Emotion Use Test

After completing 20 questions in about four minutes, the Emotion Use Test shows how you tend to direct your own feelings and influence the emotions of other people. Your result can support focused self-reflection about motivation, mood regulation, persuasion, and interpersonal effectiveness in everyday situations.

Questions: 204 minutes

October 2, 2025October 2, 2025Material has been updatedOctober 2, 2025Material has been published

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Scale Explorer

How the Scales are Structured

Use of Other People’s EmotionsUoOPE

Measures how readily a person influences others’ emotions to achieve interpersonal goals.

example score-3/20

-3/20Situational useexample score

-20 – -4Low use

-3 – 3Situational use

4 – 20High use

A score of -3 suggests you use others’ emotions for influence in a limited, situational way rather than as a frequent strategy.

Use of One’s Own EmotionsUoOOE

Measures how well a person can intentionally direct and regulate their own emotions to support goals, persistence, and effective action.

example score-5/20

-5/20Limited useexample score

-20 – -5Limited use

-4 – 2Developing use

3 – 20Effective use

A score of -5 falls in the Limited use range, suggesting emotions may be harder to harness deliberately for goal-directed effort and may more often interfere than help.

just completed the test

DATA-BASED USER COHORTS

Who Usually Takes This Test?

Career-driven professionals

41%OF USERS

People who want to channel emotions into motivation, handle pressure, and make better decisions at work.

Personal growth seekers

34%OF USERS

Those exploring emotional intelligence to act more intentionally, keep balance, and reach personal goals.

Coaches and therapists

25%OF USERS

Specialists who use the results to spot emotional management gaps and build a practical development plan with a client.

BASED ON AGGREGATED, ANONYMIZED DATA FROM TENS OF THOUSANDS OF FREUDLY USERS.

Benchmarking

See How You Compare

Once you complete the test, your results are compared with real-world data from people in your country.
Below is a preview of how scores are typically distributed across each scale.

Shaded area — where most people score

Dot — the average

You — your score lands on each curve after the test— your score, after the test

Using Other People's EmotionsUOPE

You?

Average9

Typical rangeTypical3.8 – 14.2

Possible-20 – 20

Using Your Own EmotionsUYOE

You?

Average5

Typical rangeTypical-0.8 – 10.7

Possible-20 – 20

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SAMPLE QUESTIONS

Example Questions From the Test

Indicate how accurately each of the statements below describes you. Please respond as openly and honestly as possible; the assessment is useful only if your answers are accurate.

- This is never true of me
- This is rarely true of me
- This is sometimes true of me
- This is often true of me
- This is always true of me
- This is never true of me
- This is rarely true of me
- This is sometimes true of me
- This is often true of me
- This is always true of me
- This is never true of me
- This is rarely true of me
- This is sometimes true of me
- This is often true of me
- This is always true of me

These are 3 of the 20 real questions — the rest appear in the test. No sign-up needed to start.

WHAT THE TEST MEASURES

Emotion Use Test - Description and methodology of the test

emotional intelligence

People considering their motivation, emotionally charged interactions, or goal-related habits can use the Emotion Use Test as a focused self-report profile rather than a broad personality label. It helps readers examine how their emotional habits may shape persistence, communication, and responses under pressure. This emotional intelligence questionnaire offers a starting point for practical reflection on everyday effectiveness.

What This Assessment Explores

The questions address two forms of emotional use. One concerns harnessing your own emotions for persistence, creativity, performance, and personal effectiveness; the other concerns influencing people’s feelings to achieve goals. Items include motivation, mood regulation, and emotionally charged interaction. This suits readers reflecting on motivation, self-control, negotiation, and conflict.

The result separates two related dimensions:

Use of Other People’s Emotions (-20-20) describes influencing feelings to pursue goals through persuasion, flattery, guilt, intimidation, or exploiting emotional states. Bands: Low use (-20--4), Situational use (-3-3), High use (4-20).
Use of One’s Own Emotions (-20-20) describes regulating and channeling feelings to sustain effort, support creativity, improve performance, and pursue goals. Bands: Limited use (-20--5), Developing use (-4-2), Effective use (3-20).

Together, they form an emotion management assessment of goal-directed influence and personal emotional regulation; a higher category is not automatically more ethical because context matters.

Methodology and Scientific Basis

Its conceptual reference is the Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT), a published ability measure grounded in Salovey and Mayer’s emotional-intelligence framework. This questionnaire is conceptually consistent with that work, but it is a short self-report tool, not the MSCEIT or an MSCEIT score.

Each statement uses a five-point format from never to always. Items cover constructive abilities and difficulties, such as creating enthusiasm, using frustration productively, feeling controlled by emotions, or being unable to influence others. The online scoring combines responses into the two displayed scores; answer values cannot be inferred from the ranges alone.

Read the bands as this questionnaire’s own descriptive categories, not standardized or norm-referenced scores. They may highlight mood regulation, persistence, or reliance on emotional pressure, but they do not establish a diagnosis, fixed trait, or universal ranking of emotional skill. The profile is separate from a standardized MSCEIT score.

Honest self-report can also shift with current stress, relationship context, self-awareness, and impression management. The result from this emotion use questionnaire is most useful when compared with concrete examples of your own emotional regulation, motivation, and interpersonal behavior.

Author: John D. Mayer, Peter Salovey

Literature:

Mayer, J. D., Salovey, P., & Caruso, D. R. (2002). Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT) Users Manual. Toronto, ON: Multi-Health Systems.
Mayer, J. D., Salovey, P., Caruso, D. R., & Sitarenios, G. (2003). Measuring emotional intelligence with the MSCEIT V2.0. Emotion, 3(1), 97-105. 10.1037/1528-3542.3.1.97
Salovey, P., & Mayer, J. D. (1990). Emotional Intelligence. Imagination, Cognition and Personality, 9(3), 185-211. 10.2190/DUGG-P24E-52WK-6CDG

Updated: 2025-10-02