Evidence of validation of the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale–18 in Arab, Middle Eastern, and North African emerging adults living in the United States.

Abstract

Arab, Middle Eastern, and North African (Arab/MENA) individuals are regularly unaccounted for in research because they are conflated with the racial category "White." The systematic underrepresentation of Arab/MENA individuals in research persists, despite the fact that Arab/MENA individuals experience stigma, discrimination, and structural barriers that separate them from their White peers and contribute to disparities in mental health and well-being (Awad et al., 2021). Further, the lack of widespread inclusion of an Arab/MENA racial category has created assumptions about the generalizability of psychological constructs, measures, and treatments for Arab/MENA people, despite well-known cultural differences. The present study explored the validity of a widely used emotion regulation measure, the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale-18, in an Arab/MENA emerging adult sample (M age = 21.8, SD = 3.02), invariance across sex assigned at birth, differences in latent scores for religious identity, and associations with mental health and well-being. Results support the original six-factor model and are invariant across males and females. The implications of these findings for supporting assessment and treatment of Arab/ MENA individuals, and the importance of including Arab/MENA as a racial category in research, are discussed. Public Significance StatementArab and Middle Eastern Americans are incorrectly categorized as "White" despite the higher rates of structural discrimination and barriers these individuals face. The lack of research on this group yields the inability to understand if current psychological measures adequately capture Arab/Middle Eastern individuals' functioning. This article evaluated a widely used emotion regulation measure in Arab/ Middle Eastern Americans and its associations with mental health and well-being.