Relationships between cognitive emotion regulation strategies with depression and anxiety

Majid Pourfaraj Omran

doi:10.4236/ojpsych.2011.13015

Abstract

In current study firstly, psychometric properties of Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (CERQ) in an Iranian sample were examined. The result of factor analysis, subscales correlations, internal consistency and test-retest coefficients showed good psychometric properties of CERQ in Iran. Secondly, relationships between cognitive emotion regulation strategies with depression and anxiety were studied by multiple regression analysis. The result showed that catastrophizing, self-blame and rumination were related with high level of anxiety and depression and refocusing, positive reappraisal and planning subscales related with low level of anxiety and depression.

Highlights

Emotion regulation includes a wide range of conscious and unconscious physiological, behavioral, and cognitive strategies that are used to reduce, maintain, or increase an emotion [1]
Relationships between cognitive emotion regulation strategies with depression and anxiety were studied by multiple regression analysis
The result showed that catastrophizing, self-blame and rumination were related with high level of anxiety and depression and refocusing, positive reappraisal and planning subscales related with low level of anxiety and depression

Summary

Introduction

Emotion regulation includes a wide range of conscious and unconscious physiological, behavioral, and cognitive strategies that are used to reduce, maintain, or increase an emotion [1]. A relatively new scale, the Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (CERQ), was developed to assess cognitive coping to stressful life events This questionnaire includes nine cognitive strategies: self-blame, referring to thoughts of putting the blame of what person has experienced on her/himself; other-blame, referring to thoughts of putting the blame of what person has experienced on the environment or another person; rumination, referring to thinking about the feelings and thoughts associated with the negative event; catastrophizing, referring to thoughts of explicitly emphasizing the terror of what person has experienced; putting into Perspective, referring to downgrading the importance of the event; positive refocusing, referring to thinking about positive experiences instead of thinking about the actual event; positive reappraisal, referring to thoughts of giving the event a positive meaning in terms of personal growth; acceptance, referring to thoughts of resigning person to what has happened and planning, referring to thinking about what steps to take and how to handle the negative event [4]. Despite some variation across studies, cognitive strategies such as self-blame, rumination, catastrophizing and positive reappraisal (inversely) have consistently been associated with negative emotions like depression, anxiety, stress and anger [4,5,6,7,8,9]

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