Two new brief versions of the Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire and its relationships with depression and anxiety

Abstract

The Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (CERQ) (Garnefski, et al., 2001) is a 36-item instrument for measuring cognitive strategies of emotional regulation. There is a brief, 18-item version that measures the same nine strategies as the full version (Garnefski and Kraaij, 2006a). The aim of this study was to develop a brief form of the CERQ, taking into account two different proposals: a 27-item and an 18-item instrument, the latter focusing solely on the assessment of the two general factors obtained in the second-order structure of the original CERQ model and identified in previous studies as adaptive strategies and less adaptive strategies. Participants in the study were 872 individuals aged 18-58 (mean 33.86, SD=8.43). The confirmatory factor analyses yield adequate overall indices in both versions, together with satisfactory validity. In the discussion, it is argued that the 27-item version is more appropriate for the specific rating of the nine regulation strategies people employ, and we propose the 18-item version as a suitable instrument in clinical context for an overall rating of an individual’s cognitive emotion regulation profile, furthermore, the criterion validity with depression and anxiety keeps similar to the larger versions.

Emotional Disorders During the COVID-19 Outbreak in Spain: The Role of Sociodemographic Risk Factors and Cognitive Emotion Regulation Strategies

“…The CERQ-Short evaluates the following strategies: rumination, catastrophizing, self-blame and other-blame, positive refocusing, acceptance, positive reappraisal, refocus on planning, and putting into perspective . We used the validated Spanish version of the CERQ-Short (Holgado-Tello et al, 2018), with slight with modifications in the instructions to accommodate its use in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, for instance: “In the following questions, you are asked to indicate what you think when you experience negative or unpleasant emotions related to the crisis you are currently experiencing.” We assessed asymmetry and kurtosis for all nine strategies, finding that self-blame presented both asymmetry (>2) and kurtosis (>6; other data available on request). Thus, the self-blame strategy was deleted from the analyses.…”

Moral Sensitivity, Empathy and Prosocial Behavior: Implications for Humanization of Nursing Care

“…Oliveira et al [30] suggested that empathy, in addition to the cognitive and affective factors, involves emotion regulation mechanisms. Thus, when emotional activation triggered by exposure to the feelings of others is not managed properly, mechanisms regulating emotional responsiveness could have a key role in the empathic process by eliminating overburden and emotional distress [31].…”

Emotion regulation, psychological distress and demographic characteristics from an Ecuadorian sample: Data from the lockdown due to COVID-19

“…Emotion regulation was evaluated using the 27-item Spanish version of the Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire [ 3 , 4 ]. This instrument was designed to evaluate nine different emotion regulation strategies primarily relying on a cognitive component.…”