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ASMXXX10.1177/1073191117720283AssessmentIzadpanah et al.

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Assessment

Development and Validation of the

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DOI: 10.1177/1073191117720283
https://doi.org/10.1177/1073191117720283

Strategies (HFERST): Factor Structure, journals.sagepub.com/home/asm

Reliability, and Validity

Shahrzad Izadpanah1*, Sven Barnow1*, Andreas B. Neubauer1, and Julia Holl1

Abstract
The Heidelberg Form for Emotion Regulation Strategies (HFERST) was developed to complement previous emotion
regulation (ER) questionnaires and addresses some of their limitations by measuring eight ER strategies. An initial item
pool was developed in German following expert discussions and adaptation of the items from existing ER scales. Following
a stepwise selection based on the experts’ judgments, 32 items with the best content validity were chosen. Results of an
exploratory factor analysis in Study 1 (N = 399) and two confirmatory factor analyses in Studies 2 (N = 715) and 3 (N =
408) supported the eight-factor structure of the HFERST and provided evidence for its internal consistency, construct and
criterion validity, and clinical utility. Study 4 supported a 2-week stability of the HFERST and Study 5 showed that, following
an ER intervention, the HFERST captured a reduction in dysfunctional and an improvement in functional ER strategies,
which again supports the clinical utility of the HFERST.

Keywords
emotion regulation, assessment, social support, suppression, acceptance, rumination, problem solving

Emotion regulation (ER) is defined as the use of cognitive
or behavioral strategies to modify the circumstances in
which an emotion occurs, the experience of an emotional
response (including its intensity and duration), or the way in
which an emotion is overtly expressed (Gross, 2002).
Disturbance in the regulation of positive and negative emo-
tions is a symptom shared by the majority of mental disor-
ders (e.g., Barnow & Stopsack, 2012; Carl, Soskin, Kerns,
& Barlow, 2013; Cisler & Olatunji, 2012; D’Avanzato,
Joormann, Siemer, & Gotlib, 2013; Izadpanah et al., 2016;
Marroquin & Nolen-Hoeksema, 2015). Past studies show
that some ER strategies have proven to be more effective in
modifying affect and have, therefore, been conceptualized
as functional strategies (Aldao & Christensen, 2015).
Among these strategies, reappraisal, problem solving, and
acceptance have been studied most extensively (Barnow,
2012; Campbell-Sills & Barlow, 2007). Other groups of ER
strategies have been shown to be less effective in modifying
affect, and findings increasingly support the significance of
these dysfunctional strategies (e.g., suppression, rumina-
tion, and avoidance) for the development and treatment of
various psychopathologies (e.g., Aldao & Nolen-Hoeksema,
2010; Reinecke et al., 2015).
These findings indicate the importance of well-
designed ER measurement tools that assist preventive and
psychotherapeutic procedures. The Heidelberg Form for
Emotion Regulation Strategies (HFERST) is a newly devel-
oped questionnaire in German that includes eight ER strate-
gies: rumination, experience suppression, expressive
suppression, avoidance, activity and social support, reap-
praisal, problem solving, and acceptance. The development
of the HFERST was based on previous ER literature and
aimed at tackling the limitations of the existing ER mea-
sures. Several tools, including the well-known Cognitive
Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (CERQ; Garnefski &
Kraaij, 2007), Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ;
Gross, 2003), and Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale
(DERS; Gratz & Roemer, 2004), have been developed to
measure ER. However, there are several limitations to previ-
ous questionnaires that need to be considered when develop-
ing new ER tools. First, some questionnaires only measure a
1
University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany
*These authors contributed equally to this work. The sequence of other
coauthors is based on the level of contribution.
Corresponding Author:
Shahrzad Izadpanah, Institute of Psychology, Department of Clinical
Psychology and Psychotherapy, University of Heidelberg, Hauptstraße
47-51, Heidelberg 69117, Germany.
Email: shahrzad.izadpanah@psychologie.uni-heidelberg.de
2 Assessment 00(0)
limited variety of ER strategies. For example, the ERQ
merely assesses reappraisal and suppression, whereas other
strategies such as rumination, acceptance, and avoidance
have also proved significant for psychopathology (Aldao,
Nolen-Hoeksema, & Schweizer, 2010; Francisco, 2010;
Izadpanah et al., 2016). The development of ER question-
naires, which include the most significant ER strategies is
essential in capturing a full picture of the habitual use of ER
strategies, especially in the context of psychological
disorders.
Second, some ER questionnaires which measure various
ER strategies included subscales that show significant theo-
retical and empirical overlap with psychopathology. For
example, while self-blame has been considered as an ER
strategy in CERQ, it seems to be part of the depression pro-
file as feeling bad about oneself, displaying excessive self-
blame or the belief that one is a failure are characteristics of
depression rather than ER strategy (Fried, Nesse, Zivin,
Guille, & Sen, 2014; Zahn et al., 2015). Similarly, catastro-
phizing has been included as an ER strategy in CERQ,
while it is regarded as one of the cognitive distortions within
the depression profile (Leung & Poon, 2001).
Third, the assessment of specific strategies needs to be
elaborated in order to test different aspects of a single strat-
egy. For instance, previous scales have mostly limited the
assessment of acceptance to the acceptance of the situation
(e.g., CERQ), while an important aspect of “acceptance” is
being tolerant toward emotional experiences and embracing
them (Hayes, Luoma, Bond, Masuda, & Lillis, 2006).
Although the DERS measures nonacceptance of negative
emotional experiences, the acceptance of both situation and
emotion needs to be considered as different aspects of the
same strategy; therefore, new scales need to include items
for acceptance of both situation and emotion. Furthermore,
to our knowledge, the only ER questionnaire that measures
acceptance as an ER strategy (namely, the CERQ) shows a
low score for internal reliability and is often weakly or
insignificantly related to various psychopathology symp-
toms (Domínguez-Sánchez, Lasa-Aristu, Amor, & Holgado-
Tello, 2011; Jermann, Linden, d’Acremont, & Zermatten,
2006; Tuna & Bozo, 2012). Previous research has also
found a small positive relation between CERQ-acceptance
subscale and psychopathology (Tuna & Bozo, 2012). It has
been argued that the items in the CERQ seem to measure
thoughts about acceptance or a maladaptive version of
acceptance (e.g., passive resignation), when acceptance is
considered to be an adaptive strategy (Jermann et al., 2006).
Fourth, emotional suppression has been defined as an
attempt to reduce unwanted emotional experiences but it can
also take different forms (Salters-Pedneault, Steenkamp, &
Litz, 2010). While previous measures have mostly focused
on “expressive suppression,” suppression of experienced
feeling is a related yet distinct aspect of suppression that is
surprisingly understudied (Salters-Pedneault et al., 2010).
Therefore, in keeping with Salters-Pedneault et al. (2010),
we go beyond this well-known but narrow perspective of
suppression (behavioral or expressive suppression) and
define experience suppression as “an attempt to act directly
on an emotional response by putting it away or putting it out
of mind.” With this perspective, we aimed to include both
experience and expressive suppression in the HFERST.
Fifth, previous ER questionnaires have largely neglected
situation selection, which is the first stage of the emotion
generative process in the process model of ER (Gross, 2003).
This might explain why strategies related to situation selec-
tion have been understudied so far (Quoidbach, Mikolajczak,
& Gross, 2015). Considering this point, we included the ER
strategy avoidance in the HFERST.
Sixth, previous studies show that behavioral strategies
such as seeking social support (Marroquin & Nolen-
Hoeksema, 2015) and engaging in other activities such as
sport (Penedo & Dahn, 2005) are effective in regulating
emotions and contribute to mental health. For this reason,
we have added a behavioral scale in the HFERST, which
measures the extent to which individuals respond to their
emotional experiences by seeking social support and engag-
ing in activities. By considering these critical points, we
aimed to develop an ER questionnaire that not only inte-
grates different important strategies into a unified multidi-
mensional questionnaire but also complements the existing
measures and addresses the aforementioned limitations.
Item Development and Content Validity
We designed the HFERST in three steps based on the sug-
gestions of Haynes, Richard, and Kubany (1995). Given
that we had the opportunity of exploring a rich literature on
ER, we applied a conceptual developmental strategy rely-
ing on current ER theories and scales. In the first phase,
following regular discussions between two ER experts with
advanced knowledge of ER literature, an item pool (in
German) was developed on the basis of reviewing previous
literature and the existing measures of ER. This pool
included items that were generated by the experts based on
their knowledge of ER as well as adapted items, which were
selected from previously validated measures. The selection
of items from previous measures was based on the decision
of both experts about how well the items represent each
strategy. In most cases, the formulation and content of the
items were significantly modified during the second and the
third stages of the item development, to improve the content
validity and formulation of items on the basis of the ER lit-
erature. The initial item pool included 124 items that asked
about four dysfunctional strategies (rumination, experience
suppression, expressive suppression and avoidance), and
four functional strategies (activity and social support, reap-
praisal, problem solving, and acceptance). Strategies were
included on the basis of both the ER literature regarding the
Izadpanah et al. 3
significance of various strategies for mental health (Aldao
et al., 2010; Barnow, 2012) and the limitations of previous
measures as mentioned above. In the HFERST, we distin-
guished between ER strategies which are mostly dysfunc-
tional and those which are mostly functional. However, it is
of note that this distinction, though supported by empirical
research (Campbell-Sills & Barlow, 2007; Reinecke et al.,
2015), is not an absolute one because the functionality of
ER strategies can be influenced by factors relevant to the
ER context (Aldao, 2013).
In the second phase, all items were presented to a group of
five clinical psychologists with advanced knowledge of the
ER literature (each of whom had published at least once on
ER). Only one of these five experts was involved in the first
stage of item development. They proceeded to discuss how
well each item represented the relevant scale, before sorting
the items into each scale based on its content validity (the
scale extended from 1 to 5). The psychologists were also
asked to note their suggestions for modifying the formulation
of items, with the aim of linguistic improvement and increas-
ing item validity. Based on the experts’ agreements, the six
best items were selected for each scale. In the third phase,
items were further analyzed by a psychologist with extensive
clinical and research experience in the field of ER (SB), who
modified the item formulation based on suggested modifica-
tions in the second phase (for more information on the applied
modifications on final items in the HFERST, see Appendix
A). Based on the experts’ evaluations and the suggestions fol-
lowing the second phase, he further selected five items for
activity and social support, three items for acceptance and
four items for each of the other scales (rumination, experi-
ence suppression, expressive suppression, avoidance, reap-
praisal, and problem solving).
In the HFERST, participants are asked to indicate to
what extent the items applied to them over the past 4 weeks,
with responses ranging from 1 to 5 (1 = never, 2 = occasion-
ally, 3 = about half the time, 4 = usually, 5 = always). Higher
responses indicate a more frequent use of the respective
scales.
In order to further evaluate the content validity of the
HFERST, we asked seven clinical psychologists with
advanced knowledge in ER literature and research (with ER
as the central research topic and at least one publication on
ER) to rate the items. They received a paper version of the
HFERST and were asked to rate each of the items for how
well it reflected the respective scale, using a 5-point scale
from 1 (not at all) to 5 (very well). The average rating for
the 32 items was 4.39 (SD = 0.69) indicating that, on aver-
age, raters believed that items represented their respective
scales well. Apart from one of the experts (SB) who was
involved in all steps of item development, we consulted
each expert only at one of the developmental stages.
In conclusion, we pursued a purely conceptual strategy
for developing the initial item pool of the HFERST, building
on the opinion of experts in the field of ER. We aimed at
keeping idiosyncratic effects minimal by (a) building our
work on a very rich theoretical end empirical literature on
ER, (b) starting with established measures capturing various
facets of ER, and (c) developing the item pool in three steps
with independent sets of experts (with the exception of one
expert, SB). We decided that this conceptual strategy would
be an economical and reasonable solution for building an
initial pool of 32 items that we would then subject to empiri-
cal tests of their factor structure and validity.
Overview
The HFERST was designed with the aim of broadening ER
assessment by providing a measurement tool which, since it
includes various theoretical and empirical-based ER strate-
gies, not only has economical value but also enables research-
ers to capture a full profile of the habitual use of ER strategies.
Second, the HFERST includes both expressive and experien-
tial type of suppression, as well as embracing a broader
understanding of the ER strategy “acceptance,” which
includes items for both situational and emotional types. It is
further consistent with the theoretical background to accep-
tance as an adaptive ER strategy. In the following sections,
we provide results from a series of studies investigating the
psychometric properties of the HFERST, supplementing the
theory-driven approach in item development with empirical
data collected in more than 1,500 participants. Study 1 in this
article conducts an exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and
tests the scale and item characteristics of the HFERST. In
Study 2 and Study 3, we conduct two confirmatory factor
analyses (CFA) using two separate samples, to investigate
further the reliability and validity of the HFERST. Study 4
investigates the test–retest reliability of the HFERST, and in
the Study 5, we apply the HFERST to examine changes in
ER after conducting an ER intervention.
Study 1
This study had three main aims: First, we conducted an EFA
to investigate the factor structure of the HFERST. Second,
we investigated item–total correlations to test the suitability
of each item for the questionnaire. Third, we examined the
construct validity of the HFERST by investigating the cor-
relation coefficients among the HFERST, depression, and a
well-established ER questionnaire, the CERQ.
Method
Participants and Procedure.  Data for this sample were gath-
ered through two online surveys using Unipark software.
The first sample included 240 individuals (188 females)
from 16 to 70 years old (M = 29.60 years) and the second
sample consisted of 159 individuals (109 females) aged 18
4 Assessment 00(0)
to 65 years (M = 24.01 years). Participants were compen-
sated by being given the chance to win coupons of €20.
Since both samples were collected by using the same
method and the same population was targeted through col-
lecting data from similar social networks (e.g., Facebook),
we combined data sets to conduct the factor analysis (N =
399; 297 women). The majority of participants were Ger-
man (88.5%). Their age ranged from 16 to 70 years (M =
27.37 years, SD = 9.81) and 45.4% were in a committed
relationship. Regarding education level, 62.4% had received
their high school diploma, and 29.6% had at least a bache-
lor’s degree.
Measures.  Participants in Samples 1 and 2 completed the
HFERST with 32 items that measure rumination (4 items),
avoidance (4 items), expressive suppression (4 items),
experience suppression (4 items), reappraisal (4 items),
activity and social support (5 items), acceptance (3 items),
and problem solving (4 items). Furthermore, we applied the
Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), a self-rating measure for
depression with 21 items and good reliability and stability
(Beck, Steer, & Carbin, 1988). The BDI was applied to both
Samples 1 and 2. The Cronbach’s alpha of the inventory for
our sample was .91. In addition, participants in Sample 2
completed the CERQ (Garnefski, Kraaij, & Spinhoven,
2001), which consists of 36 Likert-type items ranging from
1 (sometimes) to 5 (always) and measures nine cognitive
ER strategies: self-blame, rumination, catastrophizing,
other-blame, positive reappraisal, acceptance, positive refo-
cusing, refocus on planning, and putting into perspective.
The German translation of CERQ has shown adequate
internal consistency (.60 < α < .73; Loch, Hiller, & Witthöft,
2011).
Results
Factor Analysis.  Prior to conducting the factor analyses, the
response distributions of all individual items were exam-
ined. As none of these variables were excessively skewed or
kurtotic (Kendall & Stuart, 1958), no items were excluded
from the analyses on the basis of their response distributions.
In a first step, we performed an EFA to investigate the struc-
ture of the HFERST. Although we had specific expectations
about the factor structure of this scale, we sought to explore
possible alternatives as well. To that end, we first deter-
mined the number of factors to be retained using three crite-
ria: parallel analysis, the minimum average partial (MAP)
method, and the Bayesian information criterion. Parallel
analysis suggested nine factors to be retained although the
adjusted eigenvalue of the ninth factor was only slightly
larger than zero (.021) and noticeably smaller than the eigen-
value of the eighth factor (.267). The MAP test suggested six
factors, but the MAP score was (rounded to the third deci-
mal) identical for seven or eight factors (.017). Finally, the
Bayesian information criterion reached its minimum for the
eight-factor solution (−1113 compared with −1001, for
seven factors and −1033 for nine factors, respectively).
Given these diverging results, we ran the EFA with six,
seven, eight, and nine extracted factors, respectively (princi-
pal axis factoring with oblimin rotation). For the six- and
seven-factor solutions, the items supposedly assessing
expressive suppression and experience suppression loaded
on one common factor, but the four items from the postu-
lated experience suppression scale showed substantial cross-
loadings (absolute factor loadings >.30) on the avoidance
factor. Additionally, two activity items (“When I experience
a strong emotion, I let it out by doing sports [e.g., jogging,
fitness training, boxing, . . .,” “I relieve tension and negative
emotion by relaxation [e.g., yoga, relaxation techniques,
mindfulness]”) did not have absolute loadings >.30 on any
factor. In the six-factor solution, the two social support items
loaded negatively on the suppression factor, while one activ-
ity item (“When I feel bad, I treat myself to something nice
in order to feel better”) was associated with the acceptance
factor; in the seven-factor solution, these three items all
loaded on one common factor. The solution with eight fac-
tors provided evidence for a simple structure, with no abso-
lute cross-loadings greater than .29. However, two of the
activity items did not load on any of the factors (absolute
loadings <.28 for all). Finally, in the nine-factor solution,
these two items loaded on one common factor, but the eigen-
value of this ninth factor was less than 1 (.87). Taken
together, our findings suggest that the eight-factor solution
is preferred: Extracting fewer factors results in cross-load-
ings and extracting nine factors yields one factor with eigen-
value less than 1. Table 1 depicts the pattern matrix of the
solution with eight factors. Given that only one activity item
loaded on any of the factors, we decided to remove all three
activity items and rename the respective factor as social sup-
port for the following analyses. Furthermore, Item 25 (“I am
afraid of strong intense emotions”) exhibited comparatively
low loading on its designated factor (avoidance) and at the
same time showed substantial cross-loading on the experi-
ence suppression factor. To ascertain a simple structure of
the scales, we also removed this item for all further
analyses.
Correlations With BDI and CERQ.  We computed correlation
coefficients after excluding the aforementioned four items
following the EFA. To control the effect of gender on our
results, we conducted a partial correlation analysis. In line
with our expectations, depression was positively correlated
with rumination, expressive/experience suppression, and
avoidance, while it was negatively correlated with social
support, problem solving, acceptance, and reappraisal (see
Table 2). In general, HFERST subscales showed stronger
correlation with depression in comparison with the CERQ
subscales. Furthermore, the correlation coefficients between
Izadpanah et al. 5

