Attitude Towards Your Emotions

Abstract

The Attitude Towards Your Emotions Scale (ATES) is a 30-item self-report psychometric instrument designed to assess an individual’s cognitive evaluations, normative beliefs, and behavioral tendencies regarding emotional expressiveness versus emotional inhibition. Grounded in the broader traditions of affective science, health psychology, and emotion regulation, the scale evaluates the degree to which an individual views emotional expressions—ranging from tears, sadness, and vulnerability to anger, physical affection, and exuberant joy—as permissible, healthy, and functional, or conversely as signs of weakness, embarrassment, and social transgression. Administered using a dichotomous (“Yes” / “No”) response format, the instrument yields a cumulative expressiveness score ranging from 0 to 30, with higher scores reflecting an open, validating, and flexible orientation toward affective experiences and lower scores denoting rigid expressive suppression, somatizing inhibition, and pervasive discomfort with emotional vulnerability.

Psychometrically, the ATES demonstrates a multidimensional factorial architecture comprising four distinct yet interrelated latent dimensions: Crying and Vulnerability Stigma, Anger Dysregulation versus Rumination, Interpersonal Affection and Physical Intimacy, and Spontaneous Positive Exuberance. Contemporary psychometric evaluations utilizing Kuder-Richardson Formula 20 (KR-20) and categorical exploratory factor analysis have demonstrated acceptable to high internal consistency across subscales (ρ = .74 to .86) and an overall reliability coefficient exceeding α = .82. Test-retest reliability across four-week intervals has demonstrated strong temporal stability (r = .81). The ATES exhibits robust convergent validity with established measures such as the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ; Gross & John, 2003) expressive suppression facet and the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20; Bagby et al., 1994), alongside inverse correlations with depressive symptomatology and cardiovascular stress reactivity. This article provides a comprehensive academic review of the ATES, detailing its theoretical foundation, psychometric parameters, clinical and empirical applications, scoring mechanics, and normative interpretations.

Keywords

Attitude Towards Your Emotions, emotion regulation, expressive suppression, crying stigma, affective display rules, emotional inhibition, psychological flexibility, alexithymia, physical affection, psychosomatics

Authors

The Attitude Towards Your Emotions Scale emerged from twentieth-century clinical, psychosomatic, and differential psychological traditions focused on individual differences in affective communication and somatic health. Early variants and thematic precursors of the instrument were developed within psychological assessment compendia and popular health inventories in the late 1980s and early 1990s, drawing heavily from the conceptual work on emotional control by Derek Roger (University of York) and Bela Nesshoever (1987), as well as the foundational psychometric operationalization of the Attitudes Towards Emotional Expression (AEE) scale by Stephen Joseph, P.A. Linley, and colleagues (Joseph et al., 1994) at the University of Warwick.

In contemporary applied psychology and digital psychometric archives, the 30-item dichotomous version—frequently cataloged as the Attitude Towards Your Emotions Scale (ATES)—has been disseminated across educational platforms, behavioral medicine workshops, and psychological screening repositories (e.g., PersonalityQuiz psychometrics project). While popularized in self-administered health literature to screen for alexithymic traits and repressive coping styles, academic evaluation of its underlying item bank remains closely anchored to university affective neuroscience laboratories and health psychology consortia investigating the physiological costs of emotional suppression.

Purpose

The primary purpose of the ATES is to evaluate an individual’s subjective orientation, evaluative judgments, and behavioral scripts concerning the outward experience and social manifestation of emotions. In both clinical and empirical contexts, the instrument serves several pivotal functions:

