Emotion Awareness Questionnaire (EAQ)

Abstract

The Emotion Awareness Questionnaire (EAQ) is a psychological scale designed to measure the multifaceted construct of emotion awareness, primarily in children and adolescents. Developed by Rieffe and colleagues, the EAQ aims to quantify an individual’s ability to recognize, differentiate, analyze, and communicate their own feelings, as well as attend to the emotions of others. The scale structure is particularly useful in clinical and developmental research, offering insight into how deficits in emotional understanding may relate to mental health outcomes, such as internalizing symptoms. The revised version (EAQ-R or EAQ-30) consists of 30 items structured across six distinct factors.

Keywords

Emotion Awareness Questionnaire, EAQ, Emotion Awareness, Affective Cognition, Emotional Competence, Internalizing Symptoms, Child Psychology, Adolescent Development, Psychological scale.

Authors

Carolien Rieffe, Monica Meerum Terwogt, K.V. Petrides, Carole Cowan, Annet C. Miers, Anna Tolland, P. Oosterveld, V. Ly.

Purpose

The primary purpose of the EAQ is to provide a reliable and valid self-report measure of emotion awareness across different dimensions. It was specifically developed to assess the complexity of emotional understanding in young populations, where emotional competence is still developing and highly influential on social and psychological adjustment.

Beyond general assessment, the EAQ serves as a critical tool for researchers investigating the link between emotional deficits and psychopathology. By differentiating specific awareness facets—such as bodily sensation identification versus verbal sharing—the instrument allows for a nuanced understanding of which components of emotion awareness are most predictive of psychological difficulties, including anxiety and depression (often categorized as internalizing symptoms).

Construct

The psychological construct measured by the EAQ is Emotion Awareness, defined as the ability to consciously perceive, understand, and reflect upon one’s own emotions and those of others. The scale operationalizes this broad construct into six distinct, but related, subscales, reflecting a multidimensional view of emotional competence.

These dimensions cover cognitive processing (e.g., differentiating and analyzing emotions), behavioral regulation (e.g., verbal sharing and not hiding emotions), physiological sensitivity (bodily awareness), and social cognition (attending to others’ emotions). This comprehensive approach ensures that emotion awareness is captured not merely as a single trait but as a set of interacting skills essential for emotional regulation and social interaction.

Validity

The validity of the EAQ has been examined through several studies, primarily confirming its factorial and construct validity in child and adolescent samples. Initial research established that the six-factor model provided a good fit for the data, supporting the theoretical distinction between the facets of emotion awareness.

Construct validity is further supported by expected correlations with related psychological measures. For instance, lower scores on key EAQ factors (such as Differentiating Emotions) have been consistently linked to higher levels of internalizing symptoms, demonstrating the instrument’s capacity to measure a clinically relevant construct. Studies have also shown that the EAQ performs well across different age groups within the specified population, indicating its robustness in developmental psychology research.

Reliability

Internal consistency, typically measured using Cronbach’s Alpha, demonstrates acceptable to good reliability for the EAQ subscales, particularly in the revised 30-item version. The source content provides alpha coefficients (often presented for two different samples or revisions) for the primary factors:

• Differentiating Emotions: (0.67; 0.74)
• Verbal Sharing of Emotions: (0.68; 0.77)
• Not Hiding Emotions: (0.68; 0.76)
• Bodily Awareness: (0.64; 0.74)
• Attending to Others’ Emotions: (0.65; 0.77)
• Analyses of Emotions: (0.65; 0.77)

These reliability figures suggest that the items within each subscale consistently measure the intended dimension of emotion awareness, making the scale suitable for use in research settings.

Factor Analysis

The structure of the Emotion Awareness Questionnaire was established through factor analysis, resulting in a six-factor model (EAQ-30). This model represents the distinct components of emotional understanding captured by the scale:

1. Differentiating Emotions: The ability to recognize and distinguish between different emotional states (e.g., sadness vs. anger).
2. Verbal Sharing of Emotions: The willingness and ability to communicate feelings to others.
3. Not Hiding Emotions: The tendency to express emotions outwardly rather than suppressing them.
4. Bodily Awareness: The recognition of physical sensations associated with emotional arousal.
5. Attending to Others’ Emotions: The focus on and understanding of the emotional states of peers and others (empathy/social awareness).
6. Analyses of Emotions: The cognitive effort to understand the causes and implications of one’s feelings.

The subsequent factor analysis confirmed the stability of these six dimensions, supporting the scale’s use in measuring specific emotional processes rather than a monolithic concept. Additional factors, such as ‘Acting Out Emotions’ and ‘Others’ Emotions’, were sometimes considered in earlier versions or related instruments.

