Emotion Regulation Skills Questionnaire (ERSQ)

Abstract

The Emotion-Regulation Skills Questionnaire (ERSQ) is a comprehensive, self-report psychological scale designed to assess an individual’s perceived competence across various dimensions of emotional management. Developed primarily by Berking and colleagues, the ERSQ moves beyond simple measures of emotional distress to evaluate specific skills—such as awareness, clarity, acceptance, and modification—that are crucial for psychological adjustment and well-being. It is frequently employed in clinical research to identify specific deficits in emotion regulation and to measure therapeutic outcomes, demonstrating its utility as a prognostic and diagnostic tool, particularly in conditions like Major Depressive Disorder and Alcohol Dependence.

Keywords

Emotion regulation, ERSQ, emotional competence, self-report, psychological assessment, clinical psychology, acceptance, emotional awareness, affect modulation.

Authors

Matthias Berking, P. Wupperman, H. Znoj, Ulrich Orth, A. Reichardt, T. Pejic, A. Dippel, David Ebert, M. Margraf, Klaus Junghannsb, S. G. Hofmann.

Purpose

The primary purpose of the ERSQ is to provide a standardized, quantitative measure of an individual’s current capacity for effective emotion regulation. Unlike measures that focus solely on maladaptive strategies (e.g., suppression), the ERSQ assesses adaptive, functional skills that individuals utilize in their daily lives to handle emotional challenges.

The instrument is designed to facilitate both clinical diagnosis and treatment planning by pinpointing specific skill deficits that can be addressed through interventions, such as Emotion Regulation Skills Training (ERST). Researchers also use the ERSQ to study the prospective effects of emotional competence on various psychological outcomes, including overall emotional adjustment and resilience against psychopathology.

Construct

The ERSQ measures the complex, multi-dimensional construct of emotional competence, focusing on the individual’s ability to engage with, understand, tolerate, and modify their emotional states. The scale is typically structured around nine distinct skill factors, which map onto different stages of the emotional process:

• Awareness (AW): The ability to consciously pay attention to and focus on feelings.
• Sensation (SE): Having a clear physical perception of emotional states.
• Clarity (CL): Knowing precisely what emotions one is experiencing in the moment.
• Understanding (UN): Being aware of the meaning and cause of one’s emotional reactions.
• Acceptance (AC): The willingness to accept negative feelings without immediately trying to suppress or fight them.
• Resilience (RES): The certainty that one can tolerate even intense negative feelings.
• Compassionate Self-Support (SESU): Actively reassuring and supporting oneself during distressing situations.
• Readiness to Confront (R to C): The willingness to pursue goals despite anticipating or facing aversive emotions.
• Modification (MOD): The ability to influence or manage negative feelings and consciously bring about positive ones.

Validity

Research supports the strong validity of the ERSQ. Studies have demonstrated robust construct validity, showing that the scale’s factors align theoretically with established models of emotion regulation. Concurrent validity is evidenced by significant correlations between ERSQ scores and measures of psychological distress, anxiety, and depression.

Furthermore, the ERSQ exhibits high predictive validity. Low scores on ERSQ skills have been shown to predict poorer outcomes in treatment for various disorders. For instance, deficits in emotion regulation skills were found to predict increased alcohol use during and after Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) for alcohol dependence. Conversely, improvements in ERSQ scores often mediate improvements in symptoms related to Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) following specialized skills training.

Reliability

The ERSQ demonstrates excellent internal consistency across its subscales, indicating high reliability. In validation studies, including those conducted internationally, the Cronbach’s alpha coefficients for the total scale and its individual skill factors typically fall within the acceptable to excellent range (e.g., .70 to .90), confirming that the items within each subscale reliably measure the same underlying construct.

The scale has also shown good test-retest reliability, suggesting that the self-reported levels of emotion regulation skills remain stable over reasonable periods in the absence of therapeutic intervention. This stability makes the ERSQ a reliable instrument for tracking changes specifically due to treatment effects.

Factor Analysis

Initial development and subsequent structural analyses of the ERSQ (and its earlier version, SEK-27) utilized confirmatory and exploratory factor analysis to establish its multi-dimensional structure. These analyses generally confirm the existence of the nine distinct, yet correlated, skill factors (AW, SE, CL, UN, AC, RES, SESU, R to C, and MOD).

While the specific clustering of these factors can vary slightly across different cultural populations, the core model proposed by Berking and colleagues—which separates skills related to awareness/understanding from those related to modification/tolerance—is consistently supported. This factor structure allows clinicians and researchers to assess specific areas of strength and weakness rather than relying solely on a single global score of emotional competence.

Instrument

Test Type: Self-report Questionnaire

Format: 27 items, rated on a 5-point Likert scale.

Language Available: German (Original), English, Persian (among others).

