Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ)

The Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (Gross & John, 2003) measures two habitual emotion-regulation strategies as separate individual differences: Cognitive Reappraisal — changing how one thinks about a situation to change its emotional impact — and Expressive Suppression — inhibiting the outward expression of emotion.

Per the source, Cognitive Reappraisal is the mean of its six items and Expressive Suppression the mean of its four; there are no reverse-scored items and deliberately no combined total, because the two strategies are distinct processes with different consequences for affect, relationships, and well-being. The scale is free for research and clinical use with attribution.

“When I want to feel more positive emotion (such as joy or amusement), I change what I'm thinking about.”

Illustrative only. During administration items are presented one screen-set at a time; response-key direction is never shown to respondents.

Each subscale is summed (with any published multiplier) and compared against its own cutoff bands.

Preece, D. A., Becerra, R., Robinson, K., & Gross, J. J. (2020). The Emotion Regulation Questionnaire: Psychometric properties in general community samples. Journal of Personality Assessment (accepted manuscript, doi:10.1080/00223891.2018.1564319) — three Australian general community samples (combined N = 1,048), verbatim 10-item ERQ. Subscale sums on the 1–7 response scale: Cognitive Reappraisal (6 items, range 6–42) and Expressive Suppression (4 items, range 4–28). Published per-sample figures (N = 300/400/348): Reappraisal M = 29.00/28.97/28.61, SD = 6.68/7.09/7.32, α = .89/.89/.90; Suppression M = 15.97/15.69/15.88, SD = 5.16/5.41/5.14, α = .79/.80/.76. The reference values shown here are pooled exactly from the published per-sample figures (Reappraisal M = 28.86, SD = 7.05; Suppression M = 15.83, SD = 5.25). The confidence range uses the standard error of measurement (SEM = SD·√(1−α)) from the lowest published sample α (.89 Reappraisal, .76 Suppression) — the widest, most conservative range.

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.

Scoring. Scoring (Gross & John, 2003): each facet is the mean (and sum) of its items; there are no reverse-scored items and no combined total. Cognitive Reappraisal = items 1, 3, 5, 7, 8, 10 (6 items). Expressive Suppression = items 2, 4, 6, 9 (4 items).

Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (Gross, J. J., & John, O. P., 2003), Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85(2), 348–362. Free for research and clinical use with attribution.