(PS3-A2) Developing a Revised Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ-R) to Assess the Use of Cognitive Reappraisal and Expressive Suppression of Positive and Negative Emotions

The Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ) is a widely used measure of emotion regulation measuring the habitual use of: cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression. However, the ERQ does not make a distinction between positive and negative emotions. This can be problematic as each strategy may relate to different outcomes depending on the target emotion (e.g., suppression of positive emotion association with feelings of inauthenticity; positive reappraisal broadening thoughts and action available to the individual).  Therefore, this study aimed to develop a revised ERQ (ERQ-R) to include A) reappraisal and B) suppression of both 1) positive and 2) negative emotions. Each of the four strategies was measured using 4 items adapted from the ERQ to measure both reappraisal by decreasing negative emotions (e.g., “When I want to feel less negative emotion, I change the way I’m thinking about the situation.”) or increasing positive emotions (e.g., “When I want to feel more positive emotion, I change the way I’m thinking about the situation”), and suppression of negative emotions (e.g., “I keep my negative emotions to myself.”) and positive emotions (e.g., “I keep my positive emotions to myself”). We conducted a validation study with a sample of 963 participants whom we also administered the original ERQ. We conducted a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to examine the factor structure of the ERQ-R and assessed its construct validity. The ERQ-R demonstrated construct validity by showing expected associations with measures of positive vs. negative affect, well-being, and psychological distress. Additionally, CFA supported a four-factor structure (RMSEA = 0.07, CFI = 0.97), with two of the factors measuring positive reappraisal and suppression and two other measuring negative reappraisal and suppression. Overall, the ERQ-R provides a more comprehensive measure of cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression considering the distinction between positive and negative emotions, which can be useful for both research and clinical settings.