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

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Abstract

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.

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We are sorry that we cannot publicly share the data at present, for we are writing another manuscript with this data. We will share our data once we finish our another manuscript.

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Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank all the participants in this research sincerely.

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Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant number 31871112.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Brain, Cognition and Education Sciences, Ministry of Education, China; School of Psychology, Center for Studies of Psychological Application, and Guangdong Key Laboratory of Mental Health and Cognitive Science, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, 510631, China

    Jingwei Wang, Qian Liu, Zixuan Ge, Feng Li, Jinyu Liu & Mingtian Zhong

  2. Medical Psychological Research Center, Second Xiangya Hospital, Central South University, Changsha, 410011, China

    Xingwei Luo, Wanrong Peng & Zhaoxia Liu

  3. Medical Psychological Institute, Central South University, Changsha, 410011, China

    Xingwei Luo, Wanrong Peng & Zhaoxia Liu

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  1. Jingwei Wang
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Wang, J., Luo, X., Liu, Q. et al. Factorial invariance of the cognitive emotion regulation questionnaire across gender in Chinese college students. Curr Psychol 42, 9879–9889 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-021-02291-5

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