The Evaluation of a Process Model Questionnaire for the Measurement of Emotion Regulation Processes in Middle Childhood

The capacity to regulate emotion in adaptive ways is associated with more positive outcomes across academic, social, and emotional functioning, yet significant limitations exist in the measurement of emotion regulation in childhood. Existing measures of emotion regulation developed for children only capture a limited number of emotion regulation processes; few measures integrate an empirically supported theoretical model of emotion regulation in the structure of the measure. The goal of the present study was to validate a comprehensive, theoretically informed self-report measure of emotion regulation processes for school age children, the Emotion Regulation Process Scale for Children (ERPS-C). The psychometric properties of this new measure were examined based on scores from a sample of 308 third- and fourth-grade children recruited from several elementary schools. Participants completed the ERPS-C in addition to existing self- and parent-report measures of emotion regulation and existing measures of coping skills, internalizing distress, positive/negative emotions, and peer relations. Confirmatory factor analysis indicated support for a nine-factor, 39-item measure. Supplemental analyses revealed expected relationships between participant scores on the ERPS-C and scores on existing measures of emotion regulation and socioemotional functioning, confirming its convergent validity. The ERPS-C also displayed measurement invariance over two time points and several subscales of the measure at Time 1 uniquely predicted socioemotional outcomes at Time 2. The present study demonstrates some reliability and validity in the ERPS-C and suggests further exploration and refinement of the measure may help it be a valuable tool for assessing emotion regulation processes in children.