Assessment of two emotional regulation processes: Expressive suppression and cognitive reevaluation

The main purposes of this study were first to validate a French version of the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire [ Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 85 2003 348-362], and second to access whether there are some interindividual differences on emotion regulation ( sex and anxiety profile differences). A sample of 591 male and female adults completed a French translation of the ERQ, the Positive and Negative Affective Schedule, and the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory. In the same way as in the original version, explanatory and confirmatory factor analyses showed that a two-factor model explained the data collected with the French version. Internal reliability scores (Cronbach's alpha) were 0.76 for the cognitive reappraisal and 0.72 for the expressive suppression. In addition, the findings confirmed that men used more suppression than did women. For anxiety, high suppression and low reappraisal was related to trait-anxiety. Studying these two emotion regulation strategies have a strong interest for several domains such as health, work or education. (C) 2008 Elsevier Masson SAS.