Emotional Self-Efficacy Scale (ESES)

Abstract

The Emotional Self-Efficacy Scale (ESES) is a 32-item psychometric instrument developed by Beverley A. Kirk, Nicola S. Schutte, and Donald W. Hine (2008) designed to measure an individual’s perceived confidence in their capability to identify, understand, experience, express, and regulate emotions in both themselves and others. Grounded at the theoretical intersection of Albert Bandura’s social cognitive theory and John D. Mayer and Peter Salovey’s four-branch model of emotional intelligence (EI), the ESES operationalizes emotional self-efficacy as an agentic, belief-based construct distinct from both objective emotional ability and dispositional emotional traits. Respondents rate their confidence regarding 32 emotional functioning domains on a 5-point Likert-type scale ranging from 1 (Not At All Confident) to 5 (Very Confident). Psychometric investigations across diverse international samples demonstrate that the ESES possesses superior internal consistency, with total scale Cronbach’s alpha values typically equaling or exceeding α = .96, and test-retest reliability across multi-week intervals demonstrating robust temporal stability (r = .85). Confirmatory factor analytic investigations have supported both a high-order overarching emotional self-efficacy dimension and a four-factor oblique structure comprising: (1) Using and Managing Own Emotions, (2) Identifying and Understanding Own Emotions, (3) Dealing with Others’ Emotions, and (4) Perceiving Emotion through Facial Expressions and Body Language. The ESES demonstrates exemplary convergent validity with general self-efficacy, trait emotional intelligence, subjective well-being, and adaptive emotion regulation, alongside discriminant validity against traditional Big Five personality traits, cognitive intelligence, and social desirability bias. The scale is widely deployed in clinical assessment, organizational coaching, educational psychology, and psychological intervention evaluation.

Keywords

Emotional Self-Efficacy Scale, ESES, emotional self-efficacy, emotional intelligence, social cognitive theory, emotion regulation, psychometrics, self-efficacy beliefs, Mayer-Salovey model, affect regulation, psychological assessment, test validity

Authors

The Emotional Self-Efficacy Scale was authored by psychometricians and behavioral researchers at the University of New England in Armidale, New South Wales, Australia:

• Beverley A. Kirk, Ph.D. — School of Psychology and Behavioural Sciences, University of New England, Armidale, Australia. Specializes in social cognitive mechanisms, affective competencies, applied organizational psychology, and workplace behavioral interventions.
• Nicola S. Schutte, Ph.D. — Professor of Psychology, School of Psychology, University of New England, Armidale, Australia. Internationally recognized authority on emotional intelligence measurement, positive psychology, and emotional self-regulation (widely known for the development of the Schutte Self-Report Emotional Intelligence Test [SSEIT]).
• Donald W. Hine, Ph.D. — Professor of Psychology, School of Psychology, University of New England, Armidale, Australia (and currently affiliated with the School of Psychology, University of Canterbury, New Zealand). Quantitative methodologist specializing in structural equation modeling, psychometric measurement design, and behavioral decision-making.

Purpose

The primary purpose of the Emotional Self-Efficacy Scale (ESES) is to provide an empirically validated, theoretically coherent metric for assessing an individual’s self-appraised capability to navigate emotional demands, regulate affective states, and manage interpersonal affective dynamics. While traditional psychological models historically focused either on maximum-performance emotional intelligence tests (which evaluate emotional knowledge and cognitive problem-solving under standardized testing conditions) or trait emotional intelligence inventories (which evaluate broad behavioral dispositions and self-perceived personality dimensions), the ESES fulfills a distinct diagnostic and experimental niche by isolating efficacy beliefs.

