Validity of Emotion Regulation Questionnaire in Diverse Mexican Samples Using Two Different Spanish Translations

Abstract

Individual differences in emotion regulation, the use of specific strategies to influence various aspects of one’s emotional thoughts or behaviors, are predictive of individual variation in psychopathology as well as wellbeing. The current manuscript sought to investigate reliability and validity of the emotion regulation questionnaire (ERQ) in three different Mexican samples. A Spanish translation previously validated in Spain was used for two samples (student; n = 238 and young school children guardian; n=200). To investigate if language differences led to variation in psychometric properties and factorial structure, an in-house Mexican Spanish translation was used for the third sample (community; n= 617). We found that although reliability, factor structure and validity remained somewhat the same, there were differences in the number of items in each factor. Importantly, consistent with previous research, emotion regulation strategies assessed were associated with predicted outcomes such as mood and anxiety symptoms, resilience, and wellbeing. These results highlight the importance of adapting scales to specific contexts and attending to the characteristics of the sample.