Home - Swiss Center For Affective Sciences

This website aims to bring together current and past thinking on Emotional Intelligence to allow readers to explore, question and re-evaluate the concept that has become so familiar, but also so misunderstood. The information here has been collected by a group of researchers working in this area based at the Swiss Center for Affective Sciences in Geneva.

What is EC ?

Many of us have heard of the phrases 'emotional intelligence' (EI) or 'emotional competence' (EC). They have become commonly used at home, work, school and in academia. EI has been the subject of numerous books and articles, ranging from science-based to self-help.
But what do we really know about EI/EC? And how thoughtful are we in our use of the terms?

Applications of EC

The concept of emotional intelligence or competence is applied in many areas. In fact, its widespread use before its full scientific development provoked the discontent of many scientists. One of the primary drivers of the initial excitement about EI was Goleman鈥檚 (1995) promise that it may be even more important than IQ in its ability to predict job performance. Find out about the other applied areas in which EC is used, such as education, training, and clinical settings.

Exploring your EC

Have a look at some of the latest tests measuring emotional competence. These tests have been developed according to high scientific standards.

Geneva Emotional Competence Test (GECo)
Geneva Emotion Recognition Test (GERT)
Geneva Emotional Knowledge Test (GEMOK)
Multimodal Emotion Recognition Test (MERT)
Brief Profile of Nonverbal Sensitivity (MiniPONS)
Emotion Recognition Index (ERI)
Emotions in the Singing Voice

听

Research Tools

On this page, you find detailed scientific information about the various tests developed at the Swiss Center for Affective Sciences.

听

Components of EC

We propose three main components of EC that determine how people react to social and emotional events and situations. Find out why it is important to understand, regulate, and communicate emotions appropriately.

About us

Our mission is to advance research and practice of emotional and social competence. To this end, we aim to integrate different theoretical and methodological approaches to EI into a broader picture of emotional competence. Find out more about us.

Publications and further readings

Here you can access scientific articles on EC published by our group and a list of articles for further reading.