Argentinean version of TMMS for adolescents: A perceived emotional intelligence measure

Emotional intelligence (EI) is a construct that involves the abilities that explain the individual differences to perceived and regulate emotional states. According to Salovey, Mayer, Goldman, Turvey, and Palfai (1995), perceived EI has three dimensions: Emotional attention, clarity of feelings and mood repairs. The aim of this study is to adapt and validate the Trait Meta Mood Scale (TMMS, Salovey et. al. 1995), a measure of EI, to adolescent Spanish-speaking population from the City of Buenos Aires, Argentina. Four-hundred adolescents (264 female -61.8%-, and 136 males) with a mean age of 15.15 years (SD = 1.87) participated on the study. An exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, along with studies of internal consistency and discrimination of the items were conducted. A 21 item scale was obtained. Results indicated that the TMMS is a valid and reliable perceived EI measure to be used with Spanish-speaking adolescents of the City of Buenos Aires, Argentina.