Identification and Evaluation of Cognitive Affect-Regulation Strategies: Development of a Self-Report Measure

Abstract

The ability to regulate emotions is important to mental health and well-being. However, relatively little is known about the cognitive strategies people use when faced with negative affect and the extent to which these strategies reduce such affect. This may be due, in part, to the lack of a comprehensive measure of cognitive affectregulation strategies. Three studies were conducted to develop a broad-based selfreport inventory of 15 specific strategies, called the Inventory of Cognitive Affect Regulation Strategies (ICARUS). This instrument assesses strategies that are oriented toward avoidance of the feelings (e.g., mental disengagement, thoughts of suicide) or diverting attention (e.g., self-criticism/self-blame, blaming others), as well as strategies that are oriented toward approach or engagement (e.g., reframing and growth, acceptance, mindful observation). Results provide preliminary support for the internal consistency, test-retest reliability, and convergent validity of the measure.

The Assessment of Emotion Regulation in Cognitive Context: The Emotion Amplification and Reduction Scales

“…The relationship between TEARS and indices of emotional health were small to moderate in magnitude, smaller than have been observed with other measures of emotion regulation (Catanzaro and Mearns 1990;Kamholz et al 2006;Roger and Najarian 1989;Salovey et al 1995). It is important to note, however, that unlike other measures, TEARS items are relatively free from reference to dysregulated emotion, processes known to produce dysregulated emotion (e.g., catastrophizing), or positive emotionality.…”

“…For instance, emotion regulation has been measured in terms of efficacy for negative mood reduction (Catanzaro and Mearns 1990) and for meta-cognitive beliefs about changing negative emotions (Salovey et al 1995). Most recently, two different measures have focused on cognitive strategies to improve a bad mood (Kamholz et al 2006) and strategies to manage emotions aroused by a stressful or negative event (Garnefski and Kraaij 2006). The latter measure expands upon a literature in which emotion regulation is measured in the context of stressful transactions (e.g., Carver et al 1989;Folkman and Lazarus 1988).…”

“…Many of these measures are quite lengthy (e.g., Kamholz et al 2006;Roger and Najarian 1989) or cumbersome to use (Thayer et al 1994). Yet other measures are designed to focus exclusively on situation specific (stress-related) emotion regulation (Carver et al 1989;Folkman and Lazarus 1988;Garnefski and Kraaij 2006), to tap discrete strategies for emotion regulation such as rumination and distraction (Nolen-Hoeksema et al 1990), or to control unwanted thoughts (Wells and Davies 1994).…”

“…More importantly, however, some measures use items that overlap with other constructs that are related to, but distinct from, emotion regulation. For instance, a number of popular measures include items tapping cognitive processes that are indicative of emotional dysregulation such as catastrophic thinking (Catanzaro and Mearns 1990), self-blame or suicidal ideation (Kamholz et al 2006), behavioral indications of dysregulation such as aggression, and also dysregulated emotional states such as irritability (e.g., Roger and Najarian 1989). Moreover, several of these scales appear to be composed of more items that measure emotional dysregulation than items that measure regulation (e.g., Roger and Najarian 1989).…”

Rumination in Clinical Depression: A Type of Emotional Suppression?

“…In contrast to early studies of rumination that focused on the process as a trait-like response style (e.g., NolenHoeksema 2000), recent research has examined the use of rumination as a maladaptive cognitive emotion-regulation strategy associated with the experience of depression (e.g., Garnefski and Kraaj 2007;Garnefski et al 2004;Kamholz et al 2006). As such, depressed individuals may utilize rumination in an attempt to regulate their frequent experience of negative emotion.…”