From an applied perspective, the measurement of emotional self-efficacy is vital because actual performance in emotionally demanding environments is heavily moderated by belief systems. An individual may possess extensive theoretical knowledge regarding how to mitigate anger or de-escalate social conflict; however, if they lack confidence in their real-time execution of these strategies under acute cognitive or interpersonal stress, their behavioral enactments will systematically falter. Thus, the ESES serves critical functions across diverse domains:

• Clinical and Counseling Psychology: In psychotherapeutic frameworks, deficits in emotional self-efficacy represent core transdiagnostic mechanisms underlying mood disorders, generalized anxiety, borderline personality organization, and substance abuse. Clinicians utilize the ESES as a baseline diagnostic index to identify whether patients perceive themselves as helpless in managing negative affective states, thereby guiding cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), and emotion-focused interventions. Longitudinal ESES tracking provides an objective indicator of client empowerment and affective mastery.
• Organizational and Occupational Health: Modern workplace environments expose professionals to chronic emotional labor, client distress, and interpersonal friction. The ESES is deployed to evaluate employee resilience, mitigate burnout, predict organizational citizenship behaviors, and assess vulnerability to workplace incivility. Research shows that employees with elevated emotional self-efficacy exhibit decreased absenteeism, greater emotional stamina, and superior conflict resolution capacities.
• Educational and Academic Psychology: Academic environments demand complex emotion regulation, ranging from managing test-related panic to navigating peer-group social hierarchies. The ESES enables school psychologists and higher education researchers to detect students at risk for academic withdrawal, emotional alienation, and social disengagement. Interventions designed to bolster emotional self-efficacy have yielded measurable gains in retention, subjective well-being, and academic achievement.
• Intervention Evaluation and Experimental Research: Because efficacy beliefs are dynamic, malleable cognitive constructs rather than immutable personality traits, the ESES represents a responsive outcome metric for testing the efficacy of social-emotional learning (SEL) programs, mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR), expressive writing protocols, and leadership communication workshops.

Psychological Construct

The psychological construct assessed by the ESES is emotional self-efficacy (ESE), conceptualized as an individual’s subjectively evaluated confidence in their capacity to successfully execute the cognitive, physiological, and behavioral actions required to produce desired emotional outcomes in themselves and their social milieu. Emotional self-efficacy does not reflect objective emotional knowledge (i.e., cognitive capability), nor does it reflect an enduring affective style or temperament (such as neuroticism or extraversion). Rather, it constitutes an agentic self-appraisal of competence across specific affective operational demands.

Kirk, Schutte, and Hine (2008) initially developed the 32 items to comprehensively cover the domain space mapped by the four branches of emotional functioning identified by Mayer, Salovey, and Caruso (1997), spanning both intrapersonal (self) and interpersonal (other) operational arenas. While early structural investigations pointed toward a dominant general factor of emotional self-efficacy, subsequent foundational structural analyses by Dacre Pool and Qualter (2012a) established four distinct, highly interpretable dimensions:

1. Using and Managing Own Emotions

This dimension captures the respondent’s perceived agency regarding the internal regulation and strategic mobilization of their own affective experiences. It includes items reflecting the self-perceived ability to calm down when experiencing acute anger (e.g., Item 20), transition from negative emotional states to positive ones (e.g., Item 8), regulate one’s affective state when under intense environmental pressure (e.g., Item 12), and deliberately harness positive emotional energy to stimulate creativity, solve complex problems, or enhance cognitive and physical performance (e.g., Items 6, 22, 26, 30). Individuals scoring high on this dimension view their affective machinery not as an erratic, uncontrollable force, but as an adaptable internal resource that can be modulated to align with personal goals.

2. Identifying and Understanding Own Emotions

This subscale evaluates metacognitive clarity and self-monitoring capabilities regarding one’s own emotional landscape. It encompasses the self-assured discernment of internal feeling states, recognizing the subtle distinctions between different negative or positive emotions, and understanding the causal antecedents that prompt emotional shifts (e.g., Items 1, 4, 9, 11, 19, 27). Low scores on this dimension reflect an affective self-concept akin to secondary alexithymia, wherein the individual experiences somatic arousal but feels incapable of deciphering the underlying emotional meaning or its psychological triggers.

