As discussed earlier, emotional intelligence (“EI”) is one of the most important skills you can develop in your life. It plays an integral part in success and happiness both at work and in personal life.

With the demands that come with being a successful working professional these days, understanding how to manage your emotions goes beyond having a good day or week. You are constantly interacting with others, which can be difficult when they bring up past hurt feelings or expose areas of insecurity.

It is also common in the workplace for people to feel stressed or overwhelmed due to workloads, deadlines, and/or changes happening around them. This can result in someone else bringing their own stress to bear on you. Or, it may just make you uncomfortable and set off warning signals in your own mind and body. Either way, EI can help.

This article will go into more detail about some questions related to emotional intelligence. What professionals call “scaling” or “emotional quotient testing,” we will do here. We will also look at some tips and strategies for improving your EI so that you can better handle such questions in the future.

Disclaimer: The content below was written based on research studies and interviews done by Writer's Digest as well as our experiences as writers. However, this information should not be taken as formal medical advice since there is no certification process for becoming educated in psychological disorders.

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Be honest

The first thing that people notice about you is your appearance, so being aware of your emotional in- and out-puts is important because it can affect how others perceive you.

People tend to associate someone with their personality traits and behaviors, so when you are not able to control your emotions they can come across as fake or even bad.

It may be difficult at times to put yourself in other’s shoes and understand where they are coming from, which could make you feel uncomfortable or stressed. This could negatively impact your relationships and work life.

By trying to understand why another person might have reacted the way they did, you will know how to avoid similar situations in the future. It also helps them feel more understood, which makes for healthier friendships and relationships.

While it is easy to say that you want a healthy relationship, asking questions about EQ is one of the initial steps.

Communicate your feelings

It is important to know how to communicate your emotions in order to understand what actions are motivated by reason or emotion. If you notice that something isn’t going well, talk about it! Don’t keep such thoughts to yourself.

By talking about your emotions, you give someone a chance to help you work through them. This can be done in person, via phone, chat apps, texting, and even email.

It doesn’t matter if you feel like crying, shouting, or laughing – let out all of those feels! Only do this when you are calm and able to speak calmly and clearly.

And don’t worry about whether you “should” be feeling something — chances are, you already are! Many people have emotional intelligence (EI) and so they know how to recognize their own feelings and those of others.

If you want to improve yours, learn from theirs.

Be realistic

The first thing you must do is realize that asking someone if they have high emotional intelligence (EI) will probably be totally different depending on what kind of person you ask.

This could be because of what profession they are in, what position they hold, or even who they associate with. People’s answers to this question can easily be influenced by their own personal experiences with EI, as well as whether they think it is an important quality or not.

So, before you take any notes, make sure your answer isn’t simply based on how much empathy you feel for them!

By being aware of these potential pitfalls, you’ll know better than most how hard it can be to give honest answers to this question. But don’t worry – we’ve got you covered!

In this article, we’re going to look at some questions about emotional intelligence you might get asked, and some tips on how to respond to them.

Look at the situation from their perspective

Another way to approach this question is to look at the person asking it as if they were a stranger who you just met. What would you say to them?
Try thinking about how you would respond to someone with similar emotional intelligence skills or qualities.

This could be because you want to learn more about them, or because you want to see whether they’re trustworthy or not. It could also be because you want to know whether they can work well with others in your team or company.

Be honest with your answers

The second question about emotional intelligence is how to assess it in another person. While some may consider this question superficial, there are many ways to use this information to improve relationships and even help achieve success.

This can be done by either asking someone if they have high EQ or low EQ, testing them or observing them in action to see if their behaviors indicate a higher level of EI.

It’s important to note that while everyone has some degree of emotional intelligence, not every individual uses their skills effectively.

There are several reasons for this. For one, people who have high EQ sometimes show no signs of it when things get tough. They may also lack situational awareness which could make it difficult to identify what emotions other people are feeling and why.

On the flip side, individuals with lower levels of EI may put up more barriers than bridges when trying to connect with others. They may go through the motions of showing interest in someone but actually doing less encouraging things like giving a call or email back or canceling on an appointment.

So, whether you're looking to develop yours or someone else's, be sure to acknowledge that yes, they do have something, but maybe just not very much of it.

Be consistent

In order to get quality answers from someone, you have to be able to verify their responses consistently. This means gathering his or her past statements, tracking them in an app, and making comparisons between those statements and this statement.

If you cannot do this with anyone we’ve mentioned in this article, then they may not be willing to tell you what they really want and need. They could even give false information because they don’t like how you respond to their previous lies, so they decide not to trust you anymore.

This will only hurt your relationship!

So how can you test emotional intelligence? You can’t, but you can determine if someone is proficient in it through conversation. By listening well and paying attention to non-verbal cues, you can gain some insights into whether they are aware of their emotions and why they feel the way they do.

By asking appropriate questions and giving them adequate time to answer, you can also find out if they deal effectively with other people, if they are self-confident, if they are productive around others, and more. All of these qualities contribute to happiness in life, which is one of the main components of emotional intelligence.

Be adaptable

In fact, you can even use your own answers as templates for this type of question! For example, if you are being asked about someone’s perception management in a situation, you can refer back to yourself or another person to see how you handled a similar situation.

This also works when they ask you about someone else’s emotional intelligence – you can refer to your own EQ or that of someone close to you.

The easiest way to come up with your answer is to think about what made a difference in past interactions between you and the other person. Was it due to skill in empathy? Social skills? Or was it because you were able to control your own emotions?

All three are important qualities but no one individual quality will make a big difference unless you are sure that individual quality is present.

If you feel that quality is not there then try to talk to others who know the person well and see whether that feeling is shared. If so, great! But if not, look into whether there could be reasons why that quality may not be consistently present.

Learn to laugh at yourself

A large part of being able to relate to others is being able to recognize your own flaws and limitations, as well as those of other people.

You will not be successful in socializing if you are constantly putting up barriers that prevent you from talking to someone or sharing your true self with them.

If you have trouble saying good things about yourself, then it’s time to work on that.

Practice complimenting yourself for past achievements, but also acknowledge all of the things you could do better next time.

By acknowledging your mistakes and weaknesses, you open up the opportunity to fix them and improve upon them the next time around.

On the same note, when you find yourself criticizing another person, take a moment to stop yourself before letting loose with some harsh comments.

Give yourself a chance to process what they said before responding, and see whether there’s anything you can learn from their behavior.