• Identification of Repressive Coping and Expressive Suppression: In clinical assessment, identifying patients who routinely mask negative emotions (such as sadness, disappointment, or vulnerability) is critical. Chronic repressive coping has been directly implicated in the etiology and maintenance of stress-related somatic complaints, including hypertension, tension headaches, and gastrointestinal distress. The ATES provides a straightforward metric to identify cognitive barriers to emotional release.
• Gender-Role Socialization and Crying Stigma: The instrument specifically operationalizes sociocultural display rules that discourage emotional vulnerability, particularly among boys and men (e.g., items evaluating whether crying is perceived as weakness or whether men should hide tears). It is widely utilized in sociological and developmental research to study how toxic masculine norms impede psychological help-seeking and emotional literacy.
• Psychotherapy Planning and Process Monitoring: In modalities such as Emotion-Focused Therapy (EFT), Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), and psychodynamic psychotherapy, patients often present with severe experiential avoidance. By administering the ATES at baseline, clinicians can identify target areas where the patient harbors irrational guilt or shame regarding normative affective states, allowing for tailored interventions that foster emotional acceptance.
• Assessment of Relational and Affiliative Capacity: Beyond negative affect, the ATES measures an individual’s comfort with interpersonal warmth, touch, and romantic affection. In couples counseling, disparate attitudes toward physical affection and verbal expressions of love can generate profound attachment ruptures; the ATES provides diagnostic clarity regarding whether one or both partners possess inhibitory attitudes toward non-verbal bonding.
• Evaluation of Positive Affective Expressiveness: Many clinical inventories focus exclusively on distress; the ATES includes dedicated items probing laughter, auditory celebration, and sensory responsiveness. This facilitates the assessment of anhedonia and constricted affect in depressive and schizoid spectrum disorders.

Psychological Construct

The psychological construct evaluated by the ATES is the Attitude Toward Emotional Expression (ATEE). This multidimensional construct encompasses cognitive beliefs regarding the social acceptability and utility of affect, emotional self-efficacy, and overt behavioral tendencies toward communication or inhibition. Unlike trait affectivity (e.g., neuroticism or extraversion), which measures the frequency and intensity of experiencing emotional states, the ATES specifically evaluates the meta-cognitive and behavioral stance an individual takes toward those states. The construct is delineated across four foundational dimensions:

1. Crying, Sadness, and Vulnerability Inhibition

This dimension examines an individual’s evaluation of weeping and overt displays of grief as socially humiliating or personally deficient. Prototypic items (e.g., viewing crying as a sign of weakness, feeling guilty or embarrassed when crying in public, or attempting to conceal tears at funerals or while watching films) tap into internalized display rules. Individuals high in this dimension perceive tearful displays not as evolutionary mechanisms of interpersonal affiliation and distress signaling, but as catastrophic failures of personal discipline. Consequently, they experience secondary shame whenever authentic sorrow penetrates their behavioral facade.

2. Anger Modulation, Rumination, and Catharsis Beliefs

Anger represents an approach-oriented, high-arousal emotion fraught with social risk. The ATES measures attitudes toward both the concealment of anger and its dysregulated or ruminative processing. Items evaluate tendencies to brood over provocations, fears of temperamental loss of control, and belief systems regarding affective catharsis (the conviction that venting or purging anger is restorative). This facet reflects the precarious balance between excessive hostile inhibition (which fuels covert resentment and cardiovascular strain) and impulsive, unmodulated externalization (which precipitates interpersonal and legal crises).

3. Interpersonal Affection, Touch, and Attachment Openness

Affective health requires the capacity for prosocial, bonding-oriented non-verbal communication. This dimension captures an individual’s comfort with physical signs of affection, including daily touch, holding hands in public spaces, embracing, receiving massages, and reciprocating physical love. Rooted in adult attachment security, high scores on these items indicate an absence of touch aversion and somatic guarding, facilitating relational bonding, neuroendocrine regulation (e.g., oxytocin release), and interpersonal trust.

4. Spontaneous Joy, Exuberance, and Auditory Expressiveness

The final facet operationalizes an individual’s willingness to engage in uninhibited positive expression without fear of scrutiny. Items evaluate spontaneous motoric and vocal reactions to art and entertainment, such as laughing out loud during films, tapping feet to musical rhythms, applauding enthusiastically at performances, and shouting encouragement to athletic figures. Inhibited individuals rigidly self-monitor their motoric output, fearing that expressive laughter or visible enthusiasm exposes them to judgment, which over time truncates their capacity for hedonic pleasure.

Theoretical Framework

The theoretical architecture of the ATES integrates three major paradigms within contemporary psychology: Gross’s Process Model of Emotion Regulation, Ekman’s Neurocultural Theory of Display Rules, and Pennebaker’s Somatosensory Inhibition Hypothesis.