3. Dealing with Others’ Emotions

Emotional life is inherently interpersonal. This dimension reflects an individual’s confidence in their social-emotional competence—specifically, their capacity to intervene constructively in the emotional experiences of others. Items evaluate confidence in helping another person calm down when angry (e.g., Item 24), supporting someone through a distressing bereavement or loss (e.g., Item 32), aiding others in shifting from a negative to a positive emotional state (e.g., Item 2), and assisting others with emotion regulation during high-stress scenarios (e.g., Item 16). Furthermore, this dimension assesses understanding of what drives another individual’s fluctuating emotional states (e.g., Items 7, 15, 23, 31). This construct forms the psychological foundation for effective counseling, leadership, coaching, parenting, and peer social support.

4. Perceiving Emotion through Facial Expressions and Body Language

The fourth dimension assesses perceptual-interpretive confidence within non-verbal communicative channels. It captures an individual’s self-assessed capability to accurately decode somatic and kinetic signals of emotion in both interpersonal targets and their own physical manifestations. Key items include recognizing emotional signals portrayed through another person’s body language (e.g., Item 21) or facial expressions (e.g., Item 29), alongside metacognitive awareness of the emotional messages conveyed by one’s own facial expressions and non-verbal somatic posturing (e.g., Items 17, 25). This perceptual efficacy is crucial for real-time social navigation, preventing miscommunications, and maintaining attuned social interactions.

Theoretical Framework

The architectural foundation of the Emotional Self-Efficacy Scale represents an integration of two prominent paradigms in twentieth-century psychological science: Albert Bandura’s Social Cognitive Theory and Mayer, Salovey, and Caruso’s Four-Branch Model of Emotional Intelligence.

Bandura’s Social Cognitive Theory

According to Albert Bandura (1977, 1997), self-efficacy refers to “beliefs in one’s capabilities to organize and execute the courses of action required to produce given attainments.” Bandura distinguished fundamentally between outcome expectations (the belief that a given behavior will lead to a particular outcome) and efficacy expectations (the conviction that one can successfully execute the behavior required to produce the outcome). In social cognitive theory, self-efficacy beliefs function as central determinative regulators of human action, emotional arousal, thought patterns, and environmental choices.

When individuals harbor high self-efficacy within a behavioral domain, they approach difficult challenges as tasks to be mastered, sustain effort in the face of failure, attribute setbacks to manageable factors such as insufficient strategy or effort, and experience diminished autonomic stress reactivity. Conversely, individuals who doubt their efficacy shy away from demanding activities, experience high anxiety when confronting environmental stressors, abandon goals prematurely, and suffer from debilitating affective states. Bandura posited that self-efficacy is domain-specific; generalized competence beliefs do not adequately predict behavioral enactments in specialized spheres of human functioning. Therefore, measuring efficacy beliefs specifically within the affective-emotional domain is essential for predicting affective outcomes.

The Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Four-Branch Ability Model

In designing the operational content for the ESES, Kirk and colleagues selected the four-branch model of emotional intelligence articulated by Peter Salovey and John D. Mayer (1997). The Mayer-Salovey framework categorizes emotional processing abilities into a developmental hierarchy:

1. Perception and Expression of Emotion: The capacity to identify emotions in physical states, feelings, art, language, behavior, and facial cues.
2. Emotional Facilitation of Thinking (Using Emotions): The capacity to harness emotions to facilitate cognitive activities such as reasoning, problem-solving, prioritizing thought, and fostering creative ideation.
3. Understanding and Analyzing Emotions: The capacity to comprehend emotional language, understand complex blends of simultaneous feelings, track transitions between emotional states, and discern the situational logic of affective reactions.
4. Reflective Regulation of Emotions (Managing Emotions): The capacity to remain open to feelings (both pleasant and unpleasant), monitor emotions reflexively, and strategically moderate negative affect or enhance pleasant affect in oneself and others without repressing or exaggerating emotional data.

By transplanting Bandura’s self-efficacy paradigm onto the structural branches of the Mayer-Salovey model, Kirk, Schutte, and Hine conceptualized emotional self-efficacy as the psychological intersection where cognitive belief structures govern the deployment of affective capabilities. The ESES operationalizes this theoretical synthesis by phrasing every item in terms of subjective competence and personal mastery across the four functional branches, addressing both intrapersonal and interpersonal spheres.

