Children’s Dual Emotion Regulation Strategy Scale (CDERS)

Abstract

The Children’s Dual Emotion Regulation Strategy Scale (CDERS) (Wang et al., 2023) is an advanced, 24-item scenario-based psychological assessment instrument engineered to evaluate emotion regulation strategies among children and young adolescents. Developed to overcome the pronounced Western ethnocentric bias pervasive in developmental affective science, the CDERS integrates foundational Western constructs with indigenous East Asian socio-emotional paradigms. Grounded in the Dual Emotion Regulation (DER) framework, the scale evaluates four distinct regulatory strategies: Expression, Forbearance, Impulsiveness, and Suppression across six ecologically valid interpersonal conflict vignettes. These scenarios capture three cardinal relational spheres fundamental to youth development: parent–child, teacher–student, and peer relationships.

Constructed through a rigorous psychometric pipeline spanning 39 initial scenarios and nine iterative pilot studies, the final instrument was validated on Taiwanese students spanning Grades 4 through 9 (ages 9–15). Psychometric evaluation via confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) using robust maximum likelihood estimation verified a four-factor oblique model incorporating scenario-specific method effects (χ² = 701.64, df = 210, CFI = 0.93, SRMR = 0.087, RMSEA = 0.055). The instrument exhibits robust internal consistency, with subscale Cronbach’s alpha coefficients ranging from 0.70 to 0.82, alongside stable one-month test-retest reliability (Pearson’s r = 0.65 to 0.76). Criterion validity analyses revealed that CDERS dimensions accounted for 18% to 20% of the variance in positive self-concept and psychological life adjustment, alongside 12% to 16% of the variance across diverse developmental outcomes. Demonstrating significant incremental validity, the scale explained an additional 3% to 11% of unique variance beyond established Western and East Asian emotion regulation measures.

Keywords

Children’s Emotion Regulation, Cultural Perspectives, Dual Emotion Regulation Model, East Asian Cultural Perspectives, Expression, Forbearance, Impulsiveness, Incremental Validity, Scenario-Based Measure, Suppression, Western Cultural Perspectives, Developmental Psychometrics, Interpersonal Conflict

Authors

The Children’s Dual Emotion Regulation Strategy Scale was conceptualized and developed by an international research collaborative comprising specialists in developmental psychopathology, cross-cultural psychology, and counseling psychology:

• Li-fei Wang, Ph.D. — Department of Educational Psychology and Counseling, National Taiwan Normal University, Taipei, Taiwan.
• Meifen Wei, Ph.D. — Department of Psychology, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa, United States.
• Jen-Ho Chang, Ph.D. (Corresponding Author) — Institute of Ethnology, Academia Sinica, 128 Academia Road, Section 2, Nankang, Taipei 11529, Taiwan. Email: [email protected]; ORCID: 0000-0001-5357-708X.
• Hung Chiao, Ph.D. — Department of Educational Psychology and Counseling, National Taiwan Normal University, Taipei, Taiwan.

Purpose

The primary purpose of the CDERS is to provide developmental researchers, educational psychologists, and clinical child practitioners with an instrument capable of measuring emotion regulation in youth without cultural reductionism. For decades, emotion regulation research has been disproportionately dominated by Western theoretical formulations—most notably the process model of emotion regulation pioneered by James Gross. While these frameworks have generated substantial insights into strategies such as cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression, they routinely assume an independent self-construal wherein individual authenticity, emotional venting, and autonomous cognitive framing are privileged as uniformly adaptive, while restraint or emotional concealment is cast as inherently maladaptive and pathogenic.

In contrast, East Asian cultural contexts, anchored in Confucian, Buddhist, and Taoist relational philosophies, prioritize an interdependent self-construal. Within these sociocultural ecosystems, the maintenance of interpersonal harmony, relational hierarchy, and group cohesion often supersedes individual affective discharge. Consequently, regulatory mechanisms such as forbearance (忍, rěn)—characterized by the deliberate, constructive restraint of one’s emotional reactions to preserve relational integrity—function as highly adaptive, mature strategies. Western assessments invariably conflate this intentional, prosocial self-restraint with pathological emotional suppression, internalizing distress, or behavioral avoidance.

Furthermore, standard Likert-type self-report scales frequently assess emotion regulation as a decontextualized, broad trait (e.g., asking children whether they generally “keep their feelings to themselves”). Such abstract prompts present severe developmental challenges for children and early adolescents, whose cognitive capacities for meta-emotional abstraction are still developing. The CDERS addresses this methodological limitation by utilizing an ecologically embedded, scenario-based vignette design. By placing youth within tangible, highly recognizable conflict situations involving parents, teachers, and peers, the instrument captures contextual variability and role-governed behavioral modulations.

