Description of the Questionnaire

This questionnaire concerns Emotion Regulation and is based on the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ) by Gross and John (2003), a widely used and psychometrically validated instrument. The questionnaire examines two core emotion regulation strategies: Cognitive Reappraisal and Expressive Suppression. It consists of ten statements, which participants are asked to evaluate based on the degree to which they agree with each, aiming to capture the strategies used in daily emotional management.

Data Analysis and Use

The analysis of the data aims to understand how individuals manage their emotions. Results may be used in research protocols related to mental health, anxiety, depression, and emotional well-being, in counseling or educational settings, and in the design of targeted interventions to strengthen emotional intelligence. The use of these results is also appropriate for internal assessments in professional environments or for individual self-awareness.

Objective

The objective of the questionnaire is to assess the strategies individuals use to regulate their emotions. Specifically, it focuses on the person’s ability to modify their thinking to reduce emotional impact (cognitive reappraisal), as well as their tendency to suppress or conceal emotional expression in social settings (expressive suppression). Through completion of the questionnaire, these strategies are captured in a reliable and research-based manner.

Scoring

Participants are asked to respond using a seven-point Likert scale, where 1 means “Strongly disagree” and 7 means “Strongly agree.” The statements of the questionnaire are as follows:
When I want to feel less negative emotion, I change the way I’m thinking about the situation.
I control my emotions by not expressing them.
When I am faced with a stressful situation, I think about it in a way that helps me stay calm.
I keep my emotions to myself.
When I want to feel more positive emotion, I change the way I’m thinking about what’s happening.
When I’m feeling strong emotions, I make sure not to show them.
I control my emotions by changing the way I think about the situation I’m in.
When I feel negative emotions, I reframe my thoughts to feel better.
I try to appear calmer than I actually am.
I can manage how I feel by changing the way I think about the situation.
To calculate the subscale scores, the average of the responses to the statements relating to cognitive reappraisal and, separately, to expressive suppression is computed. Cognitive reappraisal includes the statements related to changing one’s thoughts to manage emotion, while expressive suppression includes those that relate to hiding or inhibiting emotional expression.

Bibliography

Gross, J. J., & John, O. P. (2003). Individual differences in two emotion regulation processes: Implications for affect, relationships, and well-being. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85(2), 348–362. Balzarotti, S., John, O. P., & Gross, J. J. (2010). An Italian adaptation of the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire. European Journal of Psychological Assessment, 26(1), 61–67.