Validity of the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test in a Brazilian Sample

Abstract

Emotional expression is considered an important part of social interaction, with overt emotional behaviour functioning as nonverbal means of communication. The ability to express emotions conveys information regarding one's feelings, needs, intentions, and preoccupations, with specific bodily changes associated with their corresponding emotional states (Ekman, 2003;Matsumoto, Keltner, Shiota, O'Sullivan, & Frank, 2008;Niedenthal, Krauth-Gruber, & Ric, 2006;Strongman, 2003). This includes typical facial and bodily alterations whenever someone is, for instance, feeling angry during an unfair situation, or afraid of being exposed to a dangerous situation.As important as expression is the ability to adequately recognize manifestations of emotional states. Emotional perception is shown to correlate with social abilities (Chen, 2014) , and abstract (AR) and verbal reasoning (VR) tasks. RMET items were studied with Rasch model. Results indicate that its items are concentrated at a lower level of difficulty, lacking difficult items to assess higher levels of emotional perception. Both RMET and PEP showed significant correlations with AR and VR, corroborating other studies showing emotional perception is related to other types of intelligence. However the correlation between RMET and PEP was lower than expected (r = .43), suggesting perception of emotions in the eyes is only partially related to perception in the whole face.Keywords: facial expressions, intelligence, psychological assessment, item response theory Validade do Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test em uma Amostra BrasileiraResumo: O Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test (RMET) é utilizado internacionalmente para avaliação da percepção emocional, mas são poucos os estudos de validade com amostras brasileiras. O teste foi respondido por 1440 participantes, juntamente com o Teste Informatizado de Percepção de Emoções Primárias (PEP) e provas de raciocínio abstrato (RA) e verbal (RV). Os itens do RMET foram estudados com modelo de Rasch. Os resultados indicaram que os itens estão concentrados em um nível menor de dificuldade, com falta de itens difíceis para avaliar níveis mais altos de percepção emocional. Tanto o RMET quanto o PEP mostraram correlações significativas com RA e RV, corroborando estudos que mostram que percepção emocional está relacionada a outros tipos de inteligência. Contudo a correlação entre RMET e PEP foi menor do que esperada (r = .43), sugerindo que percepção de emoção nos olhos está apenas parcialmente relacionada a percepção na face inteira.Palavras-chave: expressões faciais, inteligência, avaliação psicológica, teoria de resposta ao item Validez de la Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test en una Muestra BrasileñaResumen: La Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test (RMET) se utiliza internacionalmente para evaluar la percepción emocional, pero son pocos los estudios de validez con muestras brasileñas. La prueba fue respondida por 1440 participantes, junto con la Prueba Computarizada de Percepción de Emociones Primarias (PEP), y tareas de razonamiento abs...

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