Social-Emotional Fluency (SEF): Scale Development and Initial Validation

Abstract

Social-emotional fluency (SEF) is a novel term that can be used to describe individual differences in the quality and dynamics of emotion-related communication. Compared to those low in SEF, people high in SEF are thought to have larger and more flexible social-emotional “toolkits” that they draw from in order to display the right sorts of behavior at the right times. This range and flexibility are expected to be especially evident in socially ambiguous or awkward situations. As first steps towards construct validation of the SEF construct, we have developed a SEF self-report questionnaire (i.e., SEF Scale). The SEF Scale has two reliable factors (Adaptability and Expressivity) and good psychometric as well as predicted convergent and discriminant properties. Results from these studies suggest that SEF is a distinct and measurable construct that captures the quality and timing of signals in social interactions.