Background/Purpose: Maladaptive emotion regulation is a strong predictor of depression or anxiety. Behavioral emotion regulation has a direct influence on coping with negative emotion. Although it is interesting to explore more about the behavioral emotion regulation, most of the existing measures can not assess it separately. The Behavioral Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (BERQ) has made important gain in addressing conceptual confusion between cognitive and behavioral emotion regulation. As there is a lack of single and stable measure to assess behavioral emotion regulation in mainland China, we translated the BERQ into Chinese to fit this gap.
Methods: We evaluated the psychometric properties of the Chinese version of the BERQ (BERQ-C) based on a sample of Chinese university students (n=816). Factor analysis was performed to assess the construct validity of the BERQ-C. To test its reliability and validity, all the participants were invited to complete BERQ-C, GAD-7, PHQ-9, and CERQ-C. Of the initial samples, 138 students participated in the second measurement with completing BERQ-C twice.
Results: Confirmatory factor analysis supported the five-factor model. The internal consistence (Cronbach’s α = 0.71 ∼ 0.85), the split-half reliability (Spearman-Brown coefficient = 0.66 ∼ 0.85), and the test–retest stability (ICC = 0.55 ∼ 0.67) are all acceptable. The criterion-related validity is good.
Conclusion: The BERQ-C is a promising instrument to assess behavioral emotion regulation among the Chinese university students. Future studies are needed to explore the questionnaire’s psychometric properties among wider range of population especially for patients.
Keywords: emotion regulation, coping, assessment, Chinese university students