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J Psychopathol Behav Assess (2010) 32:301314 DOI 10.1007/s10862-009-9154-0
The Emotion Regulation Index for Children and Adolescents (ERICA): A Psychometric Investigation
Sen T. MacDermott & Eleonora Gullone &
J. Sabura Allen & Neville J. King & Bruce Tonge
Published online: 8 August 2009# Springer Science + Business Media, LLC 2009
Abstract There is increased recognition of the importance of children learning how to regulate emotions in a functional and adaptive manner for healthy psychological development. However, there is a paucity of tools for assessing emotion regulation during the middle childhood and adolescent years. This study reports on the psychometric evaluation of the 16-item self-report Emotion Regulation Index for Children and Adolescents (ERICA) involving a sample of 1,389 (768 girls, 621 boys) Australian children and adolescents aged 9 to 16 years. Convergent validity for the ERICA is reported with measures of self-conscious emotions (shame, guilt), empathy, childhood depressive symptomatology, and the perceived parenting dimensions of Care and Overprotection. Construct validity assessment using Principal Components Analysis and Confirmatory Factor Analysis yielded three factors: (1) Emotional Control, (2) Emotional Self-Awareness, and (3) Situational Responsiveness. The ERICA was also found to have good internal consistency and to be relatively stable over a four week test-retest period and to be sensitive to age and sex differences. It is concluded that the ERICA is a psychometrically sound measure for the assessment of the identified key aspects of emotion regulation in children and adolescents.
Keywords Assessment . Emotion regulation . Childhood . Adolescence . Psychometrics
Over the past two decades, there has been an increased recognition of the importance for childrens healthy psychological development, of learning how to regulate emotions in a functional and adaptive manner (Cole et al. 1994; Morris et al. 2007; Southam-Gerow and Kendall 2002). The importance of functional emotion regulation for the etiology, expression, and course of psychological disorders is also well recognized (Southam-Gerow and Kendall 2002). Indeed, poor regulation of emotions is implicated in more than half of the Axis 1 disorders included in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders and all of the Axis II disorders (Gross and Levenson 1997).
There is general agreement that emotion regulation (ER) incorporates the ability to access a range of emotions and to modulate or control (reduce or increase)...