Instrument

Test Type: Self-report psychological scale.

Format: 30 items scored on a 3-point Likert scale (0=not true, 1=sometimes true, 2=true).

Language Available: Primarily English and Dutch (original development context). Other translations may exist.

Population Group: Clinical and non-clinical populations.

Age Group: Children and adolescents (typically 8 to 18 years old).

Population Details: Used extensively in developmental psychology research to study emotional competence and regulation.

Test Methodology: Respondents indicate the degree to which each statement is true for them. Several items require recoding (1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13, 15, 19, 20, 21, 22, 24, 25, 26, 29, and 30) before summing or averaging subscale scores.

Keywords

Emotional Regulation, Affective Science, Child Development, Self-report, Emotion Awareness, Psychopathology, Developmental Psychology.

Authors

Author ORCID Identifier: Not specified in source content.

Affiliation Email addresses: Not specified in source content.

Correspondence Address: Correspondence is typically handled through the primary affiliated university (e.g., Leiden University, where Rieffe and colleagues were affiliated).

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The EAQ is generally considered an academic research instrument. Permission for use is typically sought from the primary author, Carolien Rieffe. Information regarding fees is not provided in the source material, but academic scales are often free for non-commercial research use. The key psychometric properties and revisions (EAQ-R) were published around 2007 and 2008. The original PDF can be downloaded here: http://media.leidenuniv.nl/legacy/EAQ30def1.pdf. Further information is available at http://www.focusonemotions.nl/index.php/instrument-development.

Reference’s

• Rieffe‚ C.‚ Meerum Terwogt‚ M.‚ Petrides‚ K.V.‚ Cowan‚ C.‚ Miers‚ A.C.‚ Tolland‚ A. (2007). Psychometric properties of the Emotion Awareness Questionnaire for children. Personality and Individual Differences‚ 43; 95–105.
• Rieffe‚ C.‚ Oosterveld‚ P.‚ Miers‚ A.C.‚ Meerum Terwogt‚ M.‚ & Ly‚ V. (2008). Emotion awareness and internalising symptoms in children and adolescents; the Emotion Awareness Questionnaire revised. Personality and Individual Differences‚ 45‚ 756-761.

Items of the Emotion Awareness Questionnaire (EAQ)

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

1. I am often confused or puzzled about what I am feeling
2. I find it difficult to explain to a friend how I feel
3. Other people don’t need to know how I am feeling.
4. When I am scared or nervous‚ I feel something in my tummy
5. It is important to know how my friends are feeling
6. When I am angry or upset‚ I try to understand why
7. It is difficult to know whether I feel sad or angry or something else
8. I find it hard to talk to anyone about how I feel
9. When I am upset about something‚ I often keep it to myself
10. When I feel upset‚ I can also feel it in my body
11. I don´t want to know how my friends are feeling
12. My feelings help me to understand what has happened
13. I never know exactly what kind of feeling I am ha‎ving
14. I can easily explain to a friend how I feel inside
15. When I am angry or upset‚ I try to hide this
16. I don´t feel anything in my body when I am scared or nervous
17. If a friend is upset‚ I try to understand why
18. When I have a problem‚ it helps me when I know how I feel about it
19. When I am upset‚ I don´t know if I am sad‚ scared or angry
20. When I am upset‚ I try not to show it
21. My body feels different when I am upset about something
22. I don’t care about how my friends are feeling inside
23. It is important to understand how I am feeling
24. Sometimes‚ I feel upset and I have no idea why
25. When I am feeling bad‚ it is no one else’s business
26. When I am sad‚ my body feels weak
27. I usually know how my friends are feeling
28. I always want to know why I feel bad about something
29. I often don’t know why I am angry
30. I don´t know when something will upset me or not

The items map to the following subscales:

• Differentiating Emotions: items: 1‚ 7‚ 13‚ 19‚ 24‚ 29‚ and 30
• Verbal Sharing of Emotions: items: 2‚ 8‚ and 14
• Not Hiding Emotions: items: 3‚ 9‚ 15‚ 20‚ and 25
• Bodily Awareness: items: 4‚ 10‚ 16‚ 21‚ and 26
• Attending to Others’ Emotions: items: 5‚ 11‚ 17‚ 22‚ and 27
• Analyses of Emotions: items: 6‚ 12‚ 18‚ 23‚ and 28

Recode items: 1‚ 2‚ 3‚ 4‚ 7‚ 8‚ 9‚ 10‚ 11‚ 13‚ 15‚ 19‚ 20‚ 21‚ 22‚ 24‚ 25‚ 26‚ 29‚ and 30.