Factorial invariance of the cognitive emotion regulation questionnaire across gender in Chinese college students

The cognitive emotion regulation questionnaire (CERQ) is widely used to measure personal cognitive emotion regulation strategies. This study was aimed to validate the factorial invariance of CERQ across gender and reexamine its psychometric properties. A total of 4572 Chinese college students (50.09% female; age: M = 18.62, SD = 0.97) completed the CERQ and other psychological scales. The factorial invariance of CERQ across gender was conducted by multi-group confirmatory factor analysis. The Cronbach’s alpha coefficients, Omega coefficients and mean inter-item correlation coefficients (MIC) were used to examine the internal consistency reliability, and multiple regression analysis was performed to examine the criterion validity of CERQ. The results showed that nine-factor model of CERQ fit the data reasonably in the total sample and in each gender group, the configural, metric, scalar and strict equivalence of CERQ across gender were all acceptable, and there were significant gender differences in most factors’ latent means except Refocusing on planning, which was generally in line with the observed gender differences. Moreover, the internal consistency reliability and criterion validity of CERQ were both well evidenced. Overall, the nine-factor structure of CERQ was invariant across gender and there were gender differences in cognitive emotion regulation.