The construct validity of the Schutte Emotional Intelligence Scale in light of psychological type theory: a study among Anglican clergy

ABSTRACT

This study explores the construct validity of the Schutte Emotional Intelligence Scale in the light of psychological type theory that hypothesises a bias in item content to favour extraverts over introverts, sensing types over intuitive types, feeling types over thinking types, and perceiving types over judging types. Data provided by 364 Anglican clergy serving in the Church in Wales, who completed the Schutte Emotional Intelligence Scale alongside the Francis Psychological Type Scales, confirm higher scores among extraverts (compared with introverts), intuitive types (compared with sensing types), and feeling types (compared with thinking types), but found no significant difference between judging types and perceiving types. These data are interpreted to nuance the kind of emotional intelligence accessed by the Schutte Emotional Intelligence Scale and to encourage future scale development that may conceptualise emotional intelligence in ways more independent of psychological type preferences.

KEYWORDS:

• Emotional intelligence
• Schutte Scale
• clergy
• psychology of religion

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.