The Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test (RMET) is the most popular adult measure of individual differences in theory of mind. We present a meta-analytic investigation of the test's psychometric properties (k = 119 effect sizes, 61 studies, ntotal = 8,611 persons). Using random effects models, we found the internal consistency of the test was acceptable (α = .73). However, the RMET was more strongly related with emotion perception (r = .33, ρ = .48) relative to alternative theory of mind measures (r = .29, ρ = .39), and weakly to moderately related with vocabulary (r = .25, ρ = .32), cognitive empathy (r = .14, ρ = .20), and affective empathy (r = .13, ρ = .19). Overall, we conclude that the RMET operates rather as emotion perception measure than as theory of mind measure, challenging the interpretation of RMET results.
Keywords: Reading the Eyes in the Mind Test; emotion perception; meta-analysis; reliability generalization; theory of mind.