Chinese version of Emotional Regulation Questionnaire

In 2007, the 2-dimensional and 6-question simplified version revised by Wang Li's team was adapted to rapid screening and clinical baseline evaluation of the general population, and in 2017, the 8-dimensional and 34-question complete version was extended by Liu Qigang's team for in-depth research and intervention effect tracking. The reliability and validity of both versions have been verified by many groups in China, and it is the most frequently used localized measurement tool for emotional regulation.

The last time I went to a local middle school to do psychological screening for junior three students before the exam, I first looked for the original ERQ scale of Gross, and the translated expression was too blunt. For example, the students couldn't understand the literal translation of "expression inhibition". It took a long time to find the short version revised by Professor Wang Li, and the students could fill out the six questions in an average of 2 minutes. Finally, the three children who were screened out were very low in cognitive re-evaluation and got full marks in expression inhibition, so they were all bored in the follow-up interviews.

At that time, I specially reviewed the revised original text in 2007. This version was tested for reliability and validity among more than 1,200 ordinary college students and 270 patients with clinical emotional disorders. Cronbach's α coefficients in both dimensions were above 0.72, which was very reliable in the short scale. I sorted out the original items and scoring rules into a table, so I can use it directly for quick evaluation at ordinary times:

Table 1 Items and Scoring Rules of Chinese Version of Emotional Regulation Questionnaire (2007 Simplified Version)

|------------|----------|--------------------------------------------------------------------------|----------------|

However, not everyone buys this short version of the account. I talked to Dr. Zhang, who is doing child psychology in the Jingwei Center. She said that this short version is too rough. When children with ADHD or emotional disorders are encountered, they can't be measured at all. The commonly used strategies of venting, avoiding and ruminating, so we will change to the expanded version in 2017 when we do the pre-and post-test evaluation of in-depth cases. The eight dimensions cover cognitive reappraisal, expression inhibition, venting, avoidance, rumination, acceptance, rationalization and relaxation. Although it takes about 10 minutes to fill in the 34 questions, it can thoroughly understand the emotional adjustment habits of visitors. Last time, a visitor scored almost full marks in rumination dimension before intervention, but it dropped by half after three months of intervention, and the cognitive reappraisal score rose by 4 points. The intervention effect can be seen without interviews.

Consultants from different schools have quite different views on this scale. Teacher Li, who is an acceptance commitment therapy (ACT), told me before that both the simplified version and the expanded version, the underlying logic is the idea of Gross's "emotional regulation is to control emotions", and he did not put the mainstream positive regulation strategies of mindfulness and acceptance in the right place. He also made a small-scale revision and added three questions related to mindfulness, and the measured results and five factors of mindfulness.

There is also an interesting academic controversy. A team doing cross-cultural research in China published a paper two years ago, saying that our Chinese's "expression inhibition" is not the same as that of westerners: in western culture, expression inhibition is regarded as an unhealthy defense mechanism, and high scores are often positively related to anxiety and depression, but we have been taught from an early age to "be invisible" and "don't cause trouble to others". Moderate expression inhibition is positively related to the scores of colleague relationship and parent-child relationship. Oh, by the way, I met a friend who was doing EHR before. When their company gave psychological evaluation to employees, they stepped on this pit and dragged the top 10% employees to do emotional management training. As a result, many people reported that they didn't have any problems at ordinary times, but they just didn't like to hang their emotions on their faces, which made a big mistake. Later, they changed the national norm in 2023 and divided them into three groups: teenagers, adults and the elderly

The biggest pit I stepped on myself was to use this simplified version for children in the fourth grade of primary school two years ago. Many children couldn't understand the written expression of "changing their views on the situation", and the results were in a mess. Later, we changed the topic to something that children could understand, such as "I will think of it from another angle when I encounter unhappy things", and the accuracy rate came up at once. However, if I do formal academic research, I still can't change the topic casually.

Finally, a word of caution: Don't use the "emotional adjustment test" searched on the Internet casually. In order to gain eyeballs and give conclusions, if it is really to be used for evaluation or research, you have to go to HowNet to find the original revised literature, which contains formal scoring methods and norms, which is much more reliable. In fact, no matter which version is used, it is only a reference tool in essence. There is no absolute good or bad emotion regulation strategy, so it is enough to adapt to your own life scene.