Abstract
Emotion regulation is a human adaptation process with important implications for daily life. Two specific emotion regulation strategies were the principle areas of study: reappraisal (cognitive change in which individuals adapt their state of mind about a given situation) and expressive suppression (response modulation in which individuals change their emotional response after its initiation). The Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ), that captures individual tendencies to reappraise and to suppress the expression of emotions, was also developed. Response modulation strategy was analyzed by considering two distinct processes: expressive suppression (down-regulation) and expressive enhancement (up-regulation). This latter modulation process has been less frequently studied by researchers. The present study investigates the psychometrical properties, individual differences and correlates of a French adapted version of the ERQ, which comprises reappraisal and the two response modulation tendencies – expressive suppression and expressive enhancement. Based on the initial ERQ, new items were created and added to the scale. The three-factor structure of the ERQ adapted was confirmed. As expected, emotion regulation is linked to individual differences: the tendency to reappraise has a positive low correlation with age; and men are significantly more disposed to suppress and to enhance than women. Finally, the tendency to suppress the expression of emotions is negatively correlated with extraversion, and the disposition to enhance the expression of emotions is negatively correlated with conscientiousness.
Highlights
Emotion regulation is a human adaptation process with important implications for daily life
Two specific emotion regulation strategies were the principle areas of study: reappraisal and expressive suppression
The present study investigates the psychometrical properties, individual differences and correlates of a French adapted version of the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ), which comprises reappraisal and the two response modulation tendencies – expressive suppression and expressive enhancement
Summary
While the entire sample filled in the ERQ-adapted, a subsample of 142 participants (93 females; 43 males; 6 missing) responded to the Big Five Personality Inventory (BFI-Fr; Plaisant, Courtois, Réveillère, Mendelsohn, & John, 2010). None of the items related to negative expressive enhancement were retained in the final version of the scale Questions such as "When I want to feel more negative emotions, I increase their expression", were not considered relevant for the questionnaire. Participants were presented with affirmations concerning these five dimensions of personality (e.g., “I am talkative” for extraversion) and indicate their degree of agreement or disagreement on a 5-point Likert-scale ranging from 1 “strongly disagree” to 5 “strongly agree”. A high subscale score indicates that the individual rates highly on that personality dimension
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