Validity

Extensive psychometric investigations have established robust evidence supporting the construct, convergent, discriminant, and criterion-related validity of the ESES across community, university, adolescent, and organizational populations.

Construct and Factorial Validity

Initial construct validity was confirmed by Kirk et al. (2008) via exploratory factor analysis demonstrating that all 32 items loaded substantially onto a primary emotional self-efficacy construct, with item-total correlations ranging between .45 and .79. Structural construct validity was corroborated by Dacre Pool and Qualter (2012a), who subjected the scale to rigorous confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) across diverse cohorts. Comparing unidimensional, orthogonal, and oblique multidimensional solutions, their findings revealed that an oblique four-factor structure (Using and Managing Own Emotions; Identifying and Understanding Own Emotions; Dealing with Others’ Emotions; Perceiving Emotion through Facial Expressions and Body Language) exhibited superior model fit, closely replicating the theoretical architecture of the Mayer-Salovey construct space.

Convergent Validity

The ESES exhibits strong, theoretically coherent correlations with established psychological inventories measuring overlapping constructs:

• Trait Emotional Intelligence: As anticipated, the ESES correlates strongly with trait EI measures, such as the Schutte Self-Report Emotional Intelligence Test (SSEIT) (r values typically ranging between .65 and .78) and the Trait Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire (TEIQue), validating that subjective emotional efficacy shares common ground with broader self-perceptions of emotional competence.
• General Self-Efficacy: Moderate correlations (r = .38 to .48) with the Sherer General Self-Efficacy Scale and the Schwarzer and Jerusalem Generalized Self-Efficacy Scale (GSES) confirm that while emotional self-efficacy is situated within general agentic self-beliefs, it possesses unique variance attributable to the affective domain.
• Subjective Well-Being and Affect: The ESES demonstrates significant positive associations with measures of life satisfaction (Satisfaction with Life Scale [SWLS], r = .35 to .42), subjective happiness, and positive affectivity as assessed via the PANAS (r = .39 to .46).
• Adaptive Emotion Regulation: Positive correlations are consistently observed with adaptive regulation strategies measured by the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ), specifically cognitive reappraisal (r = .36, p < .001).

Discriminant Validity

Crucially, the ESES has demonstrated distinctiveness from related but theoretically non-equivalent psychological constructs:

• Big Five Personality Dimensions: Structural equation models and hierarchical regression analyses show that the ESES remains distinct from the Five-Factor Model of personality. While sharing moderate negative variance with Neuroticism (r = -.32 to -.44) and positive variance with Extraversion (r = .30 to .41) and Conscientiousness (r = .24 to .35), the ESES consistently accounts for unique incremental variance in psychological outcomes after completely partialling out Big Five traits.
• Cognitive Intelligence: In accordance with the distinct nature of self-efficacy beliefs, the ESES correlates near zero with standardized measures of cognitive ability and general intelligence (r = .04 to .09, non-significant), demonstrating that self-appraisals of emotional confidence are not mere artifacts of cognitive performance.
• Social Desirability: Correlations between the ESES and the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale are uniformly low (r < .15), demonstrating that responses are not meaningfully distorted by social desirability or self-enhancement response biases.

Criterion-Related and Predictive Validity

The ESES possesses exemplary predictive utility across experimental and longitudinal paradigms. Kirk, Schutte, and Hine (2011) demonstrated that an expressive writing intervention yielded statistically significant increases in ESES scores among employees, which in turn predicted longitudinal declines in perceived workplace incivility, reduced psychological distress, and decreased somatic complaints. In academic cohorts, Dacre Pool and Qualter (2012b) established that interventions designed to foster emotional intelligence produced substantial elevations in ESES scores, directly predicting improved university retention and academic adaptation. Furthermore, low ESES scores reliably predict higher vulnerability to clinical depression, elevated social anxiety, and heightened physiological reactivity (elevated cortisol and heart rate) under acute laboratory stress challenges (such as the Trier Social Stress Test).