Table 1.  Factor Structure of the Heidelberg Form for Emotion Regulation Strategies in Study 1.

Activity/
Problem Expressive Experience Social
Items Rumination Reappraisal Acceptance solving suppression suppression Avoidance support
  1. When I have negative .73  
feelings, I often brood over
the question, why I am
feeling this way.
  2. After emotional experiences/ .67  
situations, I think a lot about
what I did and said, so as
to understand my feelings
better
  3. I realize, again and again, .80  
that I have to think about
something that made me
angry or sad
  4. I remember past conflicts .70  
often and think about what I
could have done differently
  5. When I feel bad, I try to .72  
see the positive aspects of a
situation.
  6. When I find myself in a .77  
stressful situation, I change
my thoughts about the
situation in such manner,
that I get calm.
  7. When I want to feel better, .79  
I concentrate on the good
aspects of a situation.
  8. I change my feelings by .91  
thinking differently about my
current situation.
  9. When I cannot change .75  
something, I accept the
situation as it is.
10. I am able to tolerate and .59  
endure uncomfortable
situations.
11. I am able to accept things as .95  
they are.
12. When looking for solutions .74  
for a problem, I do (not
only) rely on my instinct but
try to think as rationally as
possible.
13. I think about possible .76  
solutions of how to change
the situation.
14. When I am confronted .75  
with problems, I think very
carefully about how I can
deal best with the situation.
15. When I have to make a .72  
decision, I carefully weigh the
different alternatives against
each other.
(continued)
6 Assessment 00(0)

Table 1. (continued)

Activity/
Problem Expressive Experience Social
Items Rumination Reappraisal Acceptance solving suppression suppression Avoidance support
16. When something makes me .78  
angry or sad, I try to hide my
feelings from others.
17. I hide physical expressions of .80  
my feelings.
18. It is very hard for other .75  
people to tell how I am
feeling at the moment.
19. Even when I am very .58  
agitated, I am able to keep a
calm exterior.
20. I try not to allow for .64  
negative emotions to begin
with.
21. I rarely let my emotions run .58  
high, but keep them down.
22. Whenever possible, I avoid it .71  
to realize my feelings.
23. When I have strong .77  
emotions, I immediately push
them aside.
24. I prefer to avoid situations, .74  
which could cause negative
emotions in me.
25. I am afraid of strong, .29 .35  
intensive emotions.
26. I try to avoid thoughts about .65  
things that weigh me down.
27. Whenever possible, .82  
I take care that I am
not confronted with
uncomfortable situations.
28. When I feel bad, I treat .22 −.26 .40
myself to something nice to
feel better.
29. I like to share negative and .78
positive feelings by calling or
meeting up with others and
talking about them.
30. When I experience a strong −.25 .17
emotion, I let it out by doing
sports (e.g., jogging, fitness
training, boxing, etc.).
31. I often talk about my .70
emotions with my partner or
my close friends.
32. I relieve tension and negative .25 .28
emotion by relaxation (e.g.,
yoga, relaxation techniques,
mindfulness).

