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Interpersonal Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (IERQ): Scale Development and Psychometric Characteristics

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Abstract

Despite the popularity of emotion regulation in the contemporary literature, research has almost exclusively focused on intrapersonal processes, whereas much less attention has been placed on interpersonal emotion regulation processes. In order to encourage research on interpersonal emotion regulation, we present a series of four studies to develop the Interpersonal Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (IERQ). The final scale consists of 20 items with 4 factors containing five items each. The four factors are: Enhancing Positive Affect; Perspective Taking; Soothing; and Social Modeling. The scale shows excellent psychometric characteristics. Implications for future research are discussed.

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Acknowledgments

Dr. Hofmann is supported by NIMH Grant R01AT007257.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Boston University, 648 Beacon St., 6th Floor, Boston, MA, 02215, USA

    Stefan G. Hofmann, Joseph K. Carpenter & Joshua Curtiss

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  1. Stefan G. Hofmann
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  2. Joseph K. Carpenter
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  3. Joshua Curtiss
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Correspondence to Stefan G. Hofmann.

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Conflict of Interest

Dr. Hofmann receives royalties from multiple book publishers and from Springer publications for his work as Editor of Cognitive Therapy and Research and from the American Psychological Association for his work as Associate Editor of the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology. He receives compensation from Otsuka America Pharmaceutical, Inc. for his work as a member on the Medical Advisory Board and from Palo Alto Health Science for his work as a member of the Scientific Advisory Board. Dr. Hofmann also receives support from NIH/NCCIH (R01AT007257), NIH/NIMH (R01MH099021, R34MH099311, R34MH086668, R21MH102646, R21MH101567, K23MH100259), and the Department of the Army for work unrelated to the studies reported in this article. The sponsor (NIH) had no role in the design and conduct of the study, in the collection, management, analysis, and interpretation of the data, or in the preparation, review, or approval of the manuscript. Joshua Curtiss and Joseph Carpenter report no conflict of interest.

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All procedures were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (national and institutional). Informed consent was obtained from all individual subjects participating in the study.

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No animal studies were carried out by the authors for this article.

Appendix

Appendix

See Table 5.

Table 5 Interpersonal emotion regulation questionnaire (IERQ) items and scoring
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Hofmann, S.G., Carpenter, J.K. & Curtiss, J. Interpersonal Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (IERQ): Scale Development and Psychometric Characteristics. Cogn Ther Res 40, 341–356 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10608-016-9756-2

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