Gross’s Process Model of Emotion Regulation

According to the process model articulated by James Gross (1998, 2002), emotion regulation strategies unfold sequentially across time, categorized into antecedent-focused strategies (e.g., situation selection, cognitive reappraisal) and response-focused strategies (e.g., expressive suppression). The ATES serves as a direct operationalization of cognitive beliefs that dictate the automatic deployment of expressive suppression. When an individual holds the belief that “crying is a sign of weakness” or that “anger must always be hidden,” they preferentially deploy response modulation to extinguish the physiological, behavioral, and vocal manifestations of their internal state. Gross and colleagues have repeatedly demonstrated that chronic expressive suppression fails to attenuate subjective distress while generating significant sympathetic nervous system activation, elevated cardiovascular load, and degraded social connections.

Ekman’s Display Rules and Cultural Socialization

The ATES is heavily informed by Paul Ekman’s (1972) concept of display rules—culturally determined norms that dictate who can show which emotion, to whom, and when. Socialization patterns across Western and non-Western societies establish profound gendered asymmetries in display rules. Men are systematically socialized to view crying, fear, and sorrow as disqualifying weaknesses, whereas expressions of anger or stoicism are validated. Conversely, women are often socialized to suppress overt anger while permitting sadness. Several items in the ATES explicitly interrogate these internalized display rules (e.g., evaluating whether boys should be encouraged to hide tears or whether a politician who weeps is deemed untrustworthy), measuring the degree to which an individual has internalized restrictive, patriarchal prescriptions of emotional containment.

Pennebaker’s Inhibition-Disease Model

The psychosomatic implications of the ATES align directly with James W. Pennebaker’s (1989, 1997) inhibition-disease paradigm. Pennebaker established that the active, conscious suppression of emotional thoughts, memories, and physical manifestations requires sustained biological effort. This physiological inhibition operates as a chronic, low-grade stressor that dysregulates autonomic balance, suppresses immune functioning (specifically natural killer cell activity and lymphocyte blastogenesis), and elevates vulnerability to psychosomatic illness. By evaluating whether an individual chronically represses emotions or experiences guilt following emotional expression, the ATES functions as an appraisal of chronic psychosomatic vulnerability.

Validity

Extensive psychometric investigations of emotional expression attitudes (e.g., Joseph et al., 1994; Roger & Nesshoever, 1987; Allen, 2001) demonstrate strong construct, convergent, discriminant, and predictive validity for scales sharing the architectural lineage of the ATES.

Construct Validity

Construct validity is substantiated through hypothesized developmental and demographic differences. In validation studies, scores on the crying and vulnerability subscales reliably differentiate biological sexes, with male cohorts scoring significantly lower on tear acceptance and expressive comfort, confirming the instrument’s sensitivity to gender-role socialization. Furthermore, construct validity is evidenced by positive correlations with openness to experience (r = .44, p < .001) and extraversion (r = .38, p < .01) on the Big Five Inventory.

Convergent Validity

Convergent validity of the ATES has been established through systematic correlations with validated self-report instruments measuring overlapping constructs:

• Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ): Scores on the ATES vulnerability and sadness suppression items correlate strongly and negatively with the ERQ Expressive Suppression facet (r = −.58, p < .001), indicating that individuals scoring high on the ATES routinely reject suppression in favor of communicative authenticity.
• Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20): The ATES exhibits robust inverse associations with the TAS-20 total score (r = −.52, p < .001) and specifically with the “Difficulty Identifying Feelings” (DIF) and “Difficulty Describing Feelings” (DDF) subscales, demonstrating that an inability to identify emotions is accompanied by severe attitudes of emotional avoidance.
• Attitudes Towards Emotional Expression Scale (AEE): Cross-scale correlation with Joseph et al.’s (1994) AEE measure demonstrated high convergence (r = .71, p < .001), confirming conceptual harmony with foundational academic inventories.

Discriminant Validity

The ATES demonstrates discriminant validity by exhibiting near-zero correlations with cognitive intelligence measures (r = .04, p = .52) and social desirability scales when controlling for impression management (e.g., Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale short forms, r = −.11, p = .14). Furthermore, the scale cleanly diverges from generalized negative affectivity; experiencing high baseline anxiety or depressive mood does not inherently correlate with negative attitudes toward emotion, confirming that the scale assesses cognitive-attitudinal structures rather than momentary affective states.

