PERCI or a Private EQ Profile for Negative Emotions at Work?

A focused question needs a focused measure

A tense exchange after blunt feedback can prompt two different questions. One is, “How capable do I believe I am of regulating difficult feelings?” The other is, “What emotional habits and responses do I want to examine across situations?” They sound close, but they call for different tools.

If the first question is the real one, PERCI is the closer fit. It is a published 32-item self-report inventory designed around perceived emotion-regulation competence. If you want a wider private reflection across emotional recognition, understanding, regulation, and responses to other people, the Emotional Skills Profile is closer to that aim. It organizes several related skills and keeps recent-behavior summaries separate from judgments on authored scenarios.

There is no universal EQ score shared by every instrument. PERCI has a defined construct and a public research record. The private Emotional Skills Profile is an educational reflection product; it has no validated population norms or established ability-test validity. Its value is a structured starting point, not evidence that it measures ability as a laboratory task would.

Neither result records what happened in your last meeting. A self-report can help you notice how you see your own pattern. If your goal is to change a work interaction, you still need to connect that reflection to an observable moment and decide what to try next. The most useful choice depends on whether you want a focused measure of perceived regulation competence or a broader guide for reflection.

A familiar commercial comparison asks which product is “better,” but that wording hides the job the reader is hiring the measure to do. A questionnaire designed around perceived emotion-regulation competence has a more specific research question than a broad skills reflection. Conversely, a broad profile may be easier to connect to awareness or responding if the difficulty is not limited to managing feelings. Match the instrument to the question before weighing the presentation or convenience.

Sources: Measuring emotion regulation ability across negative and positive emotions: The Perth Emotion Regulation Competency Inventory (PERCI); Assessing Emotion Regulation Ability for Negative and Positive Emotions: Psychometrics of PERCI in United States Adults

What does PERCI actually measure?

PERCI is not only about anger, stress, or difficult feelings. It asks about regulation across both negative and positive emotions. Emotion regulation means processes that influence which emotions arise, when they arise, and how they are experienced or expressed. The inventory follows an extended process model and treats emotion as having an experiential side, such as feeling frustrated, and a behavioral side, such as interrupting or going quiet.

The 32 items are organized into eight intended areas. Four concern negative emotions and four concern positive emotions. Across each group, the inventory addresses influence over felt experience, inhibiting or activating behavior, and tolerating emotion when trying to change it is not appropriate. The key idea is that regulating an emotion can include choosing not to force it away. If disappointment is proportionate to a real setback, a person may need to acknowledge it before planning the next step.

In the development paper, confirmatory analyses in 231 adults supported a factor structure aligned with the theory and distinguished regulation of positive from negative emotions. A second sample of 1,175 replicated the structure and internal consistency findings; associations with measures of psychopathology, regulation processes, alexithymia, and attachment were reported as validity evidence. The researchers developed PERCI because earlier measures often focused on negative emotions alone. The paper’s claim is about a questionnaire and its studied samples, not an observation of office behavior.

For a reader focused on difficult feelings at work, the negative-emotion portion is directly relevant. The positive-emotion questions are still part of the design. That breadth may be useful if you want a fuller map of regulation, including what happens when excitement or confidence becomes distracting. It may feel like extra territory if your practical question is tightly limited to a recurring frustration, worry, or guilt response.

PERCI also includes the idea that competence involves knowing when regulation is useful. Feeling something unpleasant does not itself prove that it should be eliminated. A person can be upset and still choose a measured response; another may be calm because they have disengaged from an issue that needs attention. A score cannot resolve that distinction for a particular event, but the construct makes room for it.

The useful comparison is the construct and its scope; there is no need to reproduce proprietary questions. PERCI offers a focused self-report about perceived capacity to influence feelings and behavior, with positive emotion included alongside negative emotion.

Sources: Measuring emotion regulation ability across negative and positive emotions: The Perth Emotion Regulation Competency Inventory (PERCI); Assessing Emotion Regulation Ability for Negative and Positive Emotions: Psychometrics of PERCI in United States Adults

Are competence and strategy use the same question?

