Effects of Traffic and Road Contextual Language on Survey Design: A Comparison of Two Emotional Intelligence Scales

Research has found that emotional intelligence (EI) can predict dangerous driving behaviors. However, EI measures have not been explicitly designed for driving and there exists a need to develop an EI scale to better measure drivers’ EI relevant to driving situations. The objective of this study was to evaluate how adapting survey language to the driving context effected the predictive power of driver EI on dangerous driving. Two surveys were conducted, where the baseline survey used the original survey language and the second rephrased every question to provide driving specific context. The two EI scales used in both surveys were the Trait Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire (TEIQue) and Genos EI. Correlation and regression analyses revealed that TEIQue, compared to Genos, has a stronger ability to assess drivers’ EI and predict dangerous behaviors. Changing language to the traffic context significantly improved model fit between driving behaviors and TEIQue, but not Genos.