Cross-Cultural Research on the Reliability and Validity of the Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT)

Abstract

Despite the rather large literature concerning emotional intelligence, the vast majority of studies concerning development and validation of emotional intelligence scales have been done in the Western countries. Hence, a major limitation in this literature is its decidedly Western focus. The aim of this research was to assess the psychometric properties of the Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT) in a cross-cultural comparative context involving the collectivist Pakistani (Eastern culture) and the individualist French (Western culture) students. With the exception of significant mean differences on the MSCEIT scores between two cultures, the results concerning the validity of the MSCEIT generalized nicely across both cultures. The results from multisample analysis revealed that the MSCEIT has the property of factorial invariance across both cultures, including invariance of factor loadings, unique variances, and factor variance. For both Pakistani and French students, the MSCEIT scores were distinguishable from the Big Five personality dimensions, self-report emotional intelligence measures, and cognitive intelligence. Furthermore, in both cultures, the MSCEIT scores failed to demonstrate incremental validity against well-being measures, after controlling for cognitive intelligence and the Big Five personality dimensions. Finally, within each sample, females significantly scored higher than males on the MSCEIT total scores.