  Large Language Models (LLMs) have demonstrated remarkable abilities across
numerous disciplines, primarily assessed through tasks in language generation,
knowledge utilization, and complex reasoning. However, their alignment with
human emotions and values, which is critical for real-world applications, has
not been systematically evaluated. Here, we assessed LLMs' Emotional
Intelligence (EI), encompassing emotion recognition, interpretation, and
understanding, which is necessary for effective communication and social
interactions. Specifically, we first developed a novel psychometric assessment
focusing on Emotion Understanding (EU), a core component of EI, suitable for
both humans and LLMs. This test requires evaluating complex emotions (e.g.,
surprised, joyful, puzzled, proud) in realistic scenarios (e.g., despite
feeling underperformed, John surprisingly achieved a top score). With a
reference frame constructed from over 500 adults, we tested a variety of
mainstream LLMs. Most achieved above-average EQ scores, with GPT-4 exceeding
89% of human participants with an EQ of 117. Interestingly, a multivariate
pattern analysis revealed that some LLMs apparently did not reply on the
human-like mechanism to achieve human-level performance, as their
representational patterns were qualitatively distinct from humans. In addition,
we discussed the impact of factors such as model size, training method, and
architecture on LLMs' EQ. In summary, our study presents one of the first
psychometric evaluations of the human-like characteristics of LLMs, which may
shed light on the future development of LLMs aiming for both high intellectual
and emotional intelligence. Project website:
https://emotional-intelligence.github.io/