Note. Loadings >.30 are in boldface. The items are originally in German as presented in Appendix A.
Izadpanah et al. 7

Table 2.  Partial Correlation Coefficients Among HFERST, CERQ, and BDI Controlling for Gender, Together With Their Means,
Standard Deviations, and Cronbach’s Alphas in Study 1.

9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18
HFERST (N = 399)
 1.  Rumination .24** .54*** .29*** .16* .24** −.09 −.05 .07 −.12 .26***
  2.  Experience suppression −.07 −.38*** −.09 .07 −.07 −.10 −.04 −.17* −.08 .30***
  3.  Expressive suppression .04 −.17* .02 .13 .04 −.15 −.07 −.07 −.05 .36***
 4.  Avoidance −.07 −.19* −.03 .11 −.10 −.01 −.07 −.17* −.20** .42***
 5.  Reappraisal −.11 .07 −.21** −.14 .02 .44*** .24** .40*** .60*** −.45***
 6.  Acceptance −.09 −.03 −.20** −.05 .24** .13 .07 .22** .30*** −.38***
  7.  Problem solving .06 .13 −.14 −.05 .14 .19* .19* .58*** .22** −.34***
  8.  Social support −.03 .28** −02 −.14 .10 .18* .11 .31*** .20* −.41***
CERQ (N = 159)
 9.  Self-blame .30*** .30*** −.12 .48*** −.11 .02 .03 −.04 .35***
10. Rumination .35*** .13 .40*** .06 .12 .31*** .11 .09
11. Catastrophizing .50*** .26** −.06 −.11 −.09 −.18* .35***
12. Other-blame .02 .06 −.05 .05 −.06 .10
13. Acceptance .09 .20* .30*** .20* .18*
14.  Positive refocusing .32*** .29*** .40*** −.14
15.  Putting into perspective .29*** .50*** −.17*
16.  Refocus on planning .43*** −.18*
17.  Positive reappraisal −.27**
BDI (N = 399)
18. Depression  
Mean 2.53 3.10 1.90 1.86 3.05 2.42 3.44 3.62 3.11 13.08
Standard deviation 0.94 0.94 0.79 0.79 0.82 0.82 0.99 1.00 1.04 13.36
Cronbach’s alpha .74 .71 .72 .88 .84 .80 .72 .87 .82 .91

Note. HFERST = Heidelberger Form for Emotion Regulation Strategies; CERQ = Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire; BDI = Beck Depression
Inventory.
*p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

the HFERST subscales of reappraisal and rumination and
the same subscales in CERQ were stronger than their cor-
relation coefficients with BDI. Again, in line with our
expectations, the acceptance subscale from the HFERST
showed a negative correlation with depression, while accep-
tance subscale from the CERQ showed a small positive cor-
relation with depression.
Internal Consistency. Table 4 (upper panel) presents internal
consistency, interitem, and corrected item–total correlations
for each HFERST subscale. The HFERST subscales showed
good reliability (greater than .80 for all subscales). According
to Kline (1979), the mean interitem correlations between .3
and .7 indicate an ideal balance between item specificity and
scale homogeneity. Except for social support that slightly
exceeded this value (.71), the average interitem correlations
for all other subscales were in this acceptable range, which
supports the homogeneity of the HFERST subscales.
Brief Discussion
In this study, we investigated the factor structure of the
HFERST with eight ER strategies. Results of the EFA
supported our hypothesized eight-factor solution for the
HFERST. Following this analysis, we decided to remove
the activity items as they failed to load on any factor. Given
that activity items measured engaging in different specific
activities, individuals might have tended to use one activity
(e.g., mindfulness/relaxing) but not another activity (e.g.,
sport) as an ER strategy, which resulted in low interitem
correlation of the activity items. Furthermore, one avoid-
ance item was also removed due to substantial cross-load-
ing. The rest of the items showed the expected loadings on
their respective factors. Results also supported very good
internal consistency of the HFERST. A comparison of
Cronbach’s alpha of the HFERST with the Cronbach’s
alpha of the CERQ in our findings and previous studies sup-
ports the superior internal consistency of the HFERST sub-
scales (e.g., Domínguez-Sánchez et al., 2011; Loch et al.,
2011; Tuna & Bozo, 2012). In particular, similar subscales
on both questionnaires (i.e., acceptance, rumination, and
reappraisal) show a better internal consistency in the case of
the HFERST than that of CERQ (see Loch et al., 2011).
Correlation analyses supported the validity and clinical util-
ity of the HFERST, showing significant correlation coeffi-
cients between depression and the HFERST subscales in the
8 Assessment 00(0)
expected directions. Furthermore, those subscales of the
HFERST, which were also included in the CERQ showed a
stronger correlation with each other than with depression
(e.g., acceptance, rumination, reappraisal, problem solving,
and refocus on planning). An exception was the HFERST-
acceptance subscale, which was less strongly correlated
with the CERQ-acceptance than with depression. However,
while the correlation between the HFERST-acceptance and
depression was moderate and in the expected direction,
similar to other previous study, we found a small positive
correlation between depression and acceptance subscale
from CERQ (Tuna & Bozo, 2012). As Jermann et al. (2006)
argue, it seems that items from acceptance subscale in the
CERQ do not capture acceptance as an adaptive strategy
and they also partly measure thoughts about acceptance
rather than acceptance as an ER strategy. Furthermore, anal-
yses of item characteristics in this study supported the
homogeneity of the subscales showing no extreme low or
high mean interitem correlation.
Study 2
This second study had two main objectives: First, we con-
ducted a CFA to evaluate the final eight-factor structure of
the HFERST from Study 1, using a larger sample. Second,
reliability, convergent, and construct validity of the ques-
tionnaire were further investigated.
Method
Participants.  A total of 734 participants (547 women) rang-
ing from 14 to 81 years old (M = 27.83 years, SD = 10.01)
completed an online survey designed via Unipark software.
On investigation, the data showed that 19 participants had
Mahalanobis distance at p < .001. These individuals were
therefore recognized as multivariate outliers and removed
from further analysis (Tabachnick & Fidell, 2007), result-
ing in a total of 715 remaining participants. From this final
sample, 54.7% had finished high school and 31.7% had at
least a bachelor’s degree. Furthermore, 67% were students
at the time of assessment, and 55.2% reported being in a
committed relationship.
Measures.  Participants completed the final version of the
HFERST from Study 1 with 28 items measuring rumina-
tion, experience suppression, expressive suppression,
avoidance, acceptance, reappraisal, problem solving, and
social support. The DERS was also applied that includes 36
items rated on a 5-point Likert-type scale from 1 (almost
never) to 5 (almost always). Higher scores indicate greater
impairment in ER. The DERS demonstrates good psycho-
metric characteristics (Gratz & Roemer, 2004). It measures
ER difficulties on six dimensions of nonacceptance of
emotional responses (α = .90), difficulties engaging in
goal-directed behavior (α = .91), impulse control difficul-
ties (α = .89), lack of emotional awareness α = .86), limited
access to ER strategies (α = .93), and lack of emotional
clarity (α = .90). The Cronbach’s alpha of the total scale in
our sample was .96. Furthermore, the Brief Symptoms
Inventory (BSI) was used, which includes 53 items rated
on a 5-point Likert-type scale, ranging from not at all (0) to
extremely (4). The BSI measures the presence of nine psy-
chopathology symptoms over the past 7 days and has
shown excellent reliability and validity (Franke, 2000).
The Cronbach’s alphas for each subscale in our sample
were as follows: somatization = .88, depression = .92,
obsessive compulsive = .87, interpersonal sensitivity = .88,
anxiety disorders = .89, hostility = .83, phobic anxiety =
.89, paranoid anxiety = .84, and psychoticism = .84.
Results
Factor Analysis.  Using CFA procedure, the final eight-factor
model from Study 1 was investigated. We used three fit
indices: model chi square divided by degrees of freedom
(χ2/df), comparative fit index (CFI; Bentler, 1990), and root
mean square error of approximation (RMSEA; Marsh,
Balla, & Hau, 1996). In general, χ2/df values less than 2 are
considered good and values less than 5 are acceptable
(Schumacker & Lomax, 2004). Furthermore, values greater
than .90 for CFI and values less than .08 for RMSEA repre-
sent an acceptable fit. The model showed adequate fit: χ2 =
1117.38, df = 322, χ2/df = 3.47, RMSEA = .06, CFI = .92.
Mean and standard deviation for each item, along with their
factor loadings, are presented in Table 3.
Reliability. We evaluated internal consistency of the eight
subscales using Cronbach’s alpha. Table 4 (lower panel)
shows alpha coefficients and item and scale information,
along with the correlations among HFERST subscales. As
illustrated in Table 4, the HFERST subscales showed good
internal consistencies and were also fairly homogenous
with inter-item correlations ranging from .46 to .72
Convergent and Discriminant Validity.  Table 5 shows associa-
tions among HFERST, DERS, and BSI subscales. Results
showed a good concurrent validity for the HFERST. In line
with our expectations, there was a positive correlation
between experience/expressive suppression, avoidance,
rumination (known as mainly dysfunctional), and DERS
scores, while DERS subscales were negatively correlated
with problem solving, social support, reappraisal, and
acceptance (known as mainly functional). Furthermore, as
we expected, HFERST dysfunctional ER strategies were
positively correlated with psychopathology symptoms,
while functional strategies (i.e., reappraisal, social support,
acceptance, and problem solving) were negatively corre-
lated with all psychopathology symptoms.
Izadpanah et al. 9

Table 3.  Result of the Confirmatory Factor Analysis in Study 2 Representing Standardized Regression Weights, Means, and Standard
Deviations for Each Item of the Final Version of the Heidelberg Form for Emotion Regulation Strategies.
Problem Expressive Experience Social
Items M (SD) Rumination Reappraisal Acceptance solving suppression suppression Avoidance support

