Scales for Experiencing Emotions: Awareness, Appraisal and Regulation of One's Own Emotions

Experiencing, appraising and dealing with emotions reinforce mental health and interpersonal skills. The study (N =772) reports the development of a multidimensional test for the experience, evaluation and regulation of emotions. Based on the person-centred theory of personality and on concepts of emotional intelligence, seven construct-related factors of a preliminary study were replicated: bodily experience, overwhelming emotions, imagination, self-control, congruence, lack of emotions, and regulation of emotions. The seven scales, with a total of 42 items, show a satisfactory reliability and validity. Psychotherapy patients are emotionally more unbalanced than the random sample and women are more emotional than men. Overwhelming emotions and the regulation of one's own emotions proved to be more related to disorders than the theory suggests. The test could be useful for clinical and social psychological research, in practice during the initial phase of counselling and psychotherapy, and for outcome verification.