For Emotional Stability Skills Test

Covered Skills

Why Measure Emotional Stability?

“Emotional stability” refers to a person's ability to remain emotionally stable and balanced, withstand the perfect storm that life throws at them, and still be productive and capable through it.

Emotionally stable people may be able to remain composed under stress, maintain even moods, and cope with feelings of guilt, worry, or loneliness quickly and easily. People who are emotionally unstable may be unable to maintain equilibrium under pressure, lack the ability to adjust to unpleasant emotions and deal with unexpected problems, may be irritable, and require constant help to complete day-to-day tasks.

Emotional stability may have two dimensions: (1) response threshold and (2) recovery time.

The response threshold describes how easily someone experiences intense negative emotions when faced with stressful events. The ease with which these emotions are felt may reflect a low or high threshold, which may indicate the person's ability to determine the most effective response when thinking about or when experiencing the event that triggered the intense negative emotions.

The recovery time describes how quickly someone can recover from a stressful experience. The time necessary for recovery is related to resilience. Following a stressful event, one may experience a short or long recovery period, which may indicate the person’s ability to determine the most effective response when having to adjust to the changing demands of the stressful experience and recover swiftly.