The emotion regulation questionnaire: Factor structure and measurement invariance in an Italian sample of community dwelling adults

Abstract

The Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ) is a widely-used measure to assess how often individuals use two regulatory strategies, namely cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression, in everyday life. Recent research, however, has shown inconsistencies when testing the factorial structure of the ERQ in community samples compared to validation studies conducted on samples of undergraduate students. These inconsistences raise issues about the use of the ERQ to measure emotion regulation strategies in non-student samples. The current study tested the factor structure of the ERQ in an Italian community sample (N = 415) and in a sample of Italian undergraduate students (N = 371), assessing measurement invariance across the two groups. The results showed poor model fit for the original factor structure of the ERQ in the community sample and barely adequate fit in the student sample. However, after dropping two items, good model fit was obtained for both student and community samples. The eight-item ERQ was then found to be equivalent across gender and age. Findings from latent mean comparison showed that females reported less frequent use of suppression and more frequent use of reappraisal than males. Finally, the reappraisal and suppression scales showed significant associations with several domains of individuals’ well-being. Although further validity studies are required, these findings suggest that a shortened, 8-item version of the ERQ may be a valid instrument with psychometric properties comparable to the original version of the ERQ.