives them.
- Self-regulation: Managing impulses and steadying your moods.
- Motivation: Drive, optimism, and persistence through setbacks.
- Empathy: Reading and responding to others' feelings.
- Social skills: Communicating, handling conflict, building bonds.
If nothing is endorsed, every pattern scores the same, or the leading patterns tie, the result says so instead of naming a single pattern.
EQ test vs. IQ test and personality tests
This Emotional Intelligence (EQ) Test describes your view of your emotional habits. These three measure different things, and it helps to know which one you actually want. An IQ test estimates reasoning and problem-solving ability, largely stable traits that are not the focus here. A personality test, like the Big Five, describes broad, fairly stable traits such as how outgoing or organized you tend to be. This EQ test looks at something more specific and more changeable: how well you notice, understand, and manage emotions, yours and other people's.
The distinction matters because the assessments use different tasks and answer different questions. Research on emotional intelligence training suggests that emotional skills can improve, but this self-report does not predict how much any individual will change. If you are curious about reasoning ability, the IQ Test is the better fit. If you want a broader personality snapshot, the Big Five Personality Test covers that ground.
Signs of high and low emotional intelligence
High EQ tends to look like small, consistent habits more than one dramatic trait. It shows up as pausing before reacting when upset, noticing a friend's mood shift before they say anything, apologizing without getting defensive, and staying steady when plans change.
Lower EQ in a given area tends to look different depending on the dimension. Low self-regulation often shows up as snapping under pressure or regretting words said in anger. Low empathy can look like being genuinely surprised that someone was hurt by something you said. Low social skills often shows up as conflict that escalates rather than resolves, or relationships that feel effortful to maintain. None of these are permanent labels. They are simply the areas your practice can target first.
Use these examples as prompts to recall specific situations. A quiet communication style or a difficult interaction alone cannot establish low emotional intelligence. Ask what you noticed, how you checked your interpretation, and what happened after you responded. The profile does not justify labeling a partner, coworker, or yourself as emotionally incapable.
What your profile means at work and in relationships
A strong self-awareness and self-regulation profile tends to show up as staying composed in high-pressure moments and giving thoughtful rather than reactive feedback, both valued in almost any workplace. Strong empathy and social skills tend to translate into smoother collaboration, more trust from teammates, and relationships that recover faster from conflict.
If motivation is your growth area, connecting daily tasks to a bigger personal reason tends to help more than willpower alone. If empathy or social skills are lower, active listening and simple perspective-taking questions are a practical starting point, and the Communication Skills tool page walks through more of that. When emotional patterns feel stuck rather than just underdeveloped, working with a therapist or coach can provide structured feedback and support; the Psychology.com therapist directory is a free way to find one.
For practice, recall a recent disagreement and name the emotion you felt before responding. The Feelings Wheel can help you find a more specific word. Then ask the other person whether you understood their concern correctly, allowing them to correct your interpretation. If recognizing emotions is your main question, the Empathy Test offers a related self-assessment. You can return to the Psychology.com tests hub to explore other areas of emotional wellbeing.
Methodology & sources
This test is based on the five-component model of emotional intelligence popularized by Daniel Goleman in Emotional Intelligence (1995): self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skills. The broader concept of emotional intelligence was first defined in the academic literature by Mayer and Salovey (1990) as the ability to perceive, understand, use, and manage emotions. Our items are written for readability and self-reflection across these five dimensions, with several reverse-scored to reduce response bias.
This is an educational self-report tool, not a diagnostic instrument and not a validated ability test of EQ. Self-report measures capture how you see yourself, which is useful for reflection but can differ from how you actually perform. The point is not to score or rank you, but to help you notice your strengths and the areas where a little practice could go a long way. Emotional intelligence is widely considered learnable, so a lower area is best read as an opportunity, not a limitation.
An ability assessment asks someone to solve emotion-related tasks and evaluates their responses against a scoring standard. This page instead asks you to describe yourself. Its model-based profile does not establish an EQ percentile, a hiring qualification, or a clinical threshold. Research about other emotional intelligence measures does not validate this particular set of items; concrete examples and feedback add context to the result.
References
- Goleman D. Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ. New York: Bantam Books; 1995.
- Mayer JD, Salovey P. Emotional intelligence. Imagination, Cognition and Personality. 1990;9(3):185-211.
- Salovey P, Mayer JD, Caruso D. The positive psychology of emotional intelligence. In: Snyder CR, Lopez SJ, eds. Handbook of Positive Psychology. Oxford University Press; 2002:159-171.
- Mattingly V, Kraiger K. Can emotional intelligence be trained? A meta-analytical investigation. Hum Resour Manag Rev. 2019;29(2):140-155.
- Mattingly V, Kraiger K. Can emotional intelligence be trained? A meta-analytical investigation. Author publication record and abstract. digitalcommons.memphis.edu/facpubs/11930/
- Mayer JD. Measuring Emotional Intelligence. University of New Hampshire Personality Lab. scholars.unh.edu/personality_lab/6/
Cite this source
Psychology.com. (2026, September 16). Emotional Intelligence (EQ) Test. Psychology.com. https://psychology.com/tests/emotional-intelligence
Emotional Intelligence (EQ) Test FAQ
What is emotional intelligence (EQ)?
Emotional intelligence is the ability to recognize, understand, and manage your own emotions, and to read and respond to the emotions of others. Goleman's popular model describes it as five skills: self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skills. Strong EQ helps with relationships, communication, leadership, and wellbeing.
Can emotional intelligence be improved?
Emotional intelligence training can improve measured emotional skills, according to the Mattingly and Kraiger research review. That finding does not guarantee a particular result for you or validate this questionnaire. Naming emotions, listening carefully, and asking for specific feedback offer practical areas to explore. Look for changes in everyday interactions alongside any change in how you rate yourself.
Is a high EQ better than a high IQ?
A high EQ score is not universally better than a high IQ score. The measures address different questions, and their usefulness depends on the task and the assessment used. This self-report profile cannot be compared directly with a standardized IQ score or used to rank your overall intelligence, likely career success, or value in relationships.
Is this test a diagnosis?
No. EQ is not a clinical condition, so there is nothing here to diagnose. This is an educational self-reflection tool based on Goleman's model. It shows you a profile of your self-reported strengths, not a verdict on your character or abilities.
Is the test really confidential?
Yes. It runs entirely in your browser. Your individual answers are scored in your browser and are never sent to us or linked to you. They stay in this tab so you can return to your result, and closing or clearing the tab clears them. If you ask us to email the PDF, we receive your summary scores with your email address, never your individual answers. No account is needed.
How accurate is this EQ test?
This EQ test is an educational self-report informed by Goleman's model, with no published accuracy statistics for this particular questionnaire. It records how you describe your habits, which may differ from your behavior or how others experience you. Use specific examples and feedback from someone you trust to interpret the profile. It cannot establish an objective level of emotional ability.
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