Clinically and educationally, the CDERS serves vital diagnostic and intervention-planning functions. It permits school psychologists and pediatric counselors to distinguish between destructive affective inhibition (Suppression) and socially attuned, harmonious emotional discipline (Forbearance), while concurrently mapping uncontrolled externalization (Impulsiveness) against assertive self-advocacy (Expression). This dual-perspective metric provides a sophisticated diagnostic foundation for school-based socio-emotional learning (SEL) programs tailored to culturally diverse populations.

Psychological Construct

The CDERS operationalizes emotion regulation as a multidimensional construct configured along two orthogonal axes: the Cultural Orienting Axis (Western individualistic vs. East Asian collectivistic orientations) and the Regulatory Functionality Axis (adaptive/constructive vs. maladaptive/dysfunctional processes). This cross-classification yields four distinct psychological dimensions:

1. Expression (Constructive Western Strategy)

Expression within the CDERS framework denotes the constructive, assertive, and direct communication of one’s subjective affective state and personal needs. Rooted in individualistic cultural models, expression emphasizes emotional authenticity, self-realization, and clear interpersonal boundary-setting. When confronted with interpersonal conflict, a child utilizing expression attempts to resolve the tension by verbalizing their feelings (e.g., hurt, frustration, or disagreement) calmly and clearly to the relational partner. Unlike dysregulated externalization, expression is characterized by intentionality, social communicative competence, and the pursuit of mutual understanding without hostility.

2. Forbearance (Constructive East Asian Strategy)

Forbearance represents an indigenous East Asian self-regulatory construct embedded in Confucian relational ethics. It involves the intentional containment, accommodation, and mindful transformation of one’s negative emotional impulses for the deliberate purpose of preserving interpersonal harmony, honoring relational hierarchy, and demonstrating benevolence toward others. Crucially, forbearance is not passive helplessness or fearful paralysis; rather, it is an active, cognitively reframed dedication to long-term relational goals over immediate affective release. Children employing forbearance step back from immediate confrontation, exercise tolerance toward the transgressor, and maintain inner equilibrium out of respect for the social bond.

3. Impulsiveness (Dysfunctional Western Strategy)

Impulsiveness reflects the uncontrolled, under-regulated discharge of emotional arousal, characterized by explosive behavioral externalization, behavioral disinhibition, and aggression. Operating as the dysfunctional antithesis of constructive expression, impulsiveness occurs when heightened physiological and affective tension overwhelms executive inhibitory controls. In conflict scenarios, this manifests as screaming, slamming doors, throwing objects, or verbal assault. While Western norms value emotional honesty, impulsiveness represents a breakdown of self-regulation that inflicts relational damage and leads to adverse behavioral outcomes.

4. Suppression (Dysfunctional East Asian Strategy)

Suppression in the CDERS is defined as the experiential avoidance, chronic inhibition, and anxious concealment of one’s genuine emotional state, driven primarily by fear of interpersonal rejection, social conflict, or retribution. Although suppression superficially resembles forbearance in that emotional expression is curtailed, its underlying psychological mechanisms and emotional sequelae are radically divergent. Whereas forbearance is grounded in benevolence, cognitive reframing, and relational value, suppression is fueled by autonomic arousal, cognitive rumination, resentment, and feelings of vulnerability. The child suppresses not to cultivate harmony, but out of perceived powerlessness, leaving the underlying negative affect unintegrated and toxic.

Theoretical Framework

The conceptual architecture of the CDERS is grounded in the Dual Emotion Regulation (DER) Model (Morris et al., 2015; Wang et al., 2023), an integrative cross-cultural framework synthesizing cultural psychology, social-cognitive development, and transactional stress models.

The foundational premise of the DER model rests upon the cultural construction of the self, pioneered by Hazel Rose Markus and Shinobu Kitayama (1991). In cultural contexts shaped by Western European traditions, the self is conceptualized as independent—a bounded, autonomous entity whose core psychological task is self-expression, realization of personal potential, and the direct assertion of individual desires. Emotion regulation within this system prioritizes emotional congruence and direct communicative resolution. However, when regulatory bandwidth fails within this paradigm, it manifests as unregulated outward projection (impulsiveness).

