Investigating measurement invariance of the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire-8 (ERQ-8) across 29 countries

• Published in: Current psychology (New Brunswick, N.J.) Vol. 42; no. 36; pp. 32054 - 32060
• Main Authors: Burghart, Matthias, Sahm, Alexander H. J., Mier, Daniela
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York Springer US 01-12-2023; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Behavioral Science and Psychology; Emotional regulation; Emotions; Psychology; Questionnaires; Social Sciences; Affect regulation; Cross-cultural assessment; Measurement invariance; Emotion regulation questionnaire
• ISSN: 1046-1310; 1936-4733
• DOI: 10.1007/s12144-022-04220-6

The widely used Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ) measures the habitual use of cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression. Recently, a more economical 8-item version of the ERQ was proposed that showed good model fit. We assessed whether the latent constructs of the ERQ-8 are generalizable across different countries and cultures. To this end, we used data from the COVIDiSTRESS survey and investigated measurement invariance of the ERQ-8 in a large sample that included 11,288 individuals from 29 countries with diverse cultural backgrounds. Our analyses revealed configural and metric invariance of the ERQ-8 in 14 countries. The results suggest that emotion regulation strategies may not readily converge across all cultures. This underscores the importance of testing measurement invariance before interpreting observed differences and similarities between countries.