In Germany, there are no self-report questionnaires assessing emotion awareness in youth under the age of 16 years or simultaneously with emotion suppression. The “Emotion Expression Scale for Children” (EESC) measuring lack of emotion awareness and reluctance to express emotions in 10- to 15-year-olds can fill this gap. Goal of this study was to evaluate the factorial structure of the German version of the 16-item EESC in a test and a validation sample of overall 588 adolescents (314 boys; Mage = 11.6 years; SD = .74). The original structure comprised of the factors “Poor Awareness” and “Expressive Reluctance” could not be confirmed in the test sample using confirmatory factor analysis. An exploratory factor analysis yield a one-factor structure. Modification process led to an adjusted one-factor model with 13 items, which fitted the data best in the validation sample. The factor was named “Low Emotion Awareness/Suppression.” Results indicated that the EESC structure is not measurement invariant. Reasons for missing fit of the two-factor model are discussed.
BagbyR. M.TaylorG. J.RyanD. (1986). Toronto Alexithymia Scale: Relationship with personality and psychopathology measures. Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, 45, 207-215.
2.
BalanR.DobreanA.RomanG. D.BalazsiR. (2017). Indirect effects of parenting practices on internalizing problems among adolescents: The role of expressive suppression. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 26, 40-47.
3.
BodenM. T.ThompsonR. J. (2015). Facets of emotional awareness and associations with emotion regulation and depression. Emotion, 15, 399-410.
4.
BühnerM. (2010). Einführung in die Test- und Fragebogenkonstruktion [Introduction to test and questionnaire design] (3rd Rev. ed.). München, Germany: Pearson.
5.
ChoiE. S.LeeW. K. (2015). Comparative effects of emotion management training and social skills training in Korean children with ADHD. Journal of Attention Disorders, 19, 138-146.
6.
CiarrochiJ.HeavenP. C. L.SupavadeeprasitS. (2008). The link between emotion identification skills and socio-emotional functioning in early adolescence: A 1-year longitudinal study. Journal of Adolescence, 31, 565-582.
7.
DesrosiersA.SpismaH.DivneyA.MagriplesU.KershawT. (2015). Emotion expression and substance use in newly parenting adolescents and young adults. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 71, 684-695.
8.
FlynnM.RudolphK. D. (2014). A prospective examination of emotional clarity, stress responses, and depressive symptoms during early adolescence. Journal of Early Adolescence, 34, 923-939.
9.
Gómez-OrtizO.RomeraE. M.Ortega-RuizR.CabelloR.Fernández-BerrocalP. (2016). Analysis of emotion regulation in Spanish adolescents: Validation of the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire. Frontiers in Psychology, 6, Article 1959. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01959
10.
GrossJ. J.LevensonR. W. (1993). Emotional suppression: Physiology, self-report, and expressive behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 64, 970-986.
11.
HuwaëS.SchaafsmaJ. (2018). Cross-cultural differences in emotion suppression in everyday interactions. International Journal of Psychology, 53, 176-183.
12.
KranzlerA.YoungJ. F.HankinB. J.AbelaJ. R. Z.EliasM. J.SelbyE. A. (2016). Emotional awareness: A transdiagnostic predictor of depression and anxiety for children and adolescents. Journal of Clinical Child & Adolescent Psychology, 45, 262-269.
13.
LongK. A.LobatoD.KaoB.PlanteW.GrullónE.CheasL.. . . SeiferR. (2013). Perceptions of emotion expression and sibling-parent emotion communication in Latino and non-Latino White siblings of children with intellectual disabilities. Journal of Pediatric Psychology, 38, 551-562.
14.
MatsumotoD.YooS. H.FontaineJ.Anguas-WongA. M.ArriolaM.AtacaB.. . . GrossiE. (2008). Mapping expressive differences around the world: The relationship between emotional display rules and individualism versus collectivism. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 39, 55-74.
15.
O’ConnorB. P. (2000). SPSS and SAS programs for determining the number of components using parallel analysis and velicer’s MAP test. Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, & Computers, 32, 396-402.
16.
Penza-ClyveS.ZemanJ. (2002). Initial validation of the Emotion Expression Scale for Children (EESC). Journal of Clinical Child & Adolescent Psychology, 31, 540-547.
17.
PeppingC. A.DuvenageM.CroninT. J.LyonsA. (2016). Adolescent mindfulness and psychopathology: The role of emotion regulation. Personality and Individual Differences, 99, 302-307.
18.
PetermannF.WiedenbuschS. (2016). Emotionale Kompetenz bei Kindern [Emotional competence in children] (3rd Rev. ed.). Göttingen, Germany: Hogrefe.
19.
RieffeC.de RooijM. (2012). The longitudinal relationship between emotion awareness and internalizing symptoms during late childhood. European Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 21, 349-356.
20.
RieffeC.TerwogtM. M.PetridesK. V.CowanR.MiersA. C.TollandA. (2007). Psychometric properties of the Emotion Awareness Questionnaire for children. Personality and Individual Differences, 43, 95-105.
21.
SaarniC. (1999, April). A skill-based model of emotional competence: A developmental perspective. Paper presented at the Biennial Meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, Albuquerque, NM.
22.
Schermelleh-EngelK.MoosbruggerH.MüllerH. (2003). Evaluating the fit of structural equation models: Tests of significance and descriptive goodness-of-fit measures. Methods of Psychological Research, 8, 23-74.
23.
VerzelettiC.ZammunerV. L.GalliC.AgnoliS. (2016). Emotion regulation strategies and psychosocial well-being in adolescence. Cogent Psychology, 3, Article 1199294.
24.
ZhaoY.ZhaoG. (2015). Emotion regulation and depressive symptoms: Examining the mediation effects of school connectedness in Chinese late adolescents. Journal of Adolescence, 40, 14-23.
25.
ZhouX.WuX.ZhenR. (2017). Understanding the relationship between social support and posttraumatic stress disorder/posttraumatic growth among adolescents after Ya’an earthquake: The role of emotion regulation. Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy, 9, 214-221.
