Original Article An Italian Adaptation of the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire Stefania Balzarotti 1 , Oliver P. John 2 , and James J. Gross 3 1 Laboratory of Communication Psychology, Catholic University, Milan, 2 Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA, 3 Department of Psychology, Stanford University, CA, USA Abstract. The goal of this research was to develop and validate an Italian version of the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ, Gross & John, 2003). In an Italian undergraduate sample (N = 416), the two-scale ERQ structure was confirmed by confirmatory factor analysis, and each of the two scales (Reappraisal and Suppression) showed good internal consistency. The Italian ERQ also showed the predicted associations with measures of coping, affect, personality, and social functioning. Specifically, Reappraisal was positively correlated with positive reinterpretation, positive affect, and extraversion, and negatively correlated with negative affect and neuroticism. Suppression, by contrast, was negatively correlated with the venting of emotions, positive affect, extraversion, social support and social diversion. Taken together, these findings suggest that the Italian ERQ is a reliable and valid measure that inherits the nomological network of associations from the original version of the ERQ. Keywords: emotion regulation, reappraisal, suppression, Italian Introduction In the past two decades, there has been a dramatic increase in research on emotion regulation. This research has solid- ified our understanding that effective emotion regulation is crucial for diverse aspects of healthy adaptation ranging from affective functioning to social relations (Gross, 2001, 2007). Two emotion regulation strategies that have re- ceived particular attention are cognitive reappraisal (which consists of attempts to think about the situation so as to alter its meaning and emotional impact) and expressive suppres- sion (which consists of attempts to inhibit or reduce ongo- ing emotion-expressive behavior) (Gross, 1998). Based on an analysis of how emotions unfold over time, it has been argued that reappraisal and suppression have their primary impact at different points of the emo- tion-generative process (Gross, 2001; Gross & John, 2003). Specifically, reappraisal is an antecedent-focused strategy that acts before the complete activation of emo- tion response tendencies has taken place. It thus might be expected to modify the entire temporal course of the emotional response. Suppression is a response-focused strategy that intervenes once an emotion is already under way and after the response tendencies have already been fully generated. It thus might be expected to require re- peated efforts to manage emotional responses as they continually arise, taxing the individual’s resources. This fundamental difference between reappraisal and sup- pression leads to the prediction that the two strategies should differ in their implications for multiple domains of psycho- logical functioning, such as affect, cognition, and social in- teraction (for a review, see Gross, 2001; Gross & John, 2003). Consistent with this theoretical prediction, experimental findings showed that reappraisal leads to decreases in both behavioral and subjective signs of negative emotion, with no adverse consequences for either memory or emotional re- sponsiveness in social interactions. By contrast, suppression leads to decreases in behavioral responses, but has no impact on the experience of negative emotion and leads to increased sympathetic activation of the cardiovascular and electroder- mal physiological systems. Suppression also leads to other side effects such as impaired verbal memory and diminished responsiveness to social partners. Taken together, these find- ings suggest that reappraisal generally has more favorable consequences than suppression (Gross, 1998, 2001). To enable the study of individual differences in reap- praisal and suppression, Gross and John (2003) devel- oped the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ), which consists of two scales to measure reappraisal and suppression use. Confirmatory factor analyses identified this underlying two-factorial structure (Gross & John, 2003, Study 1); confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) also showed that – among the different models tested – the best fit was provided by an independence model, indicat- ing that “reappraisal and suppression are two independ- ent regulatory strategies that different individuals use to varying degrees” (John & Gross, 2004, p. 1312). Studies employing the ERQ have shown that individ- ual differences in emotion regulation are associated with differences in conceptually related measures of coping DOI 10.1027/1015-5759/a000009 © 2010 Hogrefe Publishing European Journal of Psychological Assessment 2010; Vol. 26(1):61–67