The present study sought to provide evidence on the psychometric properties of the ERQ-CA in a sample of secondary students in Chile. Our results confirm the original two-factor model by Gross and John (2003), and Gullone and Taffe (2012). The good fit and structural validity, and also the good reliability values of the scale support its use in Spanish-speaking secondary students.
Although our findings mirror prior research in terms of both factor structure and factor loadings for the CR and ES subscales (Liu et al., 2017; Ng et al., 2017; Ling et al., 2019) some specific differences with other studies deserve mention. Previous research with Spanish-speaking populations has reported conflicts between some items and the original two-factor structure. For instance, the exploratory factor analysis (EFA) by Alfonso and Prieto (2021) in a sample of university students yielded that that items 1 (when I want to feel happier, I think about something different), item 7 (when I want to feel happier about something, I change the way I’m thinking about it) and item 10 (when I want to feel less bad (e.g., sad, angry, or worried) about something, I change the way I’m thinking about it) were loading on a third factor. They removed items 1 and 7 and proposed a final eight-item version focused on adolescent and adult populations. By contrast, we found no need to remove or change any of the items of the scale, supporting prior studies using the English (Ng et al., 2017), Chinese (Gong et al., 2021; Ling et al., 2019), Japanese (Namatame et al., 2020) and Portuguese (Teixeira et al., 2015) versions of the ERQ-CA. Additionally, we did not observe associations between ER and CS subscales, which is similar to Alfonso and Prieto (2021), but differs from Martín-Albo et al. (2018), who found positive associations, and also with Gullone and Taffe (2012), who found negative correlations. This independence has also been observed in other studies testing this model with children (Liu et al., 2017, Gong et al., 2021), adolescents (Ng et al., 2017; Pastor et al., 2019; Teixeira et al., 2015) and adult populations (Balzarotti et al., 2010). As stated by Gross and John (2003), our results suggest that CR and ES can be conceived as independent strategies that could be alternatively used.
Regarding the internal consistency of the questionnaire, alpha and omega indices were found to be good and relatively similar for both the CR and ES subscales. This is congruent with the study by Namatame et al. (2020) in Japanese adolescents but differs from Pastor et al. (2019) and Navarro et al. (2018) who, respectively, reported relatively low reliability indices for both scales in Spanish adolescents (αCR between .54 and.67; αES between .59 and .65). Moreover, our results slightly differ from Ng et al. (2017) who observed a much higher internal consistency for the CR subscale in contrast with the ES subscale (αCR between .54 and .77; αES between .52 and .67). Likewise, Martín-Albo et al. (2018), in a secondary school sample, found a low reliability for the ES subscale, particularly for item 9 (when I’m feeling bad (e.g., sad, angry, or worried), I’m careful not to show it). However, it must be noted that this latter study tested a slightly different Spanish translation of the ERQ-CA (ERQ-Spa), and that the adaptation of this item was slightly different from the one by Pastor et al. (2019).
Some of these discrepancies could be partially explained by the differences in the age-ranges of the samples of the studies using the same questionnaire, which vary from 13–14 years old (Pastor et al., 2019) to 15–25 years old (Alfonso & Prieto, 2021). The only study with Spanish-speaking adolescents (10–19 years) examining associations with age (Navarro et al., 2018), suggests that the instrument's ability to assess these ER strategies could change based on different stages such as early and late adolescence. Using other instruments, prior evidence on the age-related changes in ER during adolescence is mixed. While some studies have reported that aging is associated with an increased use of adaptive strategies (Zimmerman & Iwanski, 2014) and a decreased use of maladaptive strategies (Gullone et al. 2010), others have found negative associations between age and adaptive strategies (Kovacs et al., 2019).
Concerning convergent and discriminant validity of the measure, we found that depressive symptoms were positively associated with ES strategies while being negatively associated with CR strategies. Additionally, we observed negative and positive associations between suicidal ideation and CR and ES strategies, respectively. This is in accordance with prior literature, suggesting that adaptive ER strategies protects against suicidal risk (Ong et al., 2019), while avoidant strategies increase the risk (Forkmann et al., 2014). Finally, we found associations between both ER strategies and cognitive-behavioral skills and three specific dimensions of psychosocial functioning (general, family and peer-related), where CR showed positive correlations while correlations with ES were negative. Overall, these results highlight the adaptive nature of CR strategies, being associated with positive psychosocial functioning and cognitive skills, and the negative outcomes associated with ES strategies. Furthermore, our findings provide insight on the relevance of family- and peer-related experiences in the development of ER strategies, a subject that requires additional research.
