Relationships of the Managing Emotions in Others Scale (MEOS)

Instruments

The scales listed below were used in the correlation comparisons. Descriptive statistics for the scale scores and scale internal reliabilities are reported in the previously-published papers using these datasets (Austin and O’Donnell, 2013; Austin et al., 2014; Austin and Vahle, 2016).

Mini-markers (Saucier, 1994)

This set of 40 trait-descriptive adjectives provides scores on the Big Five dimensions of Neuroticism (N), Extraversion (E), Openness (O), Agreeableness (A), and Conscientiousness (C). Responses are on a five-point scale indicating how accurately the adjective describes the respondent, with end points very inaccurately, very accurately.

HEXACO-60 (Ashton and Lee, 2009)

This 60-item scale assesses the personality dimensions of Honesty-Humility (H), Emotionality (E), Extraversion (X), Agreeableness (A), Conscientiousness (C), and Openness (O). Responses are on a five-point scale with end points strongly disagree, strongly agree.

Mach IV (Christie and Geis, 1970)

This 20-item scale assesses Machiavellianism, with responses on a five-point scale with end points strongly disagree, strongly agree.

NPI-16 (Ames et al., 2006)

This scale has 16 forced-choice items assessing grandiose narcissism.

Hypersensitive narcissism scale (Hendin and Cheek, 1997)

This 10-item scale, assesses vulnerable narcissism, with responses on a five-point scale with end points strongly disagree, strongly agree.

Levenson self-report psychopathy scale (Levenson et al., 1995)

This scale assesses primary (16 items) and secondary (10 items) psychopathy in general population samples, with responses on a five-point scale with end points strongly disagree, strongly agree.

Trait EI

Results are reported for total scores on the 144-item TEIQue (Petrides, 2009) and the 30-item TEIQue-SF (Petrides and Furnham, 2006). These measures have a 7-point response scale with end points completely disagree, completely agree.

Table 5

Items selected for the MEOS-SF and MEOS-VSF.

MEOS item	Item numbers used in Tables ​Tables2,2, ​,33
ENHANCE
43	Enhance 1	If someone is feeling anxious, I try to calm them down by talking with them.
38	Enhance 2	When someone is anxious about a problem, I try to help them work out a solution.
28	Enhance 3	If someone is anxious, I try to reassure them.
35	Enhance 4	When someone is under stress I try to boost their confidence in their ability to cope.
31	Enhance 5	When someone is unhappy, I show that I understand how they are feeling.
57	Enhance 6	If someone has a problem I offer to help if they need it.
DIVERT
46	Divert 1	If someone is angry, I try to divert their mood by being cheerful.
53	Divert 2	When someone is in a low mood I behave in a happy and cheerful way to make them feel better.
33	Divert 3	When someone is in a bad mood I try to divert them by telling jokes or funny stories.
22	Divert 4	When someone is unhappy I try to cheer them by talking about something positive.
3	Divert 5	I sometimes use humor to try to lift another person’s mood.
45	Divert 6	If someone is being awkward, I try to defuse the situation by being cheerful and pleasant.
WORSEN
21	Worsen 1	I use anger to get others to do things that I want them to do.
19	Worsen 2	I sometimes put someone down in public to make them feel bad.
32	Worsen 3	I know how to make someone feel ashamed about something that they have done in order to stop them from doing it again.
47	Worsen 4	I can make someone feel anxious so that they will act in a particular way.
29	Worsen 5	I use criticism to make others feel that they should work harder.
20	Worsen 6	If I don’t like someone’s behavior I make negative comments in order to make them feel bad.
INAUTHENTIC
4	Inauthentic 1	I sometimes sulk to make someone feel guilty.
44	Inauthentic 2	I sometimes sulk to get someone to change their behavior.
5	Inauthentic 3	If someone’s behavior has caused me distress, I try to make them feel guilty about it.
37	Inauthentic 4	I sometimes use flattery to gain or keep someone’s good opinion.
12	Inauthentic 5	If I want someone to do something for me, I try to elicit sympathy from them.
2	Inauthentic 6	If I want someone to do something for me, I am especially nice to them before asking.
CONCEAL
30	Conceal 1	I often conceal feelings of anger and distress from others.
36	Conceal 2	I hide my feelings so others won’t worry about me.
8	Conceal 3	When someone has made me upset or angry, I often conceal my feelings.
18	Conceal 4	When someone has made me upset or angry, I tend to downplay my feelings.
23	Conceal 5	I don’t believe in telling others about my problems – I keep them to myself.
26	Conceal 6	If someone tries to make me feel better when I am feeling low, I pretend to feel happier to please that person.

All 30 items are used in the MEOS-SF. The 24 items of the MEOS-VSF are shown in italic.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6010560