How emotional intelligence ability items should be scored has been vigorously debated. In the present study we investigate the possibility to directly derive emotional intelligence from the raw item ratings as given by the participant without any post hoc scoring of the items. We do this by investigating the internal structure of emotional intelligence subscales at item level. We hypothesized that rating-based emotional intelligence scales would be structured by two factors: a bipolar ability factor with right items loading positively and wrong items loading negatively, and a unipolar acquiescent response style factor with all items loading positively on it. This hypothesis was investigated on the Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test - Youth Version in a first sample of 630 Flemish pupils and a second sample of 664 Flemish pupils. In the first sample the original instrument, three rating subscales were applied; In the second sample an adapted version was applied with all four scales presented in rating format. In both samples the hypothesized structure was confirmed for all subtests using rating scales. Across the factors of all subtests a general emotional intelligence and a general acquiescence factor emerged. The nomological network further confirmed the interpretation of the factors.

This study is focused on the analysis of intraindividual changes in emotional intelligence (EI) conceptualized within the ability-based model. Particular classes of structural equation models were applied to the study of correlates of inter- and intraindividual variations in the proposed performance based measures of the three EI dimensions. The data to be presented is derived from the longitudinal study of EI development conducted in three time points on the sample of 517 primary school students aged 10 to 15 years. Following the assumptions of the latent state-trait theory (e.g. Steyer, et al., 1992), the degree to which variations in EI measures are due to individual dispositions and/or to occasion-related factors will be presented. Several single- and multi-construct latent state-trait models were tested against the EI data. According to the parameter estimates obtained, the portions of variance attributable to situational and/or interactional effects varied with the point of measurement and the EI operationalization used. Further, the true change modeling procedures (e.g., Steyer, Eid, and Schwenkmezer, 1997) employed confirmed the significant role of gender and cognitive ability measures as moderator and antecedents of interindividual differences in changes on EI measures, respectively.

Creative activities and achievements can be reliably assessed using self-report inventories (Silvia, Wigert, Reiter-Palmon & Kaufman, 2011). These measures differ in their focus on personal as opposed to public achievements. The inventory to be presented – the inventory of creative activities and achievements (ICAA; Jauk et al, 2013a & Jauk et al, 2013b) – is constructed to assess both levels of achievement in eight different domains. The ICAA has been employed in eight studies along with tests of creative potential, personality, and intelligence. This inventory’s reliability and validity was estimated in two different ways: First internal consistency and measurement models are performed in a compound dataset comprising the ICAA variables of all eight studies. Second, convergent and divergent validity with measures of personality, intelligence, and creative potential were performed via meta-analyses of these eight datasets. This two-tier approach was chosen due to the reasonable homogeneity of ICAA variables but not of the validity variables. The advantages of this two-tier approach shall be presented at the conference.

The purpose was to develop a procedure of assessing creativity in terms of the meaning system (Kreitler) which is a psychosemantically-grounded methodology for assessing meaning. Three studies will be presented, describing the meaning variables found to differentiate significantly between more and less creative participants, in different samples of children, and different measures of creativity. In study 1, 158 children (ages7.2-9.4) were administered the meaning test, the Wechsler IQ test, and the Torrance test of creativity. In study 2, 71 children (mean age 10.9) were administered the meaning test and their drawings and paintings were evaluated for creativity. In study 3, 238 Beduin children (mean age 13.7) were administered the meaning test and the questionnaire “The Things Done on your Own” (Torrance). In each study the meaning variables differentiating between the more and less creative were identified. The set as a whole indicates the following tendencies characterizing the more creative children: focusing on dynamic, objective and experiential aspects, using nonverbal and verbal forms of expression, considering present inputs and distant ones, and emphasizing both the personal-subjective and the interpersonally-shared meanings. The meaning variables characterizing the more creative children could be used for developing an assessment instrument for creativity.