  1. When I have negative 3.96 (1.09) .59  

feelings, I often brood
about why I am feeling
this way.
  2. After emotional 4.08 (1.04) .45  
experiences/situations,
I think a lot about
what I did and said, so
as to understand my
feelings better.
  3. I realize over and over 4.09 (1.09) .84  
again, that I have to
think about something
that made me angry
or sad.
  4. I remember past 3.73 (1.20) .79  
conflicts often and
think about what
I could have done
differently.
  5. When I feel bad, I try 3.36 (1.10) .81  
to see the positive
aspects of a situation.
  6. When I find myself in 2.97 (1.12) .76  
a stressful situation, I
change my thoughts
about the situation in
such a manner that I
become calm.
  7. When I want to feel 3.31 (1.13) .86  
better, I concentrate
on the good aspects of
a situation.
  8. I change my feelings 3.02 (1.13) .79  
by thinking differently
about my current
situation.
  9. When I cannot change 3.35 (1.08) .70  
something, I accept
the situation as it is.
10. I am able to 3.23 (1.12) .69  
tolerate and endure
uncomfortable
situations.
11. I am able to accept 3.19 (1.04) .89  
things as they are.
12. When looking for 4.00 (0.95) .70  
solutions for a
problem, I do not only
rely on my instincts,
but try to think as
rationally as possible.
13. I think about possible 4.29 (0.80) .83  
solutions for how to
change the situation.
14. When I am confronted 4.12 (0.89) .83  
with problems, I think
very carefully about
how I can deal best
with the situation.
(continued)
10 Assessment 00(0)

Table 3. (continued)

Problem Expressive Experience Social

Items M (SD) Rumination Reappraisal Acceptance solving suppression suppression Avoidance support

15. When I have to make 4.22 (0.91) .62  

a decision, I carefully
weigh the different
alternatives against
each other.
16. When something 3.33 (1.20) .85  
makes me angry or
sad, I try to hide my
feelings from others.
17. I hide physical 3.28 (1.23) .89  
expressions of my
feelings.
18. It is very hard for 3.05 (1.26) .79  
other people to tell
how I am feeling at the
moment.
19. Even when I am very 3.25 (1.20) .49  
agitated, I am able to
keep a calm exterior.
20. I try not to allow for 2.38 (1.07) .83  
negative emotions to
begin with.
21. I rarely let my 2.77 (1.18) .85  
emotions run high but
keep them down.
22. Whenever possible, 2.02 (1.10) .63  
I avoid realizing my
feelings.
23. When I have strong 2.08 (1.06) .68  
emotions, I immediately
push them aside.
24. I prefer to avoid 3.26 (1.13) .77  
situations that could
cause negative
emotions in me.
26. I try to avoid thoughts 2.99 (1.17) .73  
about things that
weigh me down.
27. Whenever possible, 3.11 (1.20) .84  
I take care that I
am not confronted
with uncomfortable
situations.
29. I like to share negative 3.20 (1.33) .89
and positive feelings by
calling or meeting up
with others and talking
about them.
31. I often talk about my 3.56 (1.38) .84
emotions with my
partner or my close
friends.

Note. The items are originally in German as presented in Appendix A. All factor loadings are significant (p < .001).

Testing a Two-Dimensional Model.  As mentioned in the intro- exhibit acceptable model fit to the HFERST items as well.
duction, ER strategies can be broadly classified into the two To that end, we set up a model in which all items from the
categories of functional and dysfunctional. We tested supposedly functional ER subscales (reappraisal, accep-
whether such a two-dimensional measurement model would tance, social support, and problem solving) loaded on one
 Table 4.  Partial Correlation Coefficients Among HFERST Subscales Controlling for Gender, Together With Internal Consistencies and Item Charcteristics in Study 1 and
Study 2.

IIC CITC

  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 M (SD) Range M Range M α

HFERST subscales
  Study 1 (N = 399)
1. Rumination 3.70 (0.96) .40-.71 .62 .56-.71 .64 .82
2.  Exprience suppression −.13* 2.38 (0.95) .53-.76 .60 .65-.75 .70 .86
3.  Expressive suppression .04 .57*** 3.20 (1.01) .40-.76 .58 .51-.78 .69 .85
4. Avoidance .10* .48*** .29*** 3.19 (0.97) .55-.68 .62 .65-.75 .69 .83
5. Reappraisal −.13** −.17*** −.21*** −.18*** 3.16 (1.01) .59-.73 .67 .72-.78 .76 .89
6. Acceptance −.29*** .01 .00 −.13** .38*** 3.31 (0.91) .47-.69 .59 .59-.76 .67 .81
7.  Problem solving .04 −.12* −.06 −.24*** .31*** .28*** 4.03 (0.76) .49-.69 .56 .62-.71 .67 .83
8.  Social support .08 −.49*** −.52*** −.30*** .31*** .06 .20*** 3.41 (1.25) .71 .71 .71 .71 .86
  Study 2 (N = 715)
1. Rumination 3.96 (0.85) .34-.68 .46 .48-.64 .58 .78
2.  Exprience suppression .01 2.32 (0.90) .48-.75 .56 .60-.75 .67 .84
3.  Expressive suppression .14*** .64*** 3.22 (1.01) .41-.78 .56 .48-.78 .68 .83
4. Avoidance .18*** .39*** .31*** 3.11 (1.00) .55-.65 .61 .65-72 .68 .82
5. Reappraisal −.14*** −.05 −.09* −.24*** 3.16 (0.96) .59-.71 .65 .71-.78 .74 .88
6. Acceptance −.24*** −.03 −.00 −.25*** .38*** 3.26 (0.91) .46-.64 .57 .59-.73 .64 .80
7.  Problem solving −.00 −.03 .02 −.16*** .29*** .23*** 4.15 (0.73) .48-.70 .56 .58-.71 .67 .83
8.  Social support −.02 −.46*** −.55*** −.27*** .30*** .06 .19*** 3.38 (1.26) .72 .72 .72 .72 .82

Note. HFERST = Heidelberg Form for Emotion Regulation Strategies; IIC = interitem correlation; CITC = corrected item–total correlation.
* p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

11
12
Table 5.  Partial Correlation Coefficients Among HFERST, BSI, and DERS Scales Controlling for Gender, Together With Their Means and Standard Deviations in Study 2.
9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25

HFERST
 1.  Rumination .21*** .24*** .29*** .29*** .24*** .25*** .20*** .25*** .25*** .28*** .32*** .29*** .26*** −.00 .38*** .20*** .31***
  2. Experience .24*** .29*** .31*** .31*** .30*** .17*** .28*** .32*** .35*** .33*** .35*** .18*** .19*** .56*** .27*** .43*** .41***
suppression
  3. Expressive .28*** .32*** .35*** .37*** .33*** .23*** .35*** .35*** .38*** .38*** .38*** .17*** .22*** .45*** .31*** .40*** .40***
suppression
 4.  Avoidance .32*** .32*** .37*** .33*** .34*** .30*** .38*** .35*** .34*** .38*** .38*** .34*** .35*** .31*** .39*** .37*** .45***
 5.  Reappraisal −.25*** −.31*** −.36*** −.40*** −.29*** −.33*** −.31*** −.34*** −.33*** –.37*** −.32*** −.29*** −.34*** −.36*** −.51*** −.35*** −.46***
 6.  Acceptance −.30*** −.36*** −.39*** −.37*** −.34*** −.37*** −.33*** −.36*** −.37*** −.40**** −.33*** −.43*** −.41*** −.23*** −.45*** −.26*** −.45***
  7.  Problem solving −.26*** −.31*** −.29*** −.31*** −.25*** −.26*** −.26*** −.28*** −.33*** −.33*** −.24*** −.28*** −.34*** −.33*** −.33*** −.30*** −.38***
  8.  Social support −.35*** −.37*** −.39*** −.44*** −.36*** −.29*** −.39*** −.40*** −.46*** −.44*** −.36*** −.20*** −.30*** −.56*** −.40*** −.47*** −.47***
BSI
 9.  Somatization .73*** .68*** .69*** .81*** .64*** .73*** .67*** .71*** .84*** .49*** .48*** .62*** .35*** .59*** .52*** .64***
10. Obsessive .76*** .82*** .76*** .71*** .69*** .71*** .80*** .89*** .56*** .60*** .64*** .43*** .67*** .61*** .74***
Compulsive
11. Interpersonal .84*** .75*** .74*** .72*** .79*** .82*** .89*** .61*** .56*** .64*** .40*** .73*** .61*** .75***
Sensitivity
12. Depression .75*** .70*** .73*** .75*** .87*** .92*** .62*** .58*** .66*** .45*** .77*** .64*** .78***
13.  Anxiety disorder .71*** .81*** .72*** .75*** .90*** .53*** .52*** .67*** .38*** .64*** .57*** .70***
14. Hostility .66*** .75*** .72*** .82*** .48*** .48*** .69*** .31*** .64*** .51*** .65***
15.  Phobic anxiety .72*** .75*** .86*** .51*** .50*** .65*** .39*** .63*** .55*** .68***
16. Paranoid .78*** .86*** .51*** .49*** .61*** .42*** .63*** .54*** .67***
thoughts
17. Psychoticism .91*** .61*** .54*** .67*** .48*** .70*** .66*** .77***
18. Global Severity .63*** .60*** .74*** .46*** .76*** .66*** .81***
Index
DERSa
19.  Non acceptance .53*** .57*** .45*** .72*** .59*** .82***
20.  Goal oriented .64*** .26*** .71*** .47*** .77***
21.  Impulse control .38*** .73*** .58**v .82***
22. Awareness .42*** .62*** .64***
23. Strategies .62*** .89***
24. Clarity .81***
25. Total  
M 1.53 1.97 1.99 1.88 1.73 1.63 1.51 1.66 1.63 1.72 2.42 2.74 1.96 2.55 2.31 2.28 2.38
SD 0.72 0.92 1.03 1.04 0.83 0.75 0.88 0.85 0.86 0.77 1.01 1.05 0.91 0.89 1.04 0.94 0.77