Reliability

The Emotional Self-Efficacy Scale possesses strong empirical reliability, showing high internal consistency, low measurement error, and stability across temporal intervals.

Internal Consistency

In the seminal psychometric validation study conducted by Kirk, Schutte, and Hine (2008), the full 32-item ESES exhibited high internal consistency, with a total scale Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of α = .96 across a normative sample of university students and community adults. Subsequent international investigations across diverse linguistic and cultural adaptations have replicated these metrics, with overall alpha coefficients consistently exceeding α = .92.

When evaluated across the four validated subscales established by Dacre Pool and Qualter (2012a), the individual subscales also exhibit high internal consistency coefficients:

• Using and Managing Own Emotions: Cronbach’s α ranges from .88 to .91 across samples.
• Identifying and Understanding Own Emotions: Cronbach’s α ranges from .82 to .86 across samples.
• Dealing with Others’ Emotions: Cronbach’s α ranges from .83 to .88 across samples.
• Perceiving Emotion through Facial Expressions and Body Language: Cronbach’s α ranges from .78 to .83 across samples.

In adapted versions for adolescent populations (Qualter et al., 2015), Cronbach’s alpha coefficients for the total score consistently remain above .90, with subscale alphas ranging from .76 to .86, demonstrating robust internal consistency across developmental stages.

Temporal Stability (Test-Retest Reliability)

The temporal stability of the ESES has been systematically documented across multiple test-retest intervals:

• Short-Term Stability (2- to 3-Week Interval): Kirk, Schutte, and Hine (2008) reported a test-retest reliability coefficient of r = .85 (p < .001) over a three-week duration in an unmanipulated sample, indicating high temporal stability.
• Medium-Term Stability (8- to 12-Week Interval): Dacre Pool and Qualter (2012b) reported test-retest coefficients exceeding r = .74 across control groups over a 10-week academic term, indicating stable baseline trait-like features while remaining sensitive to targeted psychological interventions.

Standard Error of Measurement

The standard error of measurement (SEM) for the total composite score remains low across empirical studies, typically calculated at approximately 0.18 to 0.22 on the 5-point metric. This supports narrow confidence intervals around individual scores, confirming the scale’s suitability for clinical decision-making, individual client diagnostics, and high-stakes pre/post intervention assessments.

Factor Analysis

The underlying factor structure of the ESES has been subjected to extensive exploratory and confirmatory factor analytic studies, tracing a psychometric trajectory from initial unidimensionality to nuanced hierarchical and multidimensional models.

Exploratory Factor Analysis (Kirk et al., 2008)

During scale development, Kirk, Schutte, and Hine administered the initial 32-item pool to 188 adult respondents. Principal axis factoring with oblique (Oblimin) rotation yielded a predominant first factor accounting for the majority of the common variance (eigenvalue = 14.17, accounting for 44.3% of the total variance before rotation). While additional factors exhibited eigenvalues marginally exceeding unity, the scree plot and parallel analysis suggested a dominant general factor. Every item loaded significantly on this primary dimension, with standardized factor loadings ranging from .45 to .79. Consequently, Kirk and colleagues initially advanced the ESES as a structurally unidimensional measurement model reflecting general emotional self-efficacy.

Confirmatory Factor Analysis and Structural Refinement (Dacre Pool & Qualter, 2012a)

Recognizing that the Mayer-Salovey framework posits distinct, albeit interrelated, cognitive branches of emotional processing, Dacre Pool and Qualter (2012a) conducted a comprehensive structural evaluation using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) across a primary cohort (N = 541) and a cross-validation replication cohort (N = 312). They evaluated three competing structural models:

1. Model 1: A single-factor unidimensional model where all 32 items load onto an omnibus emotional self-efficacy factor.
2. Model 2: A four-factor orthogonal model representing four independent dimensions aligned with the theoretical branches.
3. Model 3: A four-factor oblique model where four distinct, correlated latent factors represent the underlying emotional domains.

