Examining the Structure of Emotion Regulation: A Factor-Analytic Approach

OBJECTIVE: Critiques of self-report indices of emotion regulation suggest that its measurement is in need of more critical investigation. The current study examined the factor structure of emotion regulation as informed by Gross' (1998a) Process Model: Situation Selection, Attentional Deployment, Cognitive Change, and Response Modulation. METHOD: A sample of 553 participants was recruited using Amazon's Mechanical Turk (M(age) = 37.12, SD = 13.66; n = 352 female). Confirmatory factor analysis with maximum likelihood estimation was performed in Mplus. RESULTS: A four-factor model of emotion regulation demonstrated poor fit. An alternative five-factor model fit the data well: CFI = .94, TLI = .93, RMSEA = .07. CONCLUSION: Emotion regulation may be better conceptualized as a combination of specific strategy use and a broader construct, called "emotional distancing" (a trait-like disposition towards emotions). Further research is required to determine if the observed five-factor model can be replicated in more diverse samples.