Note. HFERST= Heidelberg Form for Emotion Regulation Strategies; BSI = Brief Symptom Inventory; DERS = Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale.
a
Higher scores represent more difficulties in emotion regulation.
***p < .001.
Izadpanah et al. 13
factor, while the other items belonging to the four dysfunc-
tional ER strategies (rumination, avoidance, expressive
suppression, and experience suppression) loaded on the
other factor (both factors were allowed to correlate). Results
showed inacceptable fit for this model, χ2(349) = 5196.28,
χ2/df = 14.89, RMSEA = .14, CFI = .51, suggesting that the
multifaceted structure of ER use as assessed via the
HFERST does not justify a mere classification of these
strategies as functional and dysfunctional.
Gender Effects. In an additional analysis, we checked for
measurement invariance across genders. Having separated
the analyses by gender, findings showed that weak/metric
invariance was tenable, since the model fit did not decrease
when item loadings were constrained to equality across the
genders, χ2(20) = 14.8, p > .05 (for information on the issue
of testing for measurement invariance, see Dimitrov, 2010;
Meredith, 1993). Further constraining the item intercepts to
equality resulted in statistically significant deterioration of
model fit, χ2(20) = 87.89, p < .001. Taken together, these
results suggest that the HFERST shows evidence for weak/
metric, but not strong measurement invariance across gen-
ders. Of note, a vast body of empirical studies suggest that
there are gender differences in applying ER strategies (e.g.,
Nolen-Hoeksema & Aldao, 2011; Zlomke & Hahn, 2010).
Given that our analyses were mainly correlational based,
the result of strong factorial invariance does not signifi-
cantly influence the validity of our findings as long as the
assumption of metric invariance holds (Dimitrov, 2010).
Brief Discussion
This study provided further support for the eight-factor
structure of the HFERST. The results supported that our
hypothesized model with its eight strategies of rumination,
expressive suppression, experience suppression, avoidance,
acceptance, social support, reappraisal, and problem solv-
ing is replicable in a new sample. Furthermore, functional
ER strategies from the HFERST had a negative correlation
with psychopathology symptoms and DERS, while dys-
functional ER strategies were positively correlated with
psychopathology and DERS. These findings further support
the concurrent validity of the HFERST and provide evi-
dence for its validity and clinical utility. Our results also
supported a good to very good internal consistency of the
HFERST subscales and an acceptable range of mean inter-
item correlations.
Study 3
This third study first aimed at investigating the replicability
of the results of CFA analysis in a new sample. This study
also replicates part of our results from our previous two
studies by investigating construct validity, criterion validity,
and the internal consistency of the HFERST using BDI and
DERS.
Method
Participants.  A total of 418 participants completed an online
survey designed via Unipark software. Following calcula-
tion of Mahalanobis distance, 10 participants were recog-
nized as multivariate outliers (p < .001) and were removed
from further analysis (Tabachnick & Fidell, 2007). This
final sample included 408 participants (305 women) rang-
ing from 18 to 73 years old (M = 26.74 years, SD = 10.92).
A majority of the sample reported to be student at the time
of assessment (77.11%).
Measures.  Participants completed the final version of the
HFERST with 28 items measuring rumination, experience
suppression, expressive suppression, avoidance, accep-
tance, reappraisal, problem solving, and social support. The
DERS (Gratz & Roemer, 2004) was also applied that
includes 36 items measuring ER on six dimensions of non-
acceptance of emotional responses, difficulties engaging in
goal-directed behavior, impulse control difficulties, lack of
emotional awareness, limited access to ER strategies, and
lack of emotional clarity. Furthermore, we applied the BDI,
a self-rating measure for depression with 21 items and good
reliability and stability (Beck et al., 1988). Cronbach’s
alpha for all these scales in our sample are represented in
Table 6.
Results
Confirmatory Factor Analysis.  The final eight-factor structure
of the HFERT, which was confirmed in Study 2 through
CFA was investigated again using another CFA procedure.
We applied the following fit indices: χ2/df, CFI (Bentler,
1990), and RMSEA (Marsh et al., 1996). The model again
showed an adequate fit: χ2 = 772.35, df = 322, χ2/df = 2.39,
RMSEA = .06, CFI = .91.
Reliability, Convergent and Discriminant Validity.  Table 6 shows
Cronbach’s alpha for HFERST, DERS, and BDI along with
the correlation coefficients among these scales. HFERST
subscales showed good internal consistencies, which ranged
from .78 to .86. These results also supported the concurrent
validity of the HFERST. In line with our expectations, there
was a positive correlation between suppression, avoidance,
rumination (known as mainly dysfunctional) and DERS,
while DERS subscales were negatively correlated with
problem solving, social support, reappraisal, and acceptance
(known as mainly functional). Difficulties engaging in goal-
directed behavior and impulse control difficulties did not
show any significant correlation with suppression and social
support. A closer look into our data revealed that impulse
14
Table 6.  Partial Correlation Coefficients Among HFERST, BSI, and DERS Controlling for Gender, Together With Their Means and Standard Deviations in Study 3.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16
HFERST
 1.  Rumination −.15** .02 .09 −.18*** −.22*** .12* .08 .27*** .35*** .24*** −.20*** .35*** .15** .30*** .12*
  2. Experience .53*** .41*** −.07 .05 −.14** −.51*** .17*** −.03 .02 .36*** .10* .23*** .18*** .06
suppression
  3. Expressive .29*** −.09 −.06 −.04 −.52*** .20*** .003 −.02 .27*** .15** .26*** .19*** .12*
suppression
 4.  Avoidance −.15** −.04 .01 −.24*** .27*** .25*** .11* .15** .26*** .12* .28*** .12*
 5.  Reappraisal .32*** .22*** .15** −.25*** −.30*** −.32*** −.35*** −.48*** −.31*** −.47*** −.26***
 6.  Acceptance .14** .07 −.26*** −.31*** −.30*** −.17*** −.40*** −.31*** −.41*** −.26***
  7.  Problem solving .15** −.06 −.13** −.23*** −.28*** −.17*** −.28*** −.25*** −.12*
  8.  Social support −.20*** −.05 −.08 −.34*** −.21*** −.24*** −.25*** −.10*
DERSa
 9.  Nonacceptance .43*** .43*** .20*** .65*** .43*** .76*** .27***
10.  Goal oriented .60*** .05 .64*** .32*** .75*** .26***
11.  Impulse control .09 .65*** .39*** .75*** .25***
12. Awareness .20*** .40*** .42*** .06
13. Strategies .52*** .88*** .41***
14. Clarity .69*** .23***
15. Total .36***
BDI
16. Depression  
M 3.70 2.18 3.07 2.99 3.23 3.34 3.96 3.72 2.30 2.71 1.88 2.37 2.13 2.04 2.24 .99
SD .84 .80 .97 .89 .88 .88 .73 1.18 .85 .95 .71 .67 .82 .64 .55 .65
Cronbach’s alpha .78 .83 .84 .78 .86 .80 .82 .86 .86 .89 .84 .78 .89 .79 .93 .95

Note. HFERST = Heidelberg Form for Emotion Regulation Strategies; BSI = Brief Symptom Inventory; DERS = Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale. N = 418.
a
Higher scores represent more difficulties in emotion regulation.
*p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.
Izadpanah et al. 15
control difficulties correlated with lower scores on experi-
ence and expressive suppression scales (r = −.24, p = .01; r
= .19, p = .05, respectively) among men but not women.
Interestingly, impulse control difficulties were associated
with higher social support among men (r = .21, p = .03) but
with lower social support among women (r = −.15, p < .01).
As we expected, there was a positive correlation between
dysfunctional ER strategies and depression, while more
functional strategies (i.e., reappraisal, social support, accep-
tance, and problem solving) were negatively correlated with
depression. An exception to this was the case of experience
suppression, which did not show a significant correlation
with BDI. Further analysis of the data showed that experi-
ence suppression was positively correlated with depression
among women (r = .13, p = .03) but not men (r = −.15, r).
Testing a Two-Dimensional Model. In a similar manner to
Study 2, we conducted a CFA to investigate a model in
which ER strategies were categorized into two dimensions
of functional and dysfunctional ER strategies. We tested
whether such a two-dimensional measurement model would
exhibit an acceptable model fit to the HFERST items. Simi-
lar to our findings in Study 2, results showed an inacceptable
fit for this model, χ2(349) = 3199.15, χ2/df = 9.17, RMSEA =
.14, CFI = .45, suggesting that this categorization does not
justify the multifaceted structure of ER use as it is assessed
in the HFERST.
Gender Effects.  Similar to Study 2, we conducted an addi-
tional analysis to investigate measurement invariance across
genders. Having separated the analysis by gender, findings
supported the weak/metric invariance was tenable as model
fit did not decrease when item loadings were constrained to
equality across the genders, χ2(20) = 22.48, p > .05 (see
Dimitrov, 2010; Meredith, 1993). Similar to Study 2, the
model fit showed a statistically significant deterioration fol-
lowing further constraints to the item intercepts to equality
χ2(20) = 51.41, p < .001. When taken together, these results
suggest that the HFERST shows evidence for weak/metric
but not strong measurement invariance across genders.
Brief Discussion
In this study, we conducted a second CFA to investigate the
eight-factor structure of the HFERST in a new sample. Results
of the CFA provided further support for the hypothesized
eight-factor structure of the HFERST and replicated the find-
ings from Study 2. Furthermore, similar to Study 1 and Study
2, results supported good to very good internal consistency of
the HFERST subscales. Results of the correlation analysis
replicated our findings in Study 1 showing significant correla-
tions between depression and higher scores on HFERST dys-
functional ER and lower scores on functional ER strategies.
With regard to the correlations between DERS and HFERST,
only experience/expressive suppression scales and social sup-
port did not show a significant association with difficulties
engaging in goal-directed behavior. Furthermore, the relation
between these three HFERST subscales and impulse control
difficulties was gender dependent, while all other correlations
were significant and in the expected directions, also after con-
trolling for gender. Testing measurement invariance across
genders supported weak factorial invariance but not strong
factorial invariance. However, considering that our analyses
were mainly correlational in nature, and given that a vast body
of empirical studies support gender differences in applying
ER strategies (e.g., Nolen-Hoeksema & Aldao, 2011; Zlomke
& Hahn, 2010), the result of strong factorial invariance does
not significantly influence the validity of our findings
(Dimitrov, 2010). In general, the results of this study provided
further support for good construct validity, internal reliability,
and criterion validity of HFERST.
Study 4
This fourth study was conducted in order to assess test–
retest reliability of the HFERST.
Method
This study sample consisted of 60 graduate students in the
psychology department who took part in a psychology
class, each of whom completed a paper-and-pencil version
of the HFERST during one of their classes. Participants
completed the questionnaire at the beginning of their course
session, following the lecturer’s request. There was no fur-
ther compensation for their participation. Two weeks later,
the students were asked to complete the HFERST for a sec-
ond time. Of the 60 original participants, 37 completed the
questionnaire the second time. Those who did not partici-
pate in the second assessment scored significantly higher on
experience suppression t(58) = 2.23, p = .03, but they did
not significantly differ from the rest of the sample in any
other HFERST subscales. The sample was predominantly
female (86.48%) and all participants were German.
Results and Discussion
Correlation coefficients between Time 1 and Time 2 assess-
ments were calculated controlling for gender. The test–
retest correlations between two measurement points were
acceptable to good: rumination = .64, reappraisal = .71,
acceptance = .67, problem solving = .57, expressive sup-
pression = .84, experience suppression = .76, avoidance =
.75, social support = .47. Furthermore, a paired sample t test
was conducted in order to test if the participants’ scores on
different strategies changed significantly from Time 1 to
Time 2. As shown in Table 7, scores on the HFERST sub-
scales did not change significantly after 2 weeks. There
16 Assessment 00(0)

Table 7.  Results of t Tests Analysis for Test–Retest Reliability of HFERST From Time 1 to Time 2 (Study 4).

