Geneva Emotional Competence Test
HOW TO OBTAIN THE GECo TEST FOR NON-COMMERCIAL ACADEMIC RESEARCH PURPOSES
HOW TO OBTAIN THE GECo TEST FOR COMMERCIAL AND PROFESSIONAL PURPOSES
INTRODUCTION
The Geneva Emotional Competence Test (GECo Test) is an online-only performance-based test to measure individual differences in Emotional Intelligence (EI). The test comprises 110 items and requires about 50 minutes to complete.
The GECo Test has been built specifically for the workplace and for organizations: all scenarios and items describe situations and events that could happen in the workplace and are based on interviews conducted with managers and professionals during the first phase of the project. For each item, there is a correct or a wrong response that is determined on the basis of multiple criteria: theoretical foundations, expert judgments, and consensus in the general population. All details can be found in
Schlegel, K., & Mortillaro, M. (2018). The Geneva Emotional Competence Test (GECo): an ability measure of workplace emotional intelligence. Journal of Applied Psychology, 104(4), 559-580. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/apl0000365
The model of Emotional Intelligence used in the GECo Test defines 4 central competencies:
1) EMOTION RECOGNITION - the ability to accurately recognize emotions from other people's nonverbal expressions conveyed by the face, voice, or body
2) EMOTION UNDERSTANDING - the ability to understand the qualities, causes, and consequences of one's own and others' emotions
3) EMOTION MANAGEMENT - the ability to effectively regulate other people's (usually negative) emotions through behavioural strategies;
4) EMOTION REGULATION - the ability to create and maintain positive affective states and reduce negative affective states in oneself.
These competencies are considered to be distinct but correlated and each of them is measured through a specific subtest.
The GECo has been validated in a series of studies reported in Schlegel & Mortillaro (2018). The abstract and the full reference can be found below
ABSTRACT
Emotional intelligence (EI) has been frequently studied as a predictor of work criteria, but disparate approaches to defining and measuring EI have produced rather inconsistent findings. The conceptualization of EI as an ability to be measured with performance-based tests is by many considered the most appropriate approach, but only a few tests developed in this tradition exist, and none of them is designed to specifically assess EI in the workplace. The present research introduces the Geneva Emotional Competence test (GECo)—a new ability EI test measuring emotion recognition (assessed using video clips of actors), emotion understanding, emotion regulation in oneself, and emotion management in others (all assessed with situational judgment items of work-related scenarios). For the situational judgment items, correct and incorrect response options were developed using established theories from the emotion and organizational field. Five studies (total N 888) showed that all subtests had high measurement precision (as assessed with Item Response Theory), and correlated in expected ways with other EI tests, cognitive intelligence, personality, and demographic variables. Further, the GECo predicted performance in computerized assessment centre tasks in a sample of professionals and explained academic performance in students incrementally above another ability EI test. Because of its theory-based scoring, good psychometric properties, and focus on the workplace, the GECo represents a promising tool for studying the role of four major EI components in organizational outcomes
Schlegel, K., & Mortillaro, M. (2019). The Geneva Emotional Competence Test (GECo): an ability measure of workplace emotional intelligence. Journal of Applied Psychology, 104(4), 559-580. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/apl0000365
DEMO
If you are interested in seeing an example of the test, you can access a demo version by clicking on the link below.
Please note that the demo includes only 3 items for each of the four subtests and takes less than 5 minutes to complete. The items included in the demo ARE NOT part of the actual GECo Test. The demo will not provide with you any feedback about your score: it is exclusively intended to give you an idea of the test and decide whether it would be suitable for your research.
If you want to try out the demo, please click here: GECo DEMO
HOW TO OBTAIN THE GECo TEST FOR NON-COMMERCIAL ACADEMIC RESEARCH PURPOSES
The GECo Test is freely accessible for academic research purposes only and it is available in English, French, and German.
A special version of the GECo Test is available for commercial, professional and personal use under the name of EMCO4: please see the section "HOW TO OBTAIN THE GECo TEST FOR COMMERCIAL AND PROFESSIONAL PURPOSES" for more information.
In order to obtain access to the GECo Test, interested researchers should fill in, sign, and submit via email (to ) the “GECo User Agreement ” AND a brief description of the project in which they intend to use the GECo Test (between ½ and 1 page).
Please note that the following conditions apply:
- The study involving the GECo Test must be run or supervised by a person with a stable academic appointment. Every person running the GECo Test must be listed in the signed GECo Test User AGreement.
- The GECo Test will be used only in the context of the study submitted to the Swiss Center Affective Sciences along with the signed agreement.
- No copies or any part of it will be made available to other researchers not listed in the agreement or distributed. It will not be displayed or made accessible in any form in a public space
- The researchers using the GECo Test have the responsibility to ensure that the study complies with all applicable data protection legislation and to obtain ethical approval from the appropriate institutional review board.
Instructions on how to use the GECo Test are entirely described in the Geneva Emotional Competence Test Manual.
HOW TO OBTAIN THE GECo TEST FOR COMMERCIAL AND PROFESSIONAL PURPOSES
The GECo Test is available for commercial applications through our licensee at this webpage: EMCO4