Children’s Dual Emotion Regulation Strategy Scale (CDERS)

Abstract

The Children’s Dual Emotion Regulation Strategy Scale (CDERS), developed by Wang et al. (2023), is a 24-item, scenario-based psychometric instrument designed to assess children’s perspectives on emotion regulation strategies. This measure is distinctive because it integrates both Western and East Asian cultural viewpoints, addressing a recognized limitation in existing literature that often lacks cultural and contextual sensitivity for younger populations.

The development of the CDERS was theoretically guided by the Dual Emotion Regulation (DER) model (Morris et al., 2015), which integrates features from individualistic (Western) and collectivistic (East Asian) cultural norms. The scale comprises six interpersonal conflict scenarios (covering parent–child, teacher–student, and peer conflicts), each assessing four core strategies: expression, forbearance, impulsiveness, and suppression. Validation studies were conducted on children and young adolescents in Taiwan. A subsequent Confirmatory Factor Analysis affirmed the robust four-factor structure consistent with the DER model, confirming the scale’s reliability and validity for cross-cultural assessment.

Keywords

Children’s Emotion Regulation, Dual Emotion Regulation Model, Cross-Cultural Assessment, East Asian Cultural Perspectives, Western Cultural Perspectives, Scenario-Based Measure, Expression, Forbearance, Impulsiveness, Suppression, Incremental Validity.

Authors

Wang, Li-fei, Wei, Meifen, Chang, Jen‐Ho, Chiao, Hung.

Purpose

The central objective of the CDERS is to provide a culturally inclusive measure for assessing emotion regulation strategies employed by children and adolescents. It specifically aims to move beyond measures rooted solely in Western psychological frameworks by integrating strategies, such as forbearance, that are highly valued in East Asian cultural contexts for maintaining social harmony.

By using a scenario-based approach, the scale captures how children navigate common interpersonal conflicts (involving peers, parents, and teachers) and choose between culturally salient strategies like overt expression, controlled forbearance, passive suppression, or reactive impulsiveness. This allows researchers to examine the adaptive nature of emotion regulation across diverse cultural settings.

Construct

The CDERS measures the psychological construct of Dual Emotion Regulation (DER) in children, positing that effective emotion management is deeply influenced by cultural context. The scale operationalizes four distinct strategies, derived from integrating Western and East Asian cultural norms regarding emotional display and control:

• Expression: The overt and direct display of emotions, often associated with Western individualistic cultures.
• Forbearance: The strategic and deliberate restraint of emotional display, typically to maintain social harmony or respect authority figures, a strategy prominent in East Asian collectivist cultures.
• Suppression: The internal inhibition of emotional response.
• Impulsiveness: The uncontrolled, immediate, and reactive discharge of emotion.

These four factors collectively represent the child’s repertoire of emotion management techniques when faced with challenging interpersonal conflict situations, thereby offering a more holistic view of emotion regulation competency.

Validity

The validation study provided strong evidence for the psychometric soundness of the CDERS across several dimensions of validity, demonstrating its relevance to key developmental outcomes.

Concurrent Validity: The four measured emotion regulation strategies demonstrated robust concurrent validity, collectively accounting for 18% to 20% of the variance observed in predicting key positive outcomes, specifically positive self-concept and overall life adjustment in the study population.

Predictive Validity: The scale exhibited acceptable predictive validity, explaining between 12% and 16% of the variance across six different measured outcomes, indicating its utility in forecasting future psychological states or behaviors.

Incremental Validity: Crucially, the CDERS showed significant incremental validity. It accounted for an additional 3% to 11% of the variance in predicting all specified outcomes, demonstrating that it captures unique aspects of emotion regulation not explained by existing traditional Western or East Asian measures.

Reliability

The CDERS demonstrated acceptable reliability across its subscales, ensuring consistency and stability of measurement for research purposes.

Internal Consistency: The measure achieved acceptable internal reliability, with coefficient alphas for the subscales ranging from 0.70 to 0.82. These values indicate that the items within each factor are measuring the same underlying construct consistently.

Test-Retest Reliability: The temporal stability of the scale was confirmed over a one-month retest period. The correlations for the four subscales were strong and statistically significant (p < 0.001): expression (r = 0.70), forbearance (r = 0.65), suppression (r = 0.73), and impulsiveness (r = 0.76). These coefficients confirm acceptable stability for the CDERS strategies over time.

Factor Analysis

A rigorous Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) was conducted on the 24-item scale to verify the theoretical structure proposed by the Dual Emotion Regulation (DER) model.

The analysis employed maximum likelihood estimation with robust standard errors, utilizing the Full Information Maximum Likelihood (FIML) method to manage missing data. When compared against five alternative structural models, the four-factor oblique model—which also incorporated a method effect to account for shared variance due to the scenario-based format—yielded the superior fit indices (χ2 = 701.64, df = 210, CFI = 0.93, SRMR = 0.087, RMSEA = 0.055). This result strongly supports the hypothesized four-factor structure of the CDERS, confirming its alignment with the DER theoretical framework.

Instrument

Test Type: Original psychometric scale

Format: The CDERS is a 24-item, scenario-based measure. It presents six distinct interpersonal conflict scenarios (two parent–child, two teacher–student, two peer conflict). For each scenario, respondents rate their likelihood of using four strategies (expression, forbearance, suppression, and impulsiveness) on a 5-point rating scale, ranging from 0 (never) to 4 (always).

Language Available: Chinese (Original development language). Documentation and research summaries are available in English.

Population Group: Human (Male; Female)

Age Group: Childhood (birth-12 yrs) and Adolescence (13-17 yrs). Specifically validated on children and young adolescents (4th to 9th Graders).

Population Details: The initial validation study participants were located in Taiwan, representing an East Asian cultural context.

Test Methodology: Psychometric validation procedures including Test Validity (Concurrent Validity, Predictive Validity, Incremental Validity); Test Reliability (Internal Consistency, Test-Retest Reliability); and Factor Analysis (Confirmatory Factor Analysis).

Keywords

Child Attitudes, Childhood Development, Cross-Cultural Differences, Emotional Assessment, Southeast Asian Cultural Groups, Vignette Measure, Forbearance, Suppression (Defense Mechanism), Cultural Attitudes.

Authors

Corresponding Author: Chang, Jen‐Ho

Author ORCID Identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5357-708X

Affiliation Email addresses: [email protected] (Jen-Ho Chang)

Correspondence Address: Academia Sinica, Institute of Ethnology, 128 Academia Road, Section 2, Nankang, Taipei, Taiwan, Province of China, 11529.

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

Permissions: Researchers interested in using the scale must contact the corresponding author for permission.

Commercial Use: No

Fee Required: No

Test Year: 2023

Reference’s

Wang, L.‐f., Wei, M., Chang, J.‐H., & Chiao, H. (2023). The Children’s Dual Emotion Regulation Strategy scale: An integrated perspective of Western and East Asian cultures. Asian Journal of Social Psychology, 26(4), 461–474. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/ajsp.12571

Items of the Children’s Dual Emotion Regulation Strategy Scale (CDERS)

The CDERS is a 24-item measure composed of six interpersonal conflict scenarios. Each scenario includes four emotion regulation strategies:

• Expression

• Forbearance

• Impulsiveness

• Suppression