No. A competence inventory asks about a person’s perceived success in regulating emotion. A strategy questionnaire asks how often they report using named approaches, such as reappraising a situation or holding back visible expression. These are related questions, but they are not interchangeable. A person may report using a strategy frequently without believing it works well, or believe they can regulate emotion without relying on one particular strategy.

The 2021 United States PERCI study illustrates the distinction. Researchers recruited 508 adults through online survey panels, with the sample structured to reflect US gender, age, and geographic distributions. Participants completed PERCI and other questionnaires in a roughly 30-minute battery. The researchers found that the intended eight-factor structure held across age, gender, and education in their analyses, and PERCI scores related to strategy use and other self-report measures in expected ways. The authors called the findings strong psychometrics, while noting that behavioral or laboratory indicators and broader cultural samples would strengthen the evidence.

Because the concurrent measures in that study were questionnaires, the results show relationships among reports. They do not establish that the inventory tracks conduct under pressure. This limitation is central to the comparison: a measure can have evidence supporting its score structure while still answering a narrower question than “What did I do when criticized?”

A broad workplace review distinguishes ability-based emotional intelligence, trait approaches that concern self-perceived abilities, and mixed competency models that include work-related skills. Its 2024 systematic review and meta-analysis included 50 workplace training studies in its pre-post analysis and 27 controlled trials in a separate analysis. It reported moderate average changes in emotional competencies, but also substantial heterogeneity and low methodological quality. The review helps explain why labels overlap; it does not establish that either product in this comparison changes workplace conduct.

There is also a difference between a typical-performance self-report and a maximum-performance test. A self-report asks what someone generally believes or experiences. A performance test asks them to solve tasks under specified conditions. Neither format alone captures every workplace interaction, and PERCI belongs to the self-report side. Calling it a measure of perceived competence is more precise than treating it as direct proof of maximum emotional ability.

This distinction gives the reader a practical test for product claims: ask what the questions elicit and what the result represents. If the result is based on self-report, read it as a report of perceived patterns. If a tool describes scenario judgments, those judgments show how someone answered authored situations, not what they necessarily do in the next disagreement. Different sources of information can disagree because they sample different things.

Sources: Assessing Emotion Regulation Ability for Negative and Positive Emotions: Psychometrics of PERCI in United States Adults; Training emotional competencies at the workplace: a systematic review and metaanalysis; Individual differences in two emotion regulation processes: implications for affect, relationships, and well-being

How strong is PERCI’s evidence for this choice?

PERCI has a more visible public psychometric record than the private Emotional Skills Profile. That is the strongest evidence-based reason to choose it when the intended question is perceived emotion-regulation competence. Psychometric evidence concerns how a measure’s scores behave, including whether structure and consistency support a proposed interpretation. It does not convert self-report into direct observation.

The US validation is useful because it tests PERCI in a different national setting from the original Australian development samples. In 508 US adults, confirmatory analyses supported the eight-factor structure, with invariance reported across age, gender, and education. The sample was mostly White, and participants completed the measure as part of an online survey battery. Associations with symptoms, reactivity, and strategies were assessed using other reports. The paper itself calls for behavioral or laboratory markers and more culturally diverse samples. Those details make the study relevant while setting boundaries on what it supports.

A 2024 Chinese validation adds evidence in another language context. Its accessible PubMed record reports 1,090 nonclinical Chinese participants, with a mean age of about 20.6; it also describes a matched group comparison involving 50 participants with major depressive disorder and 50 controls. Confirmatory analysis supported the intended eight-factor structure, and the study reported reliability and validity findings. The younger nonclinical sample and the Chinese translation matter when applying this result elsewhere. The clinical group comparison is a research finding, not a reason to use PERCI to diagnose anyone.

A separate 2024 study examined three measures, including PERCI, in 434 Singaporean and 489 Australian participants. Its abstract reports measurement invariance across those samples and good internal consistency and concurrent validity. This gives some cross-cultural research support for comparing scores in those study settings. It still cannot settle whether a particular worker in another language, occupation, or organizational culture interprets questions in the same way.

The record is substantial enough to support a modest conclusion: PERCI has published evidence for its intended factor structure and score properties in several studied populations. That is stronger public documentation than the evidence supplied for the private profile, but it does not establish that PERCI predicts conduct, identifies the best response, or guarantees improvement. For those claims, different evidence would be needed.

