Trait Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire (TEIQue-SF)

Trait emotional intelligence (trait EI or TEI) refers to a person's self-perceptions of their emotional abilities — how well you believe you understand your own feelings, manage them, read others' emotions, and navigate social situations. Unlike ability-based models of EI that measure actual emotional competence with performance tasks, trait EI is measured through self-report: it captures your emotional self-concept as a stable personality characteristic.

Research shows that trait EI predicts meaningful life outcomes including well-being, academic success, job performance, relationship quality, and resilience under stress.

The Trait Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire — Short Form (TEIQue-SF) was developed by K. V. Petrides and colleagues at the London Psychometric Laboratory. It is a 30-item distillation of the full 153-item TEIQue, designed for research and screening contexts where brevity is important.

The questionnaire measures four broad factors of trait EI:

• Well-Being — subjective happiness, optimism, self-esteem, and life satisfaction.
• Self-Control — emotion regulation, impulse control, and stress management.
• Emotionality — empathy, emotional perception, expression of feelings, and closeness in relationships.
• Sociability — social skills, assertiveness, the ability to influence others, and comfort in social situations.

A Global TEI score summarises all four factors into a single composite.

Reference

Petrides, K. V. (2009). Psychometric properties of the Trait Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire (TEIQue). In C. Stough, D. Saklofske, & J. Parker (Eds.),Assessing emotional intelligence: Theory, research, and applications. Springer.