Population Group: Clinical and Non-clinical populations.

Age Group: Adolescents and Adults.

Population Details: Has been widely validated in university students, general population samples, and clinical samples including those undergoing treatment for depression, anxiety, and substance use disorders.

Test Methodology: Respondents rate the frequency with which they utilized or experienced the described skill or behavior “In the last week…” using the following response options: 0 (not at all), 1 (rarely), 2 (sometimes), 3 (often), 4 (almost always).

Keywords

Emotional competence, psychological adjustment, coping skills, self-regulation, affect regulation, clinical assessment, psychotherapy outcome measure.

Authors

Author ORCID Identifier: N/A (Information not provided in source content)

Affiliation Email addresses: N/A (Information not provided in source content)

Correspondence Address: N/A (Information not provided in source content)

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The core validation and development of the ERSQ were published in 2008 by Berking and colleagues. Specific information regarding current usage fees or permissions for commercial use should be sought directly from the primary author, Matthias Berking. The instrument is often made available for academic research purposes.

Reference’s

• Berking, M., Wupperman, P., Orth, Ulrich., et al. (2008). Prospective Effects of Emotion-Regulation Skills on Emotional Adjustment. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 55(4): 485-494.
• Berking, M., Znoj, H. (2008). Entwicklung und Validierung eines Fragebogens zur standardisierten Selbsteinschätzung emotionaler Kompetenzen (SEK-27) Zeitschrift für Psychiatrie, Psychologie und Psychotherapie, 56:141–152.
• Berking, M., Wupperman, P., Reichardt A, Pejic, T., Dippel, A., Znoj, H. (2008). Emotion-regulation skills as a treatment target in psychotherapy. Behav Res Ther, 46(11):1230-7.
• Berking, M., Ebert, David., Margraf, M., Wupperman, P., Junghannsb, Klaus., Hofmann, S G. (2011). Deficits in Emotion-Regulation Skills Predict Alcohol Use During and After Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Alcohol Dependence. J Consult Clin Psychol. 79(3): 307–318.
• Berking, M., Ebert, David., Cuijpers, Pim., Hofmann, S G. (2013). Emotion Regulation Skills Training Enhances the Efficacy of Inpatient Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Major Depressive Disorder: A Randomized Controlled Trial. Psychother Psychosom, 82:234–245
• Mohammadi, Reza., Bahari, Zahra., Robat Meeli, Somaye., Seyed Ahmadian, Seyed Mohammadreza., Karimi, Roohollah. (2015). Reliability, Validity, and Normalization of Berking’s Emotion- Regulation Skills Questionnaire in the Students of Police University. Journal of Police Medicine, 4(2): 105-112

The instrument details and items can be found in academic literature, including this resource: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3109184/. The original PDF can be downloaded here: https://library.cn.edu/HonorsPDFs_2009/Denial_Lydia.pdf.

Items of the Emotion-Regulation Skills Questionnaire (ERSQ)

IMPORTANT: The following scale items must be preserved in their original language and must not be changed in any way.

In the last week …

1. I was able to consciously pay attention to my feelings.
2. I could consciously bring about positive feelings.
3. I understood my emotional reactions.
4. I could endure my negative feelings.
5. I was able to accept my negative feelings.
6. I could have labelled my feelings.
7. I had a clear physical perception of my feelings.
8. I did what I wanted to do‚ even if I had to face negative feelings on the way.
9. I tried to reassure myself during distressing situations.
10. I was able to influence my negative feelings.
11. I knew what my feelings meant.
12. I could focus on my negative emotions if necessary.
13. I knew what emotions I was feeling in the moment.
14. I consciously noticed when my body reacted towards emotionally ch‎arged situations in a particular way.
15. I tried to cheer myself up in emotionally distressing situations.
16. I did what I intended to do despite my negative feelings.
17. I was OK with my feelings‚ even if they were negative.
18. I was certain that I would be able to tolerate even intense negative feelings.
19. I was able to experience my feelings consciously.
20. I was aware of why I felt the way I felt.
21. I knew that I was able to influence my feelings.
22. I pursued goals that were important to me‚ even if I thought that doing so would trigger or intensify negative feelings.
23. I was able to experience my negative feelings without immediately trying to fight them off.
24. my physical sensations were a good indication of how I was feeling.
25. I was clear about what emotions I was experiencing.
26. I could tolerate my negative feelings.
27. I supported myself in emotionally distressing situations.

Scoring is based on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 0 (not at all) to 4 (almost always), with intermediate points being rarely, sometimes, and often.

The subscales measured by these items are: AW = awareness; SE = sensation; CL = clarity; UN = understanding; AC = acceptance; RES = resilience; SESU = compassionate self-support; R to C = readiness to confront (situations that cue aversive emotions); MOD = modification of negative emotions, tolerance.