Development and Initial Psychometric Evaluation of the Semi-Structured Emotion Regulation Interview

ABSTRACT

Emotion regulation (ER) strategy use has been identified as a transdiagnostic predictor of the development, maintenance, and recovery from several forms of psychopathology. However, the ER strategy use literature relies primarily on self-report measures that have several important limitations. This article describes the development and initial psychometric evaluation of a novel clinician-administered measure of ER strategy use, the Semi-Structured Emotion Regulation Interview (SERI; Lee, Weathers, & Sloan, 2016). The SERI was developed in a construct validation framework with emphasis on a multistage content validity process. The SERI assesses frequency and efficacy (i.e., proximal change in the targeted emotion) of 9 strategies in regulation of a specified emotion type and intensity (e.g., severe anxiety) during the past 30 days. Undergraduates (N = 68) completed a battery of self-report measures and a subsequent interview. Frequency and efficacy of each strategy was assessed separately with respect to regulation of moderate and severe anxiety and anger. Each of the assessed strategies demonstrated excellent discriminant validity. Associations between SERI and self-report measures of ER strategy use varied by target emotion type and intensity for some strategies, but not others. Implications and suggestions for future research are described.