Measures of Emotion Dysregulation: A Narrative Review

Public Significance Statement This article is a narrative literature review on measures of emotion dysregulation that include self-report, cognition, physiology, brain activation patterns, and behavior. Strengths and disadvantages of each approach are discussed in the context of both research and clinical use. General limitations of the field of researching emotion dysregulation and future directions for research are identified. Emotion dysregulation is conceptualized to be at the core of multiple psychopathological conditions and has gained a lot of attention as a construct in both research and clinical settings. Measuring emotion dysregulation proves to be difficult due to inconsistencies in the literature about the definition of emotion and emotion dysregulation. Likewise, there are no comprehensive reviews on what measures can be used to capture specific facets of emotion dysregulation. This narrative review aims to address these issues. A literature review of measures that fall under five major categories (self-report, cognitive, physiological, brain activity, and behavioral measures) was conducted. We demonstrate how these measures have been utilized in past clinical and research applications while discussing their benefits and pitfalls. We also discuss how some measures are intrinsically linked to specific emotion theories that should be considered when interpreting findings. Thus, this article provides a guide for practicing clinicians and researchers assessing emotion dysregulation in their settings as to which measures may be best suited for their needs. Finally, after summarizing our findings, we provide future directions for the field.