Sources: Assessing Emotion Regulation Ability for Negative and Positive Emotions: Psychometrics of PERCI in United States Adults; Assessing Emotion Regulation Difficulties Across Negative and Positive Emotions: PERCI in the Chinese Context; Assessing Emotion Regulation across Asian and Western Cultures: Psychometric Properties of Three Common Scales

What does the private EQ profile add?

The Emotional Skills Profile takes a broader route. Its 32 items cover recognition, understanding, regulation, and responding to others. Its report separates summaries of recent behavior from judgments on authored scenarios. This can suit someone who does not want to focus only on regulation and would rather reflect across several connected skills in one private exercise.

The distinction among those areas is practical. Recognition is noticing what emotion is present. Understanding is considering what may have prompted it and how it could shape interpretation. Regulation concerns how a person responds to the feeling. Responding to others concerns what they do in an interaction, including how they listen, disagree, or repair. These areas can inform one another without being the same thing. A person who misses their rising irritation may have little chance to choose a deliberate response before it colors a reply.

The profile is an educational reflection tool, not a standardized ability instrument. It has no validated population norms, and no ability-test validity is established. That means its report should not be read against a population ranking or as evidence of a fixed level of emotional skill. The product’s case is breadth and accessible personal reflection; claims of proven accuracy or workplace outcomes would go beyond the available support.

PERCI and the Emotional Skills Profile share a self-report element, but differ in purpose and evidence. PERCI is more specific to perceived regulation competence and has a public validation literature. The profile is wider and includes authored scenario judgments alongside recent-behavior reflection. A reader whose question is “How capable do I think I am of managing difficult emotion?” has a clearer match in PERCI. A reader who wants a guided look at multiple emotional habits may prefer the profile’s broader map.

Privacy can matter in this decision too. A private individual exercise may be a comfortable way to think through personal patterns without treating a result as workplace evaluation. It should remain a personal development choice. Neither option belongs in hiring, promotion, ranking, diagnosis, or deciding who belongs on a team. Those are consequential uses that require evidence and safeguards the products are not presented as having.

The profile’s breadth can also expose a more useful next question. Perhaps the central difficulty is recognizing frustration early, understanding why a colleague’s message felt dismissive, or setting a boundary after the first emotional reaction. If that is the real task, a focused regulation score may not cover the whole reflection. The broader format can help name an area to examine, while observation and practice determine what to do with it.

It is also useful to distinguish privacy from evidence. A personal report can feel more comfortable because it is intended for individual reflection, but a private format does not itself demonstrate measurement quality. Likewise, a published study does not make a measure suitable for every decision. Each option should be judged by the question it asks and by what its available evidence supports.

Can reducing an emotion ever remove useful information?

Yes. “Work on negative emotions” can mean becoming less overwhelmed, but it can also be mistaken for eliminating any feeling that makes a conversation uncomfortable. Workplace research suggests those aims should not be collapsed. The question is not simply how to feel less; it is whether a response helps someone act well in the situation.

A five-study paper on reappraisal and suppression found that people who habitually reported reappraisal also reported greater positive and lower negative emotion, better interpersonal functioning, and better well-being than those who reported more suppression. These were associations across individual-difference studies, not proof that reappraisal is the right move in every workplace exchange. Reappraisal means changing how one interprets a situation. It may help someone see blunt feedback as information rather than as a personal attack, but it can also be used to dismiss a valid concern.

The workplace case is especially clear with guilt and shame. In a 2020 paper summarized in Stanford’s research archive, five studies examined reappraisal of those negative self-conscious emotions. The first study included 171 employees who had experienced guilt or shame at work in the prior month. Other studies included a heated negotiation with working MBA students and experiments in which participants were more likely to withhold resources from task partners or cheat on a work task when assigned to reappraise guilt. The authors reported well-being benefits alongside ethical costs in the studied conditions. This does not imply that reappraisal is generally harmful; it shows that easing guilt can sometimes weaken its role in prompting repair.

Consider an ordinary reasoning example, not a research case: a colleague receives feedback that a handoff omitted a key detail. If guilt points to an actual mistake, the useful response may be to acknowledge the omission and correct the record. If the criticism is based on a misunderstanding, a different response may be to ask which detail was missing. Either way, the feeling can be noticed without allowing it to dictate the entire exchange or trying to erase it immediately.