Conversely, in sociocultural environments shaped by Sinic and broader East Asian traditions, the self is construed as fundamentally interdependent. Here, the primary moral imperative is the optimization of relational connection, filial duty, and social cohesion. Drawing from the Chinese social psychology of Ren (仁) and emotional restraint, the DER model posits that emotional control is not inherently oppressive; instead, emotional containment is an index of self-cultivation, mature moral development, and prosocial attunement. However, when interdependent demands are navigated through defensive anxiety rather than philosophical equanimity, the individual lapses into expressive suppression, leading to psychological distress.

Developmentally, the CDERS aligns with transactional and ecological theories of child development (e.g., Bronfenbrenner’s bioecological model). The scale recognizes that children do not regulate emotions in a social vacuum; rather, regulatory strategies are sharply moderated by the structural hierarchy of the relationship. Thus, the DER model dictates that conflict must be evaluated across differential power dynamics: vertical/hierarchical contexts (parent–child, teacher–student) versus horizontal/egalitarian contexts (peer relationships). The contextual vignette methodology operationalizes this transactional theoretical tenet.

Validity

The CDERS underwent empirical validation using comprehensive cross-sectional and prospective psychometric designs involving elementary and junior high school cohorts in Taiwan.

Concurrent Validity

Concurrent validity was established by examining the scale’s capacity to explain concurrent indicators of child psychological functioning. In hierarchical regression analyses, the four CDERS regulatory dimensions collectively accounted for 18% to 20% of the total variance in children’s positive self-concept and overall psychological life adjustment. Specifically:

• Expression and Forbearance demonstrated significant, robust positive correlations with positive self-esteem, social competence, and academic engagement.
• Impulsiveness and Suppression were inversely correlated with self-concept and displayed strong positive associations with internalizing symptoms (anxiety, depressive affect) and externalizing behavior problems (conduct difficulties, classroom defiance).

Predictive Criterion Validity

Prospective analyses highlighted the prognostic utility of the CDERS across longitudinal intervals. When predicting six distinct youth developmental outcomes—encompassing academic performance, somatic complaints, peer sociometric popularity, teacher-rated classroom adjustment, depressive symptomatology, and delinquency—the CDERS dimensions accounted for 12% to 16% of the variance. Forbearance uniquely predicted long-term peer acceptance and sustained relational stability, whereas suppression served as a prospective marker for escalating somatic complaints and masked psychological distress.

Incremental Validity

A psychometric attribute of the CDERS is its proven incremental validity. In competitive hierarchical regression equations, the CDERS accounted for an additional 3% to 11% of unique variance in psychological adjustment and problem behaviors beyond the predictive capacity of existing gold-standard Western instruments (such as the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire for Children and Adolescents [ERQ-CA]) and established indigenous East Asian adult scales. This confirmed that the scenario-based operationalization of dual-cultural strategies captures critical variance systematically omitted by traditional unidimensional instruments.

Reliability

The CDERS exhibits internal consistency and temporal stability across developmental populations:

Internal Consistency

During large-scale standardization testing across Grades 4 through 9, the four subscales demonstrated acceptable-to-strong Cronbach’s alpha internal consistency coefficients, comfortably exceeding standard psychometric thresholds (α ≥ 0.70):

• Expression: α = 0.76 – 0.82
• Forbearance: α = 0.70 – 0.77
• Impulsiveness: α = 0.78 – 0.81
• Suppression: α = 0.72 – 0.79

Test-Retest Reliability

Temporal stability was evaluated through a longitudinal retest administered over a one-month interval to a representative subsample of youth. The Pearson correlation coefficients confirmed significant temporal stability (all p < 0.001):

• Expression: r = 0.70
• Forbearance: r = 0.65
• Suppression: r = 0.73
• Impulsiveness: r = 0.76

These values demonstrate that while the scale remains sensitive to contextual variance embedded within the vignettes, the underlying strategy preferences represent stable individual-difference traits in childhood and adolescence.

Factor Analysis

The structural validity of the CDERS was evaluated using rigorous structural equation modeling and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). Missing data were handled via Full Information Maximum Likelihood (FIML), and model parameters were estimated using maximum likelihood estimation with robust standard errors (MLR) to account for potential non-normality in behavioral distributions.

Model Evaluation and Selection

To establish the empirical superiority of the proposed theoretical construct, the researchers compared six competing structural models:

1. A one-factor unidimensional global regulation model.
2. A two-factor model dividing strategies solely into positive vs. negative regulation.
3. A two-factor model dividing strategies solely by cultural origin (Western vs. East Asian).
4. A standard four-factor orthogonal model.
5. A standard four-factor oblique model without method variance controls.
6. A four-factor oblique model incorporating a method effect to control for scenario-induced shared variance across items tied to the same vignette.