Time 1 Time 2

HFERST subscales M SD M SD t Cohen’s d

Rumination 3.59 0.87 3.43 0.84 1.30 0.22
Experience Suppression 2.01 0.63 2.09 0.71 1.05 0.17
Expressive suppression 2.82 0.92 2.67 0.79 1.81 0.31
Avoidance 2.83 0.92 2.75 0.90 0.26 0.05
Reappraisal 3.49 0.70 3.52 0.69 0.39 0.08
Acceptance 3.28 0.86 3.19 0.80 0.81 0.13
Problem solving 4.13 0.61 4.16 0.58 0.29 0.05
social support 4.03 0.98 4.26 0.75 1.21 0.20

Note. All effects were insignificant (p > .05). N = 37. HFERST = Heidelberg Form for Emotion Regulation Strategies.

results remained unchanged after controlling for the effect
of gender. Findings of this study support the stability of the
HFERST at an interval of 2 weeks.
Study 5
We conducted this final study to investigate the utility of the
HFERST in measuring treatment outcomes. For this aim,
we applied the HFERST before and after an 8-week group
therapy for ER training to test if the HFERST captures ER
changes following this intervention.
Method
Our study sample included 55 individuals, 51.9% of whom
agreed to take part in our pilot study after being informed
about it through the outpatient clinic to which they were
referred for psychotherapy. The other participants were
informed about the study through public announcements in
the newspaper. All participants were informed that they
would receive training, which had been developed to
improve ER. Each participant paid a participation fee of
€40 without receiving any further compensation for taking
part in the program. Diagnostic information was obtained
through the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV Axis
I and II (SCID-I and SCID-II; Wittchen, Zaudig, & Fydrich,
1997) and was available for 51.9% of the participants,
77.8% of whom were diagnosed with affective disorders or
anxiety disorders, and 22.2% of whom were diagnosed with
eating disorders, personality disorders or somatoform disor-
der. Furthermore, 69.2% of the sample were receiving indi-
vidual psychotherapy at the time of our assessment and
11.5% reported to have had a history of receiving psycho-
therapy in the past. Before starting the group intervention,
all participants completed a paper version of the HFERST
along with several other questionnaires. After conducting
the intervention, they were investigated for a second time,
when they completed the HFERST again. At this point, 52
participants took part in this second measurement and were
therefore included in the final analysis. This sample con-
sisted of 39 women and 13 men, aged from 17 to 69 years
(M = 39.14 years, SD = 13.50). The intervention consisted
of a systematic group therapy for ER training consisting of
eight sessions. The content of the sessions was focused on
psychoeducation of ER (e.g., what are emotions, what kinds
of ER strategies exist and why are they required, different
facets of emotional experience), specific ER strategies and
skills (rumination, reappraisal, avoidance, problem solving,
engaging in activities, suppression, distraction and accep-
tance), and their positive/negative consequences. Sessions
were also focused on increasing awareness toward the envi-
ronmental triggers of the emotions and the relation between
bodily gesture and feelings (Barnow & Reichenbacher,
2013). Each participant had the chance to practice the skills
both in the sessions and between the sessions through hand-
outs and homework. Further details on the structure, aims,
and method of the intervention are provided in Barnow,
Reinelt, and Sauer (2016).
Results
We conducted a series of paired t-test analyses to compare
the HFERST scores measured before and after the interven-
tion. As shown in Table 8, our results revealed that partici-
pants showed a significant increase in applying functional
strategies of reappraisal and acceptance after the interven-
tion. However, they showed only a trend in applying more
problem solving (p = .09) and no significant change in
social support. Regarding dysfunctional strategies, partici-
pants showed a strong decrease in rumination, and a mar-
ginal decrease in avoidance (p = .06). There was no
significant decrease in experience/expressive suppression.
These results remained unchanged after controlling for the
effect of parallel psychotherapy. Furthermore, the conduct
of our analyses for men and women separately showed the
same pattern for both groups with significant changes in
rumination, acceptance and reappraisal, and no significant
changes in other strategies for both groups.
Izadpanah et al. 17

Table 8.  Results of t Test Analysis for Comparing Scores on the HFERST Scales Before and After Intervention (Study 5).

Pretest Posttest

HFERST subscales M SD M SD t Cohen’s d

Rumination 4.18 0.68 3.37 0.90 6.23*** 1.02
Experience suppression 2.14 0.85 2.29 0.90 1.28 0.17
Expressive suppression 3.11 1.04 2.96 0.75 1.42 0.17
Avoidance 3.03 0.99 2.80 0.92 1.90 0.24
Reappraisal 2.49 0.89 3.18 0.83 7.12*** 0.80
Acceptance 2.53 0.82 3.07 0.96 4.91*** 0.61
Problem solving 3.46 0.92 3.63 0.78 1.68 0.20
Social support 3.22 1.25 3.42 1.16 1.52 0.17

Note. N = 52. HFERST = Heidelberg Form for Emotion Regulation Strategies.