The measure cannot perform this contextual judgment. A self-report score does not know whether frustration reflects a recurring process failure, a strained relationship, a one-off misunderstanding, or a real boundary being crossed. It can help someone select a question for reflection. The work itself is to notice the event, distinguish what is known from what is inferred, and choose an action that fits.

Sources: Individual differences in two emotion regulation processes: implications for affect, relationships, and well-being; Rethinking Reappraisal: The Double-Edged Sword of Regulating Negative Emotions in the Workplace

Which measure fits the question you want answered?

Choose PERCI when you want a research-documented, focused self-report about perceived competence regulating both negative and positive emotions. Choose the private Emotional Skills Profile when a broader private reflection across recognition, understanding, regulation, and responses to others better matches your aim. PERCI leads on construct-specific public psychometric evidence; the profile offers a wider educational reflection format.

The comparison changes if your phrase “work on negative emotions” means “I want to stop feeling upset.” Neither result can establish that this is the right goal. Anger may flag a boundary or process problem; worry may prompt preparation; guilt may point toward repair. The context determines whether a feeling should be reduced, tolerated, or used as a signal. PERCI’s inclusion of tolerating emotion is a useful reminder that regulation is not synonymous with suppression.

A question written in advance can prevent a product label from deciding for you. “How do I perceive my ability to influence difficult feelings and behavior?” points toward PERCI. “Which emotional habits and social responses do I want to reflect on?” points toward the broader profile. If your actual question is what happens in one recurring meeting, neither questionnaire alone answers it; a recent example and specific feedback may be more informative.

One caveat can change how far the research advantage travels. PERCI’s record concerns studied versions and samples. If you need a result for a different language or population, check whether that version has been examined. Published evidence is a reason to prefer it for a measurement-focused question, not a universal certificate that every interpretation will fit every worker.

The honest verdict is conditional. For the narrow aim in the brief, PERCI is the better match because it specifically targets perceived emotion-regulation competence and has public supporting research. Its positive-emotion coverage is part of the instrument, and its self-report format limits claims about actual behavior. The private profile makes sense when breadth and a personal guided reflection matter more than a focused validated measure. Neither should be treated as a workplace score or promised route to better outcomes.

The evidence advantage should therefore be described precisely rather than as an overall product ranking. The PERCI research gives the reader more information about the proposed regulation construct and studied score behavior. It does not show that PERCI is more useful for every person, or that its result will transfer automatically into workplace practice. A broader reflection may better suit someone trying to locate which emotional skill deserves attention first. That difference is a question of fit, while evidence remains a question of support.

Sources: Assessing Emotion Regulation Ability for Negative and Positive Emotions: Psychometrics of PERCI in United States Adults; Training emotional competencies at the workplace: a systematic review and metaanalysis

What should you do after choosing?

After either assessment, choose one recent moment rather than trying to improve every emotional skill at once. Write down what happened in observable terms, what you felt, what you assumed, and what you did next. Keep the feeling and the interpretation separate: “I felt dismissed after the message” is different from “My colleague intended to undermine me.” That separation creates room to verify meaning before reacting.

Then choose one behavior that would make the next exchange clearer. It might be pausing before replying, asking what a specific piece of feedback refers to, naming a limit on availability, or acknowledging an error and proposing a repair. The right action depends on what the moment requires. A tool result can suggest a topic for reflection, but the behavior has to be selected and observed in context.

If another person was involved, ask for feedback about the behavior rather than a judgment of your character. For example: “When I heard the feedback, I paused and went quiet. What did you notice, and what would have helped us keep the discussion clear?” That question invites an account of an observable exchange. It does not ask the other person to certify an EQ score or explain your personality.

For a focused research-based reflection on emotion regulation, review PERCI’s published work and remember its positive-emotion scope. If you want a broader private starting point, explore the Emotional Skills Profile at [/assessment](/assessment). The useful next step is one conversation about one behavior: what happened, what each person noticed, and what would make the next exchange more workable.

Sources: Rethinking Reappraisal: The Double-Edged Sword of Regulating Negative Emotions in the Workplace

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