Abstract
Emotional expressiveness, which refers to the extent to which people outwardly display their emotions, is associated with various indices of well-being. This study presents findings on the Measure of Verbally Expressed Emotion (MoVEE), an instrument designed to assess comfort expressing both positive and negative emotions to others. A series of studies is described in this paper: 1) pilot study which included 60 undergraduates (69.4 % female) from a small college, 2) exploratory factor analytic study which included 835 undergraduates (68 % female) from a large university, and 3) confirmatory factor analytic and validity study which included 449 undergraduates (73.3 % female). The initial MoVEE included 57 items assessing comfort expressing seven emotional states; the final MoVEE, supported by both an EFA and a CFA, is a 19-item measure assessing comfort expressing love, happiness, anger, and sadness. Analyses suggest that the MoVEE is a valid measure that may be a useful tool in clinical settings.
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Notes
It should be noted that the construct of emotional expressiveness examined in this study is very different than the construct of expressed emotion (EE) that has been of interest in relation to the development and maintenance of schizophrenia and other mental disorders. Expressed emotion refers to the levels of hostility and criticism expressed within a family in which a member suffers from a severe mental illness (Dinemans et al. 2002).
At this phase, two additional items were deleted (one assessing comfort expressing fear, one assessing comfort expressing happiness) due to results of preliminary, exploratory reliability analyses, leaving 43 items on the scale.
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Acknowledgments
Funding for the data collected in Study 2 was provided by NIH Grant 5 SC1 MH 091873 (Miranda).
Thank you to Jenessa Cavallo and Laura Hackimer for their important work in the pilot phase of the study.
Conflict of Interest
Colleen Jacobson, Ryan M. Hill, Jeremy W. Pettit, and Regina Miranda declare that they have no conflict of interest to disclose.
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For each study included in this manuscript, all ethical guidelines for research with human subjects were followed.
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Jacobson, C., Hill, R.M., Pettit, J.W. et al. The Measure of Verbally Expressed Emotion: Development and Factor Structure of a Scale Designed to Assess Comfort Expressing Feelings to Others. J Psychopathol Behav Assess 37, 358–369 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10862-014-9463-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10862-014-9463-9