Goodness-of-Fit Parameters

The four-factor oblique model incorporating scenario-specific method effects emerged as the definitive best-fitting model across all conventional statistical indices:

• Chi-Square: χ² = 701.64
• Degrees of Freedom: df = 210
• Comparative Fit Index (CFI): 0.93
• Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR): 0.087
• Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA): 0.055 (90% Confidence Interval: [0.050, 0.059])

Item factor loadings across all four latent factors (Expression, Forbearance, Impulsiveness, Suppression) were uniformly significant (p < 0.001), with standardized loadings ranging from 0.48 to 0.79. Controlling for scenario-level method variance proved essential, confirming that children’s responses reflect both systemic strategy preferences and realistic sensitivity to interpersonal contextual cues.

Instrument / Measurement Tool

• Instrument Name: Children’s Dual Emotion Regulation Strategy Scale (CDERS)
• Test Type: Original psychometric self-report questionnaire (Scenario-based vignette format)
• Target Population: Children and young adolescents (specifically validated for Grades 4 through 9, ages approximately 9 to 15 years; male and female)
• Language Versions: Original version developed in Traditional Chinese; English conceptual translation published in primary empirical source
• Structural Composition:
  • Total Item Count: 24 respondent items
  • Vignette Structure: 6 ecologically valid interpersonal conflict scenarios
  • Relational Contexts:
    • Parent–Child Conflict (2 scenarios)
    • Teacher–Student Conflict (2 scenarios)
    • Peer Conflict (2 scenarios)
  • Item Breakdown per Scenario: Each scenario is followed by 4 distinct behavioral response options representing the four theoretical dimensions (1 × Expression, 1 × Forbearance, 1 × Suppression, 1 × Impulsiveness)
• Authentic Response Scale: 5-point rating scale ranging from 0 (never) to 4 (always)
• Scoring Rules:
  • Each of the four subscale scores is computed by summing or averaging the corresponding 6 strategy-specific items across all scenarios (yielding score ranges of 0–24 for raw subscale sums, or 0–4 for mean index scores).
  • Expression Score: Sum of the 6 expression items. Higher scores reflect greater assertive, communicative problem-solving.
  • Forbearance Score: Sum of the 6 forbearance items. Higher scores reflect constructive, harmony-seeking emotional containment.
  • Impulsiveness Score: Sum of the 6 impulsiveness items. Higher scores indicate behavioral dysregulation and externalizing reactivity.
  • Suppression Score: Sum of the 6 suppression items. Higher scores denote fear-driven affective concealment and experiential avoidance.
  • No global composite score is calculated; the scale is designed as an ipsative/multidimensional profile to map relative strategic preferences across different interpersonal domains.

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

• Publication Year: 2023
• Commercial Status: Non-commercial
• Assessment Fee: Free of charge for non-profit academic research, scientific inquiry, and educational clinical training
• Copyright & Permissions: The scale architecture, theoretical framework, and initial psychometric findings were published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. on behalf of the Asian Association of Social Psychology. Full clinical adoption, translation rights, or complete verbatim test-bank access for empirical studies should be requested directly from the corresponding author: Dr. Jen-Ho Chang ([email protected]), Institute of Ethnology, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan.

References

• 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
• Gullone, E., & Taffe, J. (2012). The Emotion Regulation Questionnaire for Children and Adolescents (ERQ-CA): A psychometric evaluation. Psychological Assessment, 24(2), 409–417. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0025777
• Markus, H. R., & Kitayama, S. (1991). Culture and the self: Implications for cognition, emotion, and motivation. Psychological Review, 98(2), 224–253. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.98.2.224
• Morris, A. S., Criss, M. M., Silk, J. S., & Houltberg, B. J. (2017). The impact of family context on children’s affective development: An ecological perspective. In The Cambridge Handbook of Environment in Human Development (pp. 535–554). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316282755.030
• Wang, L.-f., Wei, M., Chang, J.-H., & Chiao, H. (2023). The Children’s Dual Emotion Regulation Strategy scale: An integrated perspective of Western and East Asian cultures. Asian Journal of Social Psychology, 26(4), 461–474. https://doi.org/10.1111/ajsp.12571
• Wei, M., Su, J. C., Carrera, S., Lin, S. P., & Yi, F. (2013). Suppression and interpersonal harmony: A cross-cultural comparison between Chinese and European Americans. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 60(4), 625–633. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0033413

Items of the Scale