Emotional intelligence test

A free, 20-question EQ test based on the four skills of emotional intelligence. Get a score for each, plus research-based tips for the area with the most room to grow.

By the Daily Recall team. Updated October 25, 2026, with 14 sources.

The four domains of emotional intelligence, as described by Daniel Goleman.

Free EQ test · 20 questions · about 3 minutes

Question 1 of 20

Answer honestly. There are no right answers.

What is emotional intelligence?

Emotional intelligence (EI, often called EQ) is the ability to recognize, understand and manage emotions, in yourself and in other people. Psychologists Peter Salovey and John Mayer coined the scientific concept in 1990, describing it as a set of skills: appraising and expressing emotion accurately, regulating emotion in yourself and others, and using feelings to motivate and plan. Later, Mayer and colleagues defined it as the ability to reason accurately about emotions, and to use emotions and emotional knowledge to enhance thought.

The idea reached a mass audience through Daniel Goleman’s 1995 bestseller Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ. Goleman’s model groups emotional intelligence into four domains, and this test follows them:

Self-awareness: knowing what you feel and why.
Self-management: controlling impulses, staying calm under pressure and bouncing back.
Social awareness: empathy, and reading the room.
Relationship management: handling conflict, influencing and helping others.

How emotional intelligence is measured

Researchers disagree about what emotional intelligence is, and that shows in how it’s measured. There are three main approaches:

Ability tests treat EI like an intelligence and test it with right-or-wrong answers. The best known, the MSCEIT, has 141 items covering perceiving, using, understanding and managing emotions, scored against large samples and emotion experts.

Trait questionnaires, like the 153-item TEIQue, ask how you see your own emotional skills. Researchers in this camp see EI as part of personality rather than intelligence.

Mixed models, like the Bar-On EQ-i, combine emotional skills with broader traits such as optimism. Scores are standardized so the average is 100.

This free test is a short self-report questionnaire, closest to the trait approach. It isn’t a validated clinical instrument, and its scores aren’t on the 100-average scale used by professional tests. What it does well is show you your relative strengths across the four skills.

Is EQ more important than IQ?

Probably not, despite the popular claim. A large 2011 meta-analysis found that all three kinds of EI measure predict job performance to a degree. But once IQ and personality are accounted for, ability-based EI adds very little. Self-report measures appear to add more, but a 2015 follow-up found that this edge largely disappears when you also account for personality, self-confidence and how people rate their own performance. Researchers found EI matters most in jobs with a lot of “emotional labor”, like nursing, sales or customer service.

The fair summary: emotional skills are real and useful, but they work alongside general intelligence and personality, not instead of them.

Emotional intelligence and wellbeing

People who score higher on emotional intelligence tend to report better health. A meta-analysis of 105 studies and nearly 20,000 people found EI was linked with better mental health, and to a lesser degree with physical health, with stronger links for self-report measures. These are correlations, so they don’t prove EI causes better health, but they fit with what we know about how stress affects the brain and body.

Emotional intelligence in the brain

A 2014 study of 152 Vietnam veterans with brain injuries mapped which damaged areas affected emotional intelligence scores. EI relied on a network in the brain’s left hemisphere, including areas in the frontal, temporal and parietal lobes linked to social thinking, and it largely shared brain systems with verbal intelligence. In other words, emotional skills aren’t housed in one “emotion center”.

Brain imaging also shows what happens when you manage an emotion. A meta-analysis of 48 studies found that reappraisal, deliberately rethinking a situation to change how you feel about it, recruits regions of the prefrontal cortex and reliably reduces activity in the amygdala, the brain’s threat detector. This is the kind of skill the self-management questions in this test are about, and it’s one reason meditation is often recommended for emotional regulation.

Can you improve your emotional intelligence?

Yes, to a degree. A 2019 meta-analysis of 58 studies found that EI training has a moderate positive effect. Effects were smaller in unpublished studies, and a 2023 trial with a placebo comparison group found real but more modest gains. Like most skills, it improves with deliberate practice, not just reading about it.

The tips in your results above are a good place to start. Broadly, the habits that help are: naming your emotions precisely, building a pause between feeling and reacting, listening fully before responding, and asking for honest feedback.

A word on self-report tests

Any questionnaire like this one measures how you see yourself. A 2014 study found that people with the weakest emotional skills tended to overestimate them the most, and were less interested in improving when given feedback. So treat your score as a starting point for reflection. If you want a reality check, ask someone who knows you well to answer a few of the questions about you.

This test is for learning and curiosity, not a medical or psychological assessment. If you’re worried about your health or wellbeing, talk to a doctor or a qualified professional.

Sources

Frequently asked questions

What is a good EQ score?

There’s no universal scale. On professional tests like the EQ-i 2.0, scores are set so the average is 100, and about half of people score between 90 and 110. Our free test isn’t on that scale. It shows your relative strengths across four skills, which is the most useful thing a short quiz can tell you.

Is EQ more important than IQ?

The research doesn’t support that. Large reviews find emotional intelligence adds only a small amount to predicting job performance once IQ and personality are taken into account. It matters most in jobs that involve a lot of emotional work, like customer service or caregiving.

Can you improve your emotional intelligence?

Yes, modestly. A meta-analysis of 58 studies found that emotional intelligence training has a moderate positive effect, though gains are smaller in the most tightly controlled studies.

Are online EQ tests accurate?

Free online EQ tests, including this one, are self-report questionnaires. They’re useful for reflection, but research shows people with the weakest emotional skills tend to overrate themselves the most. Asking someone who knows you well is a good reality check.

What are the four parts of emotional intelligence?

In Daniel Goleman’s widely used model, they are self-awareness, self-management, social awareness and relationship management. This test gives you a score for each.

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