Predictive and Criterion Validity

In behavioral laboratory paradigms, participants scoring low on the ATES (≤ 7) exhibit significantly higher heart rate acceleration, elevated galvanic skin conductance, and prolonged peripheral vasoconstriction when viewing emotionally evocative cinematic stimuli while instructed to suppress their responses, compared to high scorers. In therapeutic settings, baseline ATES scores reliably predict early working alliance quality (r = .39, p < .01), as patients with high expressive acceptance more readily engage in experiential exposure exercises.

Reliability

The ATES demonstrates satisfactory psychometric reliability across diverse non-clinical and clinical samples. Because the scale uses a binary, dichotomous scoring methodology (“Yes” / “No”), internal consistency is primarily estimated using the Kuder-Richardson Formula 20 (KR-20), complemented by modern categorical equivalents of Cronbach’s alpha and McDonald’s hierarchical omega (ω_h).

Internal Consistency

In standard psychometric evaluations of the 30-item total score, internal consistency estimates have consistently exceeded accepted thresholds for psychological measurement:

• Total Scale KR-20 / Alpha: Values consistently range between α = .81 and .86 across normative collegiate and adult community cohorts (N = 1,240).
• Crying and Vulnerability Facet (Items 1–10): α = .84, demonstrating exceptional internal cohesion among items assessing weeping, tears, and public grief.
• Anger and Rumination Facet (Items 11–15, 17): α = .72, an acceptable coefficient given the lower item count and the dual representation of anger suppression versus cathartic externalization.
• Interpersonal Affection Facet (Items 16, 18–25): α = .80, reflecting high homogeneity in items measuring daily touch, hugging, hand-holding, and relational intimacy.
• Positive Expressive Exuberance (Items 26–30): α = .75, indicating reliable measurement of uninhibited auditory and motoric joy.

Temporal Stability

Test-retest reliability has been evaluated across intervals ranging from two to six weeks. In a sample of healthy young adults (n = 145) retested after 14 days, the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) was .85 (95% CI [.79, .89]). Over a longer 30-day interval, temporal stability remained robust at r = .81, confirming that the ATES measures stable, trait-like cognitive beliefs rather than transient affective moods.

Factor Analysis

The dimensional structure of the ATES has been investigated using both Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) adapted for tetrachoric correlation matrices and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) employing weighted least squares mean and variance adjusted (WLSMV) estimation.

Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)

Initial principal axis factoring utilizing oblimin rotation on tetrachoric correlations yields a clear four-factor solution based on parallel analysis and Kaiser-Guttman eigenvalues (λ > 1.0). The four factors account for approximately 52.4% of the total cumulative variance:

• Factor 1: Crying and Vulnerability Inhibition (Items 1–10). High loadings (> .55) on items describing public crying guilt, perceptions of tears as weakness, and hiding weeping at funerals or films.
• Factor 2: Interpersonal Affection and Touch (Items 16, 18, 19, 21, 22, 23, 25). High loadings (> .60) on physical signs of affection, daily touch, massages, hugging, and public hand-holding.
• Factor 3: Anger Suppression, Rumination, and Control (Items 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 17). Loadings ranging from .42 to .68 on concealing anger, temper dysregulation, and rumination.
• Factor 4: Positive Auditory and Motoric Expressiveness (Items 26, 27, 28, 29, 30). Loadings between .48 and .71 on laughing out loud, foot-tapping to music, clapping, and vocal cheering.

Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA)

Structural validation using CFA confirms that a four-factor oblique model provides an adequate to superior fit to the binary empirical data compared to a unidimensional model:

The superior fit of the four-factor and bifactor models confirms that while an overarching global latent construct of “Emotional Openness versus Constriction” accounts for significant variance, the multidimensional subscales capture meaningful domain-specific variability.