***p < .001.

Brief Discussion experience suppression, activity and social support, accep-

The results of this pilot study provided further evidence for
the validity of the HFERST and its utility in the psycho-
therapeutic context. We conducted an ER training interven-
tion program for a sample of which 40.36% of participants
had been diagnosed with a mental disorder. We found that
participants showed an increase in applying functional
strategies and a significant decrease in applying rumination
after terminating the intervention. Although changes in
problem solving and avoidance were not statistically sig-
nificant, they showed a trend in the expected directions.
Furthermore, based on our findings, suppression seemed to
be the most resistant strategy considering its insignificant
change following intervention. In general, it seems that dys-
functional strategies are more resistant to intervention and
therefore might require more extended training programs.
Furthermore, although some of the participants were in psy-
chotherapy at the time of ER intervention, controlling for
the effect of parallel psychotherapy did not alter our results.
The results of this study show that the HFERST can capture
the effect of an intervention on ER. Therefore, on the basis
of these results, the application of the HFERST in therapeu-
tic contexts is declared beneficial in the assessment of ER
changes after intervention.
General Discussion
The development of the HFERST contributes to the growing
literature on ER by providing a new and more comprehensive
tool for ER measurement. The HFERST integrates different
important ER strategies into a unified multidimensional
questionnaire, overcoming several limitations of the previous
measures. Items were generated through two methods, first
by means of extensive expert conversations, and second by
adapting items from the existing validated measures of ER.
By using these methods, 124 items were generated for eight
strategies: rumination, avoidance, expressive suppression,
tance, problem solving, and reappraisal. Through expert con-
versations and a thorough investigation of content validity of
items, items were significantly modified and several items
were removed in two further steps.
In five studies, we investigated the psychometric charac-
teristics of the HFERST and found consistent evidence in
support of the eight-factor structure of HFERST and its
validity. In Study 1, the initial version of HFERST with 32
items was subjected to an EFA. In line with our hypothe-
sized model, the results of EFA supported the preference of
an eight-factor structure. However, activity items failed to
load on a single factor and one item from the avoidance
scale showed considerable cross-loading, after which all
four items were removed. To test the replicability of this
final model in other samples, we conducted two CFAs in
Studies 2 and 3 using two separate samples. The findings of
both studies provided further support for the eight-factor
structure of the HFERST.
Further results underpinned several strengths of the
HFERST in comparison with previous measures of ER. By
including various ER strategies that are supported by the
empirical and theoretical background, the HFERST enables
researchers to capture a full profile of important ER strate-
gies using one single questionnaire. This is particularly
important in studies that investigate ER as a transdiagnostic
factor in the context of various psychopathologies (Aldao,
Gee, De Los Reyes, & Seager, 2016). Furthermore, the
HFERST includes ER strategies which have been under-
studied to date. As well as including expressive suppres-
sion, we incorporated a scale for experience suppression in
the HFERST. This addition was based on a broader and
multifaceted perspective to suppression (Salters-Pedneault
et al., 2010), which regards suppression of emotional
responses as one of the distinct but related forms of sup-
pression that aims to terminate an emotional response that
has already begun. From this perspective, suppression is not
only limited to the restraining of emotional expression but
18 Assessment 00(0)
also refers to an attempt to suppress the subjective experi-
ence of emotions. In line with our expectations, our results
supported the importance of experience suppression consid-
ering its significant relationship to psychopathology symp-
toms and various difficulties in ER.
Furthermore, we designed an acceptance subscale for the
purpose of encompassing both situational and emotional
types of acceptance. The stronger correlation between psy-
chopathology symptoms and the acceptance subscale of the
HFERST in comparison with the acceptance subscale from
CERQ in our study was possibly an outcome of taking this
broader approach and supports the advantage of the
HFERST over the CERQ, when applied within the context
of psychopathology. In general, when compared with the
CERQ, HFERST subscales were more strongly related to
depression, which suggests a better criterion validity of the
HFERST. Given that the formulation of items was based on
the awareness that items should not overlap with psychopa-
thology symptoms, the content overlap with psychopathol-
ogy cannot explain the stronger correlation between the
HFERST and depression in comparison with CERQ. While
correlation coefficients between HFERT subscales and
depression were not unexpectedly high, the correlation
coefficients between CERQ subscales and depression were
unexpectedly low. At the same time, similar subscales in
both HFERST and CERQ showed a stronger correlation
with each other than they did with depression (e.g., accep-
tance, rumination, reappraisal, problem solving, and refo-
cus on planning), which supports the construct validity of
the HFERST. An exception to this pattern was that the
HFERST-acceptance subscale was more strongly correlated
with depression than it was with CERQ-acceptance.
However, previous findings show that the strategy accep-
tance from CERQ is often insignificantly or weakly corre-
lated with depression (e.g., Jermann et al., 2006; Öngen,
2010), while based on the theoretical background, a nega-
tive relation is expected (Liverant, Brown, Barlow, &
Roemer, 2008). On the basis of our results, the acceptance
subscale of the CERQ even showed a small positive corre-
lation with depression in Study 1, which was similar to find-
ings from previous researchers (e.g., Tuna & Bozo, 2012).
This is potentially related to the formulation of items in this
subscale, which seems to measure passive resignation (“I
think that I cannot change anything about it”), while accep-
tance is considered to be an adaptive strategy. Furthermore,
this subscale seems partly to measure thoughts of accep-
tance (as that expressed in the statement: “I think I have to
accept that this has happened”) rather than acceptance as an
ER strategy (see Jermann et al., 2006).
Furthermore, our results supported good internal consis-
tency of the HFERST subscales and provided a consistent
pattern of relationship between the HFERST subscales and
various psychopathology symptoms in predicted directions.
In addition, in Study 5, using HFERST, we found significant
changes in ER after conducting an ER training course.
Participants showed an increase in functional strategies, such
as reappraisal and acceptance, and a decrease in dysfunc-
tional strategies, such as rumination and avoidance. In gen-
eral, it seems that dysfunctional strategies are more resistant
to intervention, and they therefore might require more
extended training programs. This can be explained by the
more habitual nature of dysfunctional strategies and a more
conscious nature of functional strategies, which facilitates
change to the latter category through learning procedures.
The significant reduction of rumination might be explained
by the availability of more functional strategies following the
intervention that protected individuals from falling into a
vicious circle of negative moods in response to negative
experiences that in turn triggers greater rumination. An
extended repertoire of ER strategies enables individuals to
apply other more conscious alternative strategies before
engaging automatically in rumination. Furthermore, rumina-
tion is associated with positive beliefs about the usefulness or
even the necessity for rumination in solving current problems
and preventing future ones (Papageorgiou & Wells, 2001;
Weber & Exner, 2013). The intervention highlighted the
adverse effects of rumination and therefore might have con-
tributed to less rumination by correcting these beliefs. These
findings show that the HFERST can capture changes in ER
after an intervention, as well as showing sufficient 2-week
stability when there is no intervention as found in Study 4.
Several limitations of this study should be noted. First,
the samples included were largely convenience samples
from online studies (Studies 1, 2, and 3), or samples from a
student population (Study 4). Furthermore, although stu-
dents in Study 4 were not aware of the aim of the study,
their knowledge of psychology might have resulted in a bias
toward good test–retest reliability. In addition, our samples
were predominantly female and a small percentage of par-
ticipants in samples from Study 1 and Study 2 (10% and
5.6%, respectively) were in their late adolescence. We
accounted for the gender effect by controlling it in all cor-
relation analysis and by testing the model among both
women and men. Nevertheless, having more female than
male participants might have reduced the representative-
ness of the samples. More than this, Study 4 suggests that
there are no overall changes in the HFERST subscales
across time if no ER intervention is implemented. However,
it remains an open question whether we would observe no
change in these subscales in a sample of participants with
mental disorders who do not receive an intervention.
Second, although Study 5 provided tentative evidence
that an ER intervention can significantly influence both
functional and dysfunctional strategies, regression to the
mean due to the lack of a randomized control group needs
to be considered as a limitation to the findings of this study.
Third, although we discuss ER strategy use as a constituting
factor for mental disorders, this causal direction cannot be
Izadpanah et al. 19
investigated in the present study, given the cross-sectional
nature of our data in Studies 1 to 3. Fifth, although validat-
ing this scale with a predominantly German sample is
advantageous to studies that are conducted in Germany, the
HFERST should be tested for applicability in other lan-
guages and other cultural groups. We are currently working
on investigating the intercultural validity of the HFERST,
including validation of an English version of the question-
naire. This will facilitate intercultural comparisons and con-
tribute to cross-cultural research (see Appendix B and C for
German and English versions of the HFERST). Finally,
given that our conceptual method did not only rely on
experts’ opinion but also on previous literature and scales
on ER, we decided that a conceptual strategy will be an eco-
nomic and reasonable solution for initial item development
and refinement. However, this strategy might have resulted
in limitations such as retention of items that do not reflect
the full breadth of the constructs or a full range of difficulty
and high correlations among scales. Regarding the first con-
cern, according to Kline (1979), the mean interitem correla-
tions of HFERST scales showed an ideal balance between
item specificity and scale homogeneity. However, other
authors suggest that interitem correlations greater than .50
might result in the attenuation paradox, that is, an increase
in internal consistency at the expense of a reduction in
validity and breadth of the measured construct (Clark &
Watson, 1995). Notably, our findings concerning the crite-
rion validity of the HFERST scales with psychopathology
and the low to moderate correlations among the HFERST
subscales increase our confidence that these higher inter-
item correlations are not detrimental to the utility of the
HFERST. Nevertheless, replication of our results in more
heterogeneous samples, as well as analyses in an item
response theory framework (Edelen & Reeve, 2007) are
important steps to further investigate if the HFERST can
capture the full breadth of ER strategy use.
Future research should investigate psychometric charac-
teristics of HFERST in clinical samples and should also
examine the utility of the HFERST in capturing individual
change in ER during therapy. Since ER has proven to be a
protective and predictive factor for psychopathology
(Potthoff et al., 2016; Sheppes, Suri, & Gross, 2015), future
research should compare the effectiveness of various ER
questionnaires in the prediction of long-term psychopathol-
ogy symptoms in order to provide evidence for the unique
power of each questionnaire. Furthermore, investigation of
the HFERST simultaneously in multiple groups of healthy
participants and individuals with various psychopatholo-
gies will provide an opportunity to answer the question to
what extent each strategy can be considered functional or
dysfunctional. For example, it remains an interesting ques-
tion whether some functional strategies (e.g., problem solv-
ing) can be dysfunctional in the context of specific disorders
(e.g., obsessive compulsive disorder). Furthermore, no ER
questionnaire so far measures ER along a continuum of
functionality since capturing this quality is limited by sev-
eral factors. First, the functionality of ER strategies can be
moderated by contextual factors such as the characteristics
of individuals or the situation in which ER strategies are
deployed (D’Avanzato et al., 2013; Liverant et al., 2008).
Second, subjective instruments mainly rely on the perspec-
tive of the individuals. Therefore, although a strategy might
be applied in the wrong context or to an extreme level, indi-
viduals might still find it functional from their own perspec-
tive. Therefore, the use of ecological momentary assessment
for measurement of ER should be complementary to apply-
ing ER questionnaires in further research as it enables
researchers to obtain context-related information. In order
to capture a more comprehensive assessment of ER, we are
currently working on development of an other-rated version
of the HFERST, together with an online version of the
HFERST that can be used as an application on a daily basis
for ecological momentary assessments providing further
information on the context in which ER is applied. This
multimethod assessment will allow researchers to compare
different assessment methods, to evaluate how the data col-
lected by these methods are correlated with one another,
and to investigate which method is more beneficial in pre-
dicting various mental health outcomes.
Despite these limitations, the results of this study indi-
cate that the HFERST is a valuable addition to the existing
measures of ER. The HFERST incorporates important ER
strategies into one single questionnaire and shows good
psychometric characteristics. Furthermore, results of this
study have shown that the HFERST is a valid questionnaire
for applying within the context of psychopathology and
psychotherapeutic research. In addition, including three
scales of experience suppression, social support, and avoid-
ance in the HFERST can contribute to a better understand-
ing of these understudied ER strategies in future research.
Appendix A
An Overview of the Questionnaires That Were
Reviewed During Item Development Process
and Details on the Similarity of Current
HFERST Items to Items on Those Reviewed
Questionnaires
Most of the included items are original (items with no fur-
ther details) or have been significantly reformulated and
only represent a general similarity in the content. Following
questionnaires have been reviewed during item develop-
ment procedure:
•• CERQ (Garnefski & Kraaij, 2007)
•• DERS (Gratz & Roemer, 2004)
20 Assessment 00(0)
•• Emotionserleben und Emotionsregulation (emo-
tional experience and emotional regulation; Benecke,
Vogt, Bock, Koschier, & Peham, 2008)
•• Emotion Control Questionnaire (ECQ; Roger &
Najarian, 1989)
•• ERQ (Gross & John, 2003)
•• Emotional Processing Scale (EPS; Baker, Thomas,
Thomas, & Owens, 2007)
•• Selbsteinschätzung emotionaler Kompetenzen (Self-
report measure forassessment of emotion regulation
skills; SEK-27; Berking & Znoj, 2008)
•• EMOtion REGulation Questionnaire (EMOREG;
Znoj & Lude, 2002)
•• Young/Rygh Avoidance Inventory (YRAI-1; Young,
Rygh, Berbalk, & Grutschpalk, 2003)
Items
1. Rumination
•• Item 1 (general similarity): When I’m upset, I take time
to figure out what I’m really feeling (DERS No. 18).
•• I want to understand why I feel the way I do about
what I have experienced (CERQ No. 21).
•• Item 2 (general similarity): I am preoccupied with
what I think and feel about what I have experienced
(CERQ No. 12).
•• Item 3 (general similarity): I often find myself think-
ing over and over about things that have made me
angry (ECQ No. 22).
•• Item 4
2. Reappraisal
•• Item 5 (general similarity): I think that the situation
also has its positive sides (CERQ No. 15).
•• Item 6 (general similarity): When I’m faced with
stressful situations, I make myself think about it in a
way that helps me stay calm (ERQ No. 5).
•• Item 7 (general similarity): When I want to feel more
positive emotions, I change the way I am thinking
about the situation (ERQ No. 7).
•• Item 8 (general similarity): When I want to feel more
positive/ less negative emotions, I change the way I
am thinking about the situation (ERQ No. 7 and 10).
3. Acceptance
•• Item 9 (integrates the content of items No. 11 and 20
from CERQ): I think that I have to accept the situa-
tion (No. 11).
•• I think that I cannot change anything about it (No.
20).
•• Item 10 (general similarity): I could not tolerate
unpleasant emotions (EPS No. 26).
•• I was sure that I could tolerate intensive, unpleasant
feelings (SEK No. 18).
•• Item 11
4. Problem solving
•• Item 12
•• Item 13 (general similarity): I think about how to
change the situation (CERQ No. 23).
•• Item 14 (general similarity): I think about how I can
best cope with the situation (CERQ No. 14).
•• Item 15 (general similarity): I am a person who
weights carefully when a decision has to be made
(EMOREG No. 5).
5. Suppression of emotional expression
•• Item 16 (general similarity): When someone upsets
me, I try to hide my feelings (ECQ-2 No. 1).
•• Item 17
•• Item 18 (general similarity): People find it difficult to
tell whether I am excited about something or not
(ECQ-2 No. 6).
•• Item 19 from ECQ-2 (general similarity): I usually
manage to remain outwardly calm, even though I
may be churned up inside (No. 50).
6. Suppression of emotional experience
•• Item 20
•• Item 21
•• Item 22
•• Item 23
7. Avoidance
•• Item 24 (general similarity): I try not to put myself in
the situations that are difficult or unpleasant to me
(YRAI No. 37).
•• Item 26 (general similarity): I am a person who
avoids stressful thoughts or anticipation of threaten-
ing events (EMOREG No. 2).
•• Item 27 (general similarity): I try not to put myself in
the situations that are difficult or unpleasant to me
(EPS, No. 22).
8. Social support
•• Item 29
•• Item 31
 Appendix B
Heidelberg Form for Emotion Regulation Strategies—German Version.

