Interpersonal emotion regulation questionnaire: psychometric properties of the Italian version and associations with psychopathology

Abstract

The emerging field of interpersonal emotion regulation (IER) is drawing attention to forms of emotion regulation which involve communication and social interaction as part of the regulation process. The availability of instruments to measure IER in different languages represents significant promise for future work in this field. The goal of the present study was to validate an Italian adaptation of a self-report instrument for the assessment of IER, the Interpersonal Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (IERQ; Hofmann et al., 2016). In an Italian sample (N=448), exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses confirmed the original structure comprising four factors (Enhancing Positive Affect, Perspective Taking, Soothing and Social Modelling). Correlations with other measures of emotion regulation showed good convergent validity of the questionnaire.