Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ)
See what each strategy means, how it is scored, and how your result is read against the population that actually fits you.
The Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ) is the most widely used measure of how people handle their feelings. It focuses on two everyday strategies - rethinking a situation to change how it feels (reappraisal) and holding emotion in rather than showing it (suppression) - and treats them as two separate habits rather than two ends of one scale.
The model
What it measures
Select a strategy to see what it captures. Each is scored on its own from a handful of statements rated on a 7-point agree-disagree scale; there is no single combined total, because the two strategies are largely independent.
Reappraisal means changing how you think about a situation in order to change how you feel about it, and it is generally linked to more positive emotion and better wellbeing. Suppression means keeping emotional expression in, and it is generally linked to less positive emotion and weaker social connection. Both are skills you can shift, and both depend on context - neither is automatically right or wrong in a given moment.
- CRCognitive Reappraisal
Changing how you think about a situation in order to change how it makes you feel.
Facets: Reframing, Perspective-taking, Changing the meaning of events.
- ESExpressive Suppression
Keeping emotional expression in rather than showing what you feel.
Facets: Holding feelings in, Masking expression, Controlling outward display.
The evidence
Science and validity
The two ERQ scales show solid internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha around .79 for Reappraisal and .73 for Suppression) and stable three-month test-retest reliability, and the two-factor structure has been confirmed across many languages and is largely invariant across gender and culture. Reappraisal relates to more positive emotion, better relationships and higher wellbeing; suppression relates to less positive emotion, lower social support and lower wellbeing - though both are context-dependent rather than simply good or bad.
You rate each statement from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). There are no reverse-keyed items, and each strategy is scored on its own (as a sum or mean of its items) - there is deliberately no combined total, because reappraisal and suppression are distinct habits. There are no pass/fail cut-offs; each result is norm-referenced against a comparison group.
Where you stand
How a score becomes a percentile
A raw score only means something against a comparison group. For example, on the 1-7 scale a Cognitive Reappraisal mean of 5.2 sits above the average for general adult data (where the mean is near 4.6), placing it around the 75th percentile - more habitual use of reappraisal than roughly three in four adults. Drag the slider to see how a score on each strategy maps to a percentile; your real result is matched to the population that fits you when you take the test.
The reference data
Benchmarked against the population that fits you
We benchmark your result against the population that actually resembles you, across 20 reference groups.
Each reference group is used as its own benchmark, not to rank one country against another.
How it works
What the questions feel like
Illustrative statements showing the style of the items. These are examples, not the official scored items.
When I want to feel calmer, I change the way I am thinking about the situation.
Illustrative example in the style of the scale, not an official scored item.
I control my emotions by looking at the situation from a different angle.
Illustrative example, not an official scored item.
I keep my emotions to myself rather than showing them.
Illustrative example, not an official scored item.
When I feel upset, I am careful not to let it show.
Illustrative example, not an official scored item.
Honest strengths and limitations
Strengths
- The most widely used emotion-regulation measure in the world, validated across many languages with strong reliability.
- Separates two distinct, actionable strategies - reappraisal and suppression - that can each be developed with practice.
- Very short (about 4 minutes) and open for research and educational use with attribution.
Limitations
- It covers two strategies, not the whole of emotion regulation - there are many other ways people manage feelings that the ERQ does not measure.
- Reappraisal is generally the more adaptive strategy and suppression generally the less adaptive one, but both depend on context, and neither is automatically right or wrong in a given situation.
- Like all self-reports it can be shaped by self-presentation and reflects habitual tendencies rather than what someone does in any single moment; cross-country mean comparisons, especially on suppression, are confounded by cultural norms about showing emotion.
See your full profile
A complete report, matched to the population that fits you, with plain-language interpretation of every trait.
Frequently asked questions
What does the emotion regulation test measure?
The ERQ measures two ways people handle their feelings: cognitive reappraisal (rethinking a situation to change how it feels) and expressive suppression (holding emotion in rather than showing it). The two are scored separately because they are largely independent.
Is suppression always bad?
No. Reappraisal is generally linked to better wellbeing and suppression to poorer affective and social outcomes, but both depend on context - sometimes holding a feeling in for a moment is the sensible choice. The result describes habits, not a fixed verdict, and both strategies can shift with practice.
How is the ERQ scored?
Each statement is rated from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). There are no reverse-keyed items, and reappraisal and suppression are each scored on their own - there is no combined total. Scores are read against a comparison group, with no pass/fail cut-offs.
How long does it take?
About four minutes - ten statements on a 7-point scale.
Related tests
- Gross, J. J., & John, O. P. (2003). Individual differences in two emotion regulation processes: Implications for affect, relationships, and well-being. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85(2), 348-362.
- Preece, D. A., Becerra, R., Robinson, K., & Gross, J. J. (2020). The Emotion Regulation Questionnaire: Psychometric properties in general community samples. Journal of Personality Assessment, 102(3), 348-356.
The Emotion Regulation Questionnaire is the work of James J. Gross and Oliver P. John (2003); this independent informational page describes the instrument and links to the official source at the Stanford Psychophysiology Laboratory.