trifft gar Trifft teils Trifft trifft

Bitte schätzen Sie ein, inwieweit die folgenden Aussagen innerhalb; der letzten 4 Wochen auf Sie zutrafen. nicht zu weniger zu teils eher zu zu
Strategie 1: Grübeln
  1. Wenn ich negative Gefühle habe, grüble ich häufig darüber nach, warum ich mich so fühle.     
  2. Nach emotionalen Erlebnissen/Situationen denke ich intensiv darüber nach, was ich in der Situation getan und gesagt     
habe, um meine Gefühle besser zu verstehen.
  3. Ich ertappe mich dabei, wie ich immer wieder über etwas nachdenken muss, das mich geärgert oder traurig gemacht     
hat.
  4. Ich erinnere mich oft an vergangene Konflikte und überlege, was ich hätte anders tun können.     
Strategie 2: Neubewertung
  5. Wenn ich mich schlecht fühle, versuche ich die guten Aspekte einer Situation zu erkennen.     
  6. Wenn ich in eine stressige Situation gerate, ändere ich meine Gedanken über die Situation so, dass es mich beruhigt.     
  7. Wenn ich mich besser fühlen möchte, konzentriere ich mich auf die guten Seiten einer Situation.     
  8. Ich ändere meine Gefühle, indem ich über meine aktuelle Situation anders nachdenke.     
Strategie 3: Akzeptanz
  9.  Wenn ich etwas nicht ändern kann, akzeptiere ich die Situation so wie sie ist.     
10.  Ich kann unangenehme Emotionen tolerieren und aushalten.     
11.  Ich bin gut in der Lage die Dinge zu akzeptieren, wie sie gerade sind.     
Strategie 4: Problemlösen
12. Bei der Suche nach Lösungen für ein Problem verlasse ich mich nicht (nur) auf mein Bauchgefühl, sondern überlege     
möglichst rational.
13.  Ich denke über Lösungsmöglichkeiten nach, wie ich die Situation ändern kann.     
14. Bei Problemen überlege ich mir genau, wie ich am besten mit der Situation umgehen kann.     
15. Wenn ich eine Entscheidung treffen muss, wäge ich die verschiedenen Alternativen sorgfältig gegeneinander ab.     
Strategie 5: Unterdrückung des emotionalen Ausdrucks
16. Wenn mich etwas ärgert oder traurig macht, versuche ich meine Gefühle vor anderen nicht zu zeigen.     
17.  Körperliche Signale meiner Gefühle verberge ich meist.     
18.  Andere Personen können meistens schwer sagen, wie ich mich gerade fühle.     
19. Auch wenn ich gerade sehr aufgeregt bin, gelingt es mir, äußerlich ruhig zu wirken.     
Strategie 6: Unterdrückung des emotionalen Erlebens
20.  Negative Emotionen versuche ich gar nicht erst zuzulassen.     
21.  Ich lasse meine Emotionen selten hochkochen, sondern halte sie zurück.     
22.  Ich vermeide, wann immer möglich, meine Gefühle wahrzunehmen.     
23.  Wenn ich starke Emotionen habe, schiebe ich diese sofort beiseite.     
Strategie 7: Vermeidung
24.  Situationen, die negative Gefühle in mir auslösen könnten, vermeide ich lieber.     
25.  Gedanken an Dinge, die mich belasten, versuche ich irgendwie zu vermeiden.     
26. Ich sorge dafür, dass ich nicht mit unangenehmen Situationen konfrontiert werde, wann immer dies möglich ist.     
Strategie 8: Soziale Unterstützung
27. Negative und positive Gefühle teile ich gern, indem ich andere anrufe oder mich mit ihnen treffe und darüber rede.     
28. Ich rede oft mit meinem/r Partner/in oder meinen engsten Freunden über meine Emotionen.     

21
 Appendix C

22
Heidelberg Form for Emotion Regulation Strategies—English Translation.

About half
Please rate the extent to which the following statements applied to you within the past 4 weeks Never Occasionally the time Usually Always
Strategy 1: Rumination
  1.  When I have negative feelings, I often brood about why I am feeling this way.     
  2.  After emotional experiences/situations, I think a lot about what I did and said, so as to understand my     
feelings better.
  3.  I realize over and over again, that I have to think about something that made me angry or sad.     
  4.  I remember past conflicts often and think about what I could have done differently.     
Strategy 2: Reappraisal
  5.  When I feel bad, I try to see the positive aspects of a situation.     
  6.  When I find myself in a stressful situation, I change my thoughts about the situation in such a manner     
that I become calm.
  7.  When I want to feel better, I concentrate on the good aspects of a situation.     
  8.  I change my feelings by thinking differently about my current situation.     
Strategy 3: Acceptance 
  9.  When I cannot change something, I accept the situation as it is.       
10.  I am able to tolerate and endure uncomfortable situations.     
11.  I am able to accept things as they are.     
Strategy 4: Problem solving
12. When looking for solutions for a problem, I do not only rely on my instincts but try to think as     
rationally as possible.
13.  I think about possible solutions for how to change the situation.     
14.  When I am confronted with problems, I think very carefully about how I can deal best with the situation.     
15.  When I have to make a decision, I carefully weigh the different alternatives against each other.     
Strategy 5: Suppression of emotional expression  
16.  When something makes me angry or sad, I try to hide my feelings from others.     
17.  I hide physical expressions of my feelings.     
18.  It is very hard for other people to tell how I am feeling at the moment.     
19.  Even when I am very agitated, I am able to keep a calm exterior.     
Strategy 6: Suppression of emotional experience  
20.  I try not to allow for negative emotions to begin with.     
21.  I rarely let my emotions run high, but keep them down.     
22.  Whenever possible, I avoid realizing my feelings.     
23.  When I have strong emotions, I immediately push them aside.     
Strategy 7: Avoidance  
24.  I prefer to avoid situations that could cause negative emotions in me.     
25.  I try to avoid thoughts about things that weigh me down.     
26.  Whenever possible, I take care that I am not confronted with uncomfortable situations.     
Strategy 8: Social support
27.  I like to share negative and positive feelings by calling or meeting up with others and talking about them.     
28.  I often talk about my emotions with my partner or my close friends.     
 Appendix D
Factor Loadings for All HFERST Items From Study 1
Table A1.  Factor Structure of Heidelberg Form for Emotion Regulation Strategies in Study 1.

Problem Expressive Experience Activity/Social

Items Rumination Reappraisal Acceptance solving suppression suppression Avoidance support
  1. When I have negative feelings, I often brood over the .73 .04 .02 .04 .01 −.07 −.01 −.05
question, why I am feeling this way.
  2. After emotional experiences/situations, I think a lot about .67 .11 −.02 −.04 .05 −.05 −.10 .03
what I did and said, so as to understand my feelings better.
  3. I realize, again and again, that I have to think about .80 .11 .01 .05 −.06 −.01 .04 .01
something that made me angry or sad.
  4. I remember past conflicts often and think about what I could .70 −.09 −.01 −.05 −.01 .08 .10 .02
have done differently.
  5. When I feel bad, I try to see the positive aspects of a .00 .72 .04 −.10 .01 −.04 .07 .09
situation.
  6. When I find myself in a stressful situation, I change my .01 .77 .05 .01 −.00 .05 −.01 −.01
thoughts about the situation in such manner, that I get calm.
  7. When I want to feel better, I concentrate on the good −.05 .79 .04 −.09 .10 .02 .11 .02
aspects of a situation.
  8. I change my feelings by thinking differently about my current −.00 .91 −.04 .04 −.00 −.03 −.06 −.11
situation.
  9. When I cannot change something, I accept the situation as .01 .03 .75 .02 .04 .07 .04 −.09
it is.
10.  I am able to tolerate and endure uncomfortable situations. −.01 .04 .59 −.11 −.01 −.03 −.10 .06
11.  I am able to accept things as they are. −.01 −.05 .95 .07 −.02 −.00 −.00 .02
12. When looking for solutions for a problem, I do (not only) −.01 −.02 .03 −.74 −.07 −.00 −.00 −.14
rely on my instinct but try to think as rationally as possible.
13. I think about possible solutions of how to change the .02 .12 −.03 −.76 .07 −.01 .02 .02
situation.
14. When I am confronted with problems, I think very carefully −.03 .06 .04 −.75 .08 −.02 −.04 .10
about how I can deal best with the situation.
15. When I have to make a decision, I carefully weigh the .01 −.07 .03 −.72 −.06 .01 −.05 .04
different alternatives against each other.
16. When something makes me angry or sad, I try to hide my .07 −.06 −.02 −.03 −.78 −.03 .16 −.00
feelings from others.
17.  I hide physical expressions of my feelings. .03 −.04 −.05 −.03 −.80 .05 .04 −.05
18. It is very hard for other people to tell how I am feeling at .05 −.01 .04 .02 −.75 .04 .03 −.14
the moment.
(continued)

23
24
Appendix D (continued)

Problem Expressive Experience Activity/Social

Items Rumination Reappraisal Acceptance solving suppression suppression Avoidance support
19. Even when I am very agitated, I am able to keep a calm −.08 .03 .00 .00 −.58 .06 −.12 .02
exterior.
20.  I try not to allow for negative emotions to begin with. −.06 .07 .06 −.07 −.02 .64 .13 −.00
21.  I rarely let my emotions run high, but keep them down. −.05 .03 .18 −.05 −.19 .58 .06 −.07
22.  Whenever possible, I avoid it to realize my feelings. −.04 −.12 −.09 .09 −.09 .71 .08 −.03
23. When I have strong emotions, I immediately push them −.04 −.03 −.03 .08 −.06 .77 .01 −.06
aside.
24. I prefer to avoid situations, which could cause negative .05 .06 −.03 .00 −.02 .08 .74 .02
emotions in me.
25.  I am afraid of strong, intensive emotions. .17 −.08 −.17 .05 −.16 .29 .35 .00
26.  I try to avoid thoughts about things that weigh me down. −.00 .03 −.02 .09 −.02 .17 .65 .00
27. Whenever possible, I take care that I am not confronted .01 −.03 .04 .01 −.02 .05 .82 .02
with uncomfortable situations.
28. When I feel bad, I treat myself to something nice in order to .00 .10 .22 −.11 −.06 −.26 .14 .40
feel better.
29. I like to share negative and positive feelings by calling or −.03 −.04 −.07 −.04 .19 −.05 .02 .78
meeting up with others and talking about them.
30. When I experience a strong emotion, I let it out by doing .07 .08 .04 −.10 .01 .12 −.25 .17
sports (e.g., jogging, fitness training, boxing, etc.).
31. I often talk about my emotions with my partner or my close .06 −.01 −.01 .00 .19 −.05 −.07 .70
friends.
32. I relieve tension and negative emotion by relaxation (e.g., −.01 .25 .01 .09 −.08 −.06 −.10 .28
yoga, relaxation techniques, mindfulness).

Note. Loadings >.30 are printed in bold. The items are originally in German as presented in Appendix A.
Izadpanah et al. 25
Acknowledgments
We would like to thank Dr Rosalux Falquez, Dr Saskia Lang, Dr
Malte Stopsack, Dr Ines Ulrich, and Sebastian Wolff for their sup-
port regarding the procedure of data collection.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect
to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The authors received no financial support for the research, author-
ship, and/or publication of this article.
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