In terms of measurement invariance, our findings provide evidence for biological sex and psychiatric treatment history equivalence across groups. This suggests that the ability of the ERQ-CA to measure CR and ES strategies in secondary students remains stable regardless of the student's biological sex or psychiatric treatment history. Requirements for equivalence across groups were not met when testing for full scalar invariance across male and female groups. Therefore, we tested a partial scalar invariance model where constraints were freed for two items for each grouping variable. Noticeably, the two less invariant items belonged to the CR subscale. Similar results have also been reported in past studies, where only metric or partial invariance levels have been confirmed when assessing between male and female participants on the two-factor model (Ling et al., 2019; Pinto et al., 2021). At least two explanations can be preliminary offered for this: First, measurement of reappraisal strategies may be moderated by specific variability associated with the participants’ biological sex or with sample attributes such as socioeconomic status, ethnicity or culture (Rogier et al., 2019). Second, both particularly non-invariant items (item 1 and item 5) may be measuring domain-specific attributes that are not always shared by males and females when expressing reappraisal strategies or might be based on specific contexts. Overall, this can be difficult to ascertain as these studies have focused on fairly different samples, assessing either adults ranging from 18 to 65 (Pinto et al., 2021) or Chinese students ranging from 11 to 16 years-old (Ling et al., 2019), whereas our sample focused on secondary students from Chile. On the other hand, some studies have been able to confirm full biological sex invariance on Chinese students aged 7 to 13 (Gong et al., 2021) and students from the United States with a mean age of 12.2 years-old (Ng et al., 2017). In this context, findings regarding the understanding of differences in measurement between male and female participants have been inconclusive.
Concerning the differences between males and females, we found a higher use of CR strategies in males and ES strategies in females. This contrasts with prior studies reporting no gender differences (Ling et al., 2019; Ng et al., 2017; Pastor et al., 2019) a greater use of CR and a decreased use of ES in females (Alonso & Prieto, 2021; Balzarotti et al., 2010; Gross & John, 2003; Martín-Albo et al., 2018; Rogier et al., 2019; Teixeira et al., 2015). Our finding might reflect that girls are often socializated to consider that their emotions can affect others, and discouraged to express socially disengaging negative emotions such as anger or frustration (Gross & Cassidi, 2019). Additionally, Rogier et al. (2019), suggested a reciprocal influence between the usage of culturally deviant regulatory strategies and the maintenance of psychopathological symptoms could be relevant. For instance, we found that the higher use of ES in girls was associated with the higher levels of depressive symptoms and suicidal ideation and the poorer psychosocial functioning. Further research addressing the interaction of contextual and cultural variables with the expression of ER strategies, and especially important, examining the difference between boys and girls, through longitudinal design is needed.
Regarding psychiatric treatment history group equivalence, evidence on the differences in ER expression between clinical and non-clinical samples has been limited to specific groups experiencing or not certain psychotic symptomatology (Chapman et al., 2020), dysregulatory strategies in suicidal adolescents (Turton et al., 2021) or gambling disorder (Rogier et al., 2021). While this study did not focus on a clinical sample, individuals who reported being on a psychiatric treatment either past or current, could provide valuable preliminary evidence regarding clinical populations. Further research is required before drawing meaningful conclusions.
Some limitations must be discussed. First, because of our cross-sectional design, we cannot assess for temporal stability of the ER strategies. Second, we recruited participants from public schools, so secondary students from higher socioeconomic status backgrounds -which usually attend private schools- could be underrepresented. Furthermore, regarding the measure, researchers must keep in mind that the ERQ-CA focuses on the assessment of ER strategies through two main dimensions. While this measure has proven to be a valid and reliable tool to approach assessment of regulatory strategies, it only provides a limited understanding of the multidimensional nature of ER (te Brinke et al., 2020).
In conclusion, the evidence provided by this study in terms of the psychometric properties of the measure supports that the ERQ-CA is a valid and reliable two-factor questionnaire for the assessment of adaptive and avoidant ER strategies in Chilean adolescents from the general population, standing as a highly valuable tool for researchers and clinicians.