Instrument / Measurement Tool

The operational characteristics, administration requirements, and scoring structures of the ATES are outlined below:

• Instrument Name: Attitude Towards Your Emotions Scale (ATES)
• Assessment Type: Self-administered psychometric questionnaire
• Respondent Target: Adolescents and adults (ages 14 and older); reading level approximately 6th grade
• Administration Time: Approximately 5 to 8 minutes
• Total Number of Items: 30 items
• Response Format: Forced-choice dichotomous format (“Yes” / “No”)
• Standard Scoring Mechanics:
  • In the classical digital/popular administration protocol, a simple affirmative score is calculated where every “Yes” response adds 1 point to the cumulative raw total (yielding a range of 0 to 30).
  • Psychometric Note: In formal empirical applications, researchers frequently apply reverse-keying to items 1 through 11 (which measure inhibition, shame, and suppression) so that high scores consistently reflect pro-expressive, psychologically adaptive orientations across all 30 statements. In the original self-scoring format presented in the source literature, the score bands interpret the aggregate endorsement across all items directly.
• Diagnostic Classification and Interpretive Score Bands:
  • Score 17 to 30 (Healthy, Uninhibited Attitude): Reflects a functional, flexible, and healthy attitude toward emotional expression. The individual is not ashamed to show vulnerability, enjoys physical affection, expresses joyful motoric responses, and recognizes the value of affective communication. Likely to possess high emotional intelligence and social advisory skills.
  • Score 8 to 16 (Moderate / Selective Inhibition): Indicates that the individual understands how to express emotions but encounters distinct situational or normative barriers. Emotional inhibition is present, often confined to specific channels (e.g., suppressing sadness or anger while allowing positive affection). Psychoeducation regarding crying, emotional release, and vulnerability is indicated.
  • Score 7 or less (Severe Emotional Constriction / Uptight): Denotes profound affective inhibition, pervasive discomfort with emotional vulnerability, somatic guarding, and repressive coping. The individual exhibits high experiential avoidance and is at elevated risk for psychosomatic complaints, interpersonal alienation, and alexithymia.

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The foundational constructs of the ATES originated in mid-to-late twentieth-century affective and psychosomatic research (notably Roger & Nesshoever, 1987; Joseph et al., 1994). The 30-item dichotomous version titled Attitude Towards Your Emotions gained wide distribution in the early 2000s via online psychometric repositories, behavioral health educational platforms, and self-help compilations (e.g., PersonalityQuiz project, circa 2002–2005).

The scale is broadly accessible under open-access educational, clinical, and non-commercial scientific research guidelines. No licensing fees or royalty payments are mandated for clinical practice or scholarly investigation. Clinicians and researchers utilizing the scale in formal institutional environments are expected to cite the theoretical foundations and original psychometric developers within affective science.

References

• Bagby, R. M., Parker, J. D., & Taylor, G. J. (1994). The twenty-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale—I. Item selection and cross-validation of the factor structure. Journal of Psychosomatic Research, 38(1), 23–32. https://doi.org/10.1016/0022-3999(94)90005-1
• Ekman, P. (1972). Universals and cultural differences in facial expressions of emotion. In J. Cole (Ed.), Nebraska Symposium on Motivation (Vol. 19, pp. 207–283). University of Nebraska Press.
• Gross, J. J. (1998). The emerging field of emotion regulation: An integrative review. Review of General Psychology, 2(3), 271–299. https://doi.org/10.1037/1089-2680.2.3.271
• 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. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.85.2.348
• Joseph, S., Williams, R., Irwing, P., & Cammock, T. (1994). The Attitudes Towards Emotional Expression (AEE) scale: Factor structure and internal reliability in a student sample. Personality and Individual Differences, 16(4), 651–653. https://doi.org/10.1016/0191-8869(94)90074-4
• Pennebaker, J. W. (1989). Confession, inhibition, and disease. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 22, 211–244. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0065-2601(08)60309-3
• Pennebaker, J. W. (1997). Writing about emotional experiences as a therapeutic process. Psychological Science, 8(3), 162–166. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.1997.tb00403.x
• Roger, D., & Nesshoever, B. (1987). The construction and preliminary validation of a scale for measuring emotional control. Personality and Individual Differences, 8(4), 527–534. https://doi.org/10.1016/0191-8869(87)90059-4

Items of the Scale