Emotion Regulation Questionnaire - A German version of the ERQ by Gross and John

The Emotion Regulation Questionnaire by Gross and John (2003) is one of the first validated instruments for the investigation of emotion regulation processes. The questionnaire tests two common regulation strategies: suppression and reappraisal. The German version was investigated in three steps on three groups of students (n = 113/167/174). Keeping the translation as close as possible to the original English text and optimizing the factor loadings on the two components were the most important developmental issues. We used factor analyses with iterative communality estimation and Varimax rotation. Consistent with our goal, the values for internal consistency for suppression and reappraisal came very close to the values given for the original American version. We developed a tool that is easy to use with little time effort (5-10 min). Furthermore, it distinctly captures the two regulation styles suppression and reappraisal. Possible applications are research on depression and anxiety and the investigation of psychotherapeutic approaches.