What is a good EQ score?

The question underneath the question

"Good" implies a threshold, and the evidence does not support one. Emotional intelligence scores relate to outcomes people care about, like relationship quality and some kinds of work performance, but the relationships are modest and they are averages across thousands of people. A score cannot promise any outcome to one person, and a test that implies otherwise is selling the implication rather than the measurement.

There is also a cost at the top of most facets that the word "good" hides. Very high self-described empathy can come with difficulty switching off other people’s moods. Very high composure can read as distance. A profile is a shape with trade-offs, not a ladder with a good end.

A more useful definition

A good score is one you can interpret. That takes three things: knowing which scale the number sits on, knowing the margin of error around it, and knowing who you are being compared against, if anyone. A 112 with those three answers attached is worth more than a 130 without them.

On our own report the equivalent of "good" is a band plus a shape: which facets lead, which trail, and whether the gaps between them are larger than the roughly 9-point margin a single facet carries. A spread inside one margin is described as even, because that is what it is, and the margin has a page of its own.

How we handle it

We publish every score as a percentage of its own maximum with its margin printed beside it, and the method is public. The test is free to take; the free result shows your classification and the shape of your profile, and the full scored report, every figure with its margin, is available as a one-off purchase or inside membership.

The rest of this family

Every page here does the same job for a different number: the full set is indexed on the hub.