The single-factor model exhibited inadequate global goodness-of-fit indices (χ²/df > 3.8, CFI = .84, TLI = .82, RMSEA = .082). The orthogonal model demonstrated poorer fit, indicating that the underlying constructs are inherently interdependent. In contrast, the oblique four-factor model yielded good fit to the empirical data across both calibration and validation samples:

• Comparative Fit Index (CFI) = .936 (exceeding the conventional .90 threshold).
• Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI) = .929.
• Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA) = .048 (90% CI [.044, .052]), indicating excellent fit.
• Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR) = .049.

Standardized item factor loadings across the four oblique dimensions were moderate to high:

• Factor 1: Using and Managing Own Emotions (Items 3, 6, 8, 12, 14, 18, 20, 22, 26, 28, 30) — loadings ranging from .52 to .78.
• Factor 2: Identifying and Understanding Own Emotions (Items 1, 4, 9, 11, 19, 27) — loadings ranging from .58 to .81.
• Factor 3: Dealing with Others’ Emotions (Items 2, 5, 7, 10, 13, 15, 16, 23, 24, 31, 32) — loadings ranging from .50 to .75.
• Factor 4: Perceiving Emotion through Facial Expressions and Body Language (Items 17, 21, 25, 29) — loadings ranging from .61 to .82.

The inter-factor correlations among the four latent factors ranged between r = .51 and r = .72. These substantial but non-collinear correlations support a hierarchical (second-order) factor structure, wherein a superordinate latent construct of General Emotional Self-Efficacy accounts for the shared variance among the four primary first-order emotional functioning dimensions. This provides empirical justification for scoring either the four subscales separately or calculating an omnibus overall composite score depending on research needs.

Instrument / Measurement Tool

The operational and administrative parameters of the Emotional Self-Efficacy Scale are detailed below:

• Instrument Name: Emotional Self-Efficacy Scale (ESES)
• Alternative Titles: The Emotional Self Efficacy Scale; Kirk et al. Emotional Self-Efficacy Inventory
• Authors: Beverley A. Kirk, Nicola S. Schutte, and Donald W. Hine (2008); extended factor structure by Lorraine Dacre Pool and Pamela Qualter (2012a)
• Publication Year: 2008
• Target Population: Adults (aged 18 and older); an adapted adolescent version (ESES-A) is validated for individuals aged 11 to 17
• Administration Format: Self-report questionnaire; available in paper-and-pencil, computer-assisted, or mobile survey delivery modes
• Item Count: 32 items
• Administration Time: Approximately 8 to 12 minutes
• Response Format: 5-point Likert-type scale with the following anchors:
  • 1 = Not At All Confident
  • 2 = A Little Confident
  • 3 = Moderately Confident
  • 4 = Quite Confident
  • 5 = Very Confident
• Item Scoring and Coding Rules:
  • Reverse Scored Items: None. All 32 items are positively worded. Higher scores consistently reflect greater emotional self-efficacy.
  • Total Score Calculation: The global ESES score can be computed either as the direct sum of all 32 items (theoretical range: 32 to 160) or as a mean item score (sum of all items divided by 32, theoretical range: 1.00 to 5.00). Mean scoring is preferred to facilitate direct comparability with the 1-to-5 Likert anchor scale.
  • Subscale Score Calculation (Dacre Pool & Qualter 4-Factor Model):
    • Using and Managing Own Emotions (11 items): Items 3, 6, 8, 12, 14, 18, 20, 22, 26, 28, 30. (Range: 11–55; or mean 1.00–5.00).
    • Identifying and Understanding Own Emotions (6 items): Items 1, 4, 9, 11, 19, 27. (Range: 6–30; or mean 1.00–5.00).
    • Dealing with Others’ Emotions (11 items): Items 2, 5, 7, 10, 13, 15, 16, 23, 24, 31, 32. (Range: 11–55; or mean 1.00–5.00).
    • Perceiving Emotion through Facial Expressions and Body Language (4 items): Items 17, 21, 25, 29. (Range: 4–20; or mean 1.00–5.00).
• Normative Interpretation:
  • Low Emotional Self-Efficacy (Mean < 2.75): Reflects pronounced doubts regarding one’s ability to navigate affective states. Often associated with emotion dysregulation, alexithymic tendencies, acute vulnerability to stress, and interpersonal avoidance.
  • Moderate Emotional Self-Efficacy (Mean 2.75 – 3.75): Reflects average confidence in day-to-day emotional tasks, with vulnerability to efficacy breakdowns under severe interpersonal friction, trauma, or prolonged occupational exhaustion.
  • High Emotional Self-Efficacy (Mean > 3.75): Reflects a strong sense of affective personal agency. Characterized by adaptive emotional self-soothing, effective non-verbal decoding, empathy, prosocial conflict de-escalation, and low susceptibility to burnout.

