The ‘Reading the mind in the Eyes’ test and emotional intelligence
Metadatos
Mostrar el registro completo del ítemAutor
Megías Robles, Alberto; Gutiérrez Cobo, María José; Cabello, Rosario; Gómez Leal, Raquel; Baron Cohen, Simon; Fernández Berrocal, PabloEditorial
Royal Society
Materia
Theory of mind Eyes Test Emotional intelligence MSCEIT
Fecha
2020-09-16Referencia bibliográfica
Megías-Robles A, Gutiérrez- Cobo MJ, Cabello R, Gómez-Leal R, Baron-Cohen S, Fernández-Berrocal P. 2020 The ‘Reading the mind in the Eyes’ test and emotional intelligence. R. Soc. Open Sci. 7: 201305. [http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.201305]
Patrocinador
Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness PSI2017-84170-R; Junta de Andalucía UMA18-FEDERJA-137 UMA18FEDERJA-114; German Research Foundation (DFG) FPU15/05179; Autism Research Trust; Wellcome Trust; Templeton World Charitable Foundation; NIHR Biomedical Research Centre in Cambridge; Innovative Medicines Initiative 2 Joint Undertaking (JU) 777394; European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme; EFPIA; AUTISM SPEAKS, Autistica, SFARI; Innovation and Development Agency of Andalusia SEJ-07325Resumen
The ‘Reading the Mind in the Eyes’ test (Eyes Test) has been
widely used to measure theory of mind (ToM) or the ability to
recognize the thoughts and feelings of others. Although
previous studies have analysed its relationship with the ability
to perceive emotions, the potential links with more complex
emotional abilities remain unclear. The aim of the present
research was to analyse the relationship between the Eyes Test
and each of the emotional intelligence (EI) branches: perceiving,
facilitating, understanding and managing emotions. In
addition, we were interested in studying these relationships as
a function of the Eyes Test difficulty. Eight hundred and
seventy-four participants completed the Eyes Test and the
Mayer–Salovey–Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test. A stepwise
multiple regression analysis for the total score on the Eyes Test
revealed that the best fitting model included the understanding,
perceiving and managing emotion branches, with the
understanding branch being the one most strongly associated
with performance on the Eyes Test. Interestingly, stepwise
multiple regression analysis for the easiest items of the Eyes
Test revealed the same predictors, but, in the case of the most
difficult items only the understanding branch was a predictor.
These outcomes were not moderated by the influence of
gender. Our findings support the notion that the Eyes Test can
be used as a ToM task and that it is associated with complex
EI abilities. Limitations and future lines of investigation
are discussed.