Measurement equivalence of the Wong and Law Emotional Intelligence Scale across cultures: An item response theory approach

• A dominance model fit the WLEIS better than an ideal point model.
• American/Chinese samples show small-moderate measurement nonequivalence on the WLEIS.
• The Other Emotion Appraisal dimension exhibited the largest cultural differences.

The global popularity of emotional intelligence (EI) makes understanding its measurement equivalence across cultures an important issue. Although previous research examining the measurement equivalence of self-reported EI has failed to detect cultural differences, these results may be due to the use of measurement equivalence models that do not adequately specify item level differences between cultures or quantify the magnitude of differences. In this study, we adopted an item response theory (IRT) approach to examine differential item functioning (DIF) in the Wong and Law Emotional Intelligence Scale (WLEIS; Wong & Law, 2002) across American and Chinese cultures using both a dominance and ideal point IRT model. Our results revealed: 1) The dominance IRT model had good fit with the WLEIS compared to the ideal point model; 2) the WLEIS items varied in their DIF, which ranged from negligible to moderately large across American and Chinese cultures; and 3) the largest DIF was found for the Other Emotional Appraisal (OEA) dimension of the WLEIS, which indicated that Chinese respondents found these items substantially more difficult to endorse. Implications and future research directions are discussed.