emotion regulation assessment scale

Currently, mainstream emotion regulation assessment scales can be divided into two categories: general-purpose and scenario-specific. The core function is to quantify the preference and ability level of individual emotion regulation strategies, and provide an objective basis for clinical intervention, personal growth, workplace adaptation and other scenarios. There is no "single optimal scale", and the core criterion for selection is to match the usage scenario and assessment goals.

When I worked as an intern assistant at a university psychological center two years ago, I met a sophomore girl who ran in crying holding her cell phone. She said that she had taken an "emotional regulation ability test" online, and the result showed "severe adjustment disorder, with a high probability of depression." She was so scared that she couldn't sleep all night. Later, we gave her the localized-corrected Gross Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ), combined with semi-structured interviews, and found that she was just used to using the "expressive suppression" strategy and was not used to complaining about negative emotions to her roommates. It just happened that the pressure during the final week reached a critical point, and it was not a "severe disorder" at all.

Speaking of which, the ERQ should be the most widely used general scale in academic and practical circles. The entire scale only has 10 questions and takes less than five minutes to complete. The core is to divide emotion regulation strategies into two dimensions: "cognitive reappraisal" and "expressive suppression", which can quickly find out a person's daily habits of regulating emotions. However, this scale is not without controversy. Scholars with a constructivist orientation always complain that its categories are too rough. For example, the commonly used words "take a step back" and "empathize with others" commonly used by Chinese people are not exactly the "cognitive reappraisal" defined in the scale. If used rigidly, it is easy to lead to deviations. When I helped a community conduct psychological screening for the elderly population last year, I found that many elderly people had very low scores on the ERQ, but in real life they danced square dances, took care of their grandchildren, and had very good emotional regulation abilities. This is because the questions in the scale are designed to be more suitable for the life scenarios of young people and are not applicable to the elderly.

It is precisely because of these limitations of general-purpose scales that many special scales for specific groups and specific scenarios were gradually developed. For example, the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS), which is commonly used to evaluate teenagers, can identify children's regulatory shortcomings from six dimensions: impulse control, goal achievement, and emotional awareness. I used this when I was doing evaluations for a special training camp for teenagers. It can accurately identify which children are unable to recognize emotions and which are unable to control impulses. Subsequent group counseling is much more targeted. However, there are also problems with this scale. Its norm is based on clinical samples, which itself tends to be pathological. Many normal adolescent children have high mood swings, and it is easy to be misjudged as "difficulties in adjustment" when measured. On the contrary, it adds unnecessary psychological burden to children and parents.

There is also an emotional labor scale commonly used in workplace settings, which is specifically used to measure the frequency of "surface acting" and "deep acting" among service industry practitioners - to put it bluntly, do you pretend to be happy when you go to work or do you really adjust your mentality to make yourself happy? I used this method a few months ago when I was working on an employee psychological support project for a chain milk tea brand. After testing, I found that employees who worked at the cashier position for a week in a row generally scored 30% higher in superficial roles than those who worked in the kitchen. Later, I suggested to the store manager that the cashier and kitchen positions should be rotated once a week. Within two months, the employee turnover rate in the store dropped by nearly 10%. Don't tell me, it's really useful.

Friends often ask me for "the most accurate emotional regulation scale". In fact, there is no most accurate scale. The scale is like a ruler at home. You can use an ordinary tape measure to measure your height. You need to use a special ring ring to measure the size of a diamond ring. No ruler can fit all situations. If you are just curious about what adjustment strategies you are accustomed to using, it is perfectly fine to find a regular version of the ERQ self-assessment. If you have been feeling overwhelmed recently and can't get motivated to do anything, then don't blindly take random tests on the Internet, which will add a lot of negative labels to the test. Go to a professional consultant. They will choose an appropriate scale based on your situation, and the assessment combined with interviews will be reliable.

By the way, there is another very interesting point. Many people think that a high score on the scale means a strong ability to regulate emotions, but this is not necessarily true. I worked on a project for a week last month, and when I took the time to fill out the ERQ, my score was pretty high. But then I got angry with the rider because the delivery was ten minutes late. I realized afterwards that my adjustment resources had been exhausted a long time ago. The scale only measures your usual average level. If you encounter an extreme situation of pressure overload, it will collapse anyway. After all, the scale is just a reference tool. The real ability to regulate emotions has to be reflected in every little thing you do when you eat, sleep, and interact with people, right?