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The Emotional Self-Efficacy Scale (ESES) was formally published in 2008 by Beverley A. Kirk, Nicola S. Schutte, and Donald W. Hine in the peer-reviewed journal Personality and Individual Differences (Elsevier). The copyright for the original validation paper is held by Elsevier Ltd., while pedagogical descriptions and test printings also appear in Springer publishing volumes (e.g., Simmons & Lehmann, 2013).

The instrument is considered an open psychometric tool for academic, clinical, and non-commercial research purposes. In accordance with standard scientific conventions established by the original scale developers, researchers and clinical practitioners may reproduce, administer, and translate the ESES without paying licensing fees or royalties, provided that proper formal academic citation is rendered to Kirk, Schutte, and Hine (2008) and, where the four-factor framework is utilized, Dacre Pool and Qualter (2012a). Use within commercial corporate applications, fee-based assessment batteries, or proprietary software requires permission from the primary copyright holders and corresponding authors.

References

The following peer-reviewed publications provide theoretical, psychometric, and applied empirical validation for the Emotional Self-Efficacy Scale:

• Bandura, A. (1977). Self-efficacy: Toward a unifying theory of behavioral change. Psychological Review, 84(2), 191–215. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.84.2.191
• Bandura, A. (1997). Self-efficacy: The exercise of control. W. H. Freeman and Company.
• Dacre Pool, L., & Qualter, P. (2012a). The dimensional structure of the Emotional Self-Efficacy Scale (ESES). Australian Journal of Psychology, 64(3), 147–154. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1742-9536.2011.00039.x
• Dacre Pool, L., & Qualter, P. (2012b). Improving emotional intelligence and emotional self-efficacy through a teaching intervention for university students. Learning and Individual Differences, 22(3), 306–312. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lindif.2012.01.010
• Kirk, B. A., Schutte, N. S., & Hine, D. W. (2008). Development and preliminary validation of an emotional self-efficacy scale. Personality and Individual Differences, 45(5), 432–436. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2008.05.015
• Kirk, B. A., Schutte, N. S., & Hine, D. W. (2011). The effect of an expressive-writing intervention for employees on emotional self-efficacy, emotional intelligence, affect, and workplace incivility. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 41(1), 179–195. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1559-1816.2010.00708.x
• Mayer, J. D., & Salovey, P. (1997). What is emotional intelligence? In P. Salovey & D. J. Sluyter (Eds.), Emotional development and emotional intelligence: Educational implications (pp. 3–34). Basic Books.
• Qualter, P., Dacre Pool, L., Gardner, K. J., Ashley-Kot, S., Wise, A., & Wols, A. (2015). The Emotional Self-Efficacy Scale: Adaptation and validation for young adolescents. Journal of Psychoeducational Assessment, 33(1), 33–45. https://doi.org/10.1177/0734282914540452
• Schutte, N. S., Malouff, J. M., Hall, L. E., Haggerty, D. J., Cooper, J. T., Golden, C. J., & Dornheim, L. (1998). Development and validation of a measure of emotional intelligence. Personality and Individual Differences, 25(2), 167–177. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0191-8869(98)00001-4
• Simmons, C. A., & Lehmann, P. (Eds.). (2013). Tools for strengths-based assessment and evaluation. Springer Publishing Company.

Items of the Scale