Validation of the FEEL-KJ: An Instrument to Measure Emotion Regulation Strategies in Children and Adolescents.
Although the field of emotion regulation in children and adolescents is growing, there is need for age-adjusted measures that assess a large variety of strategies. An interesting instrument in this respect is the FEEL-KJ because it measures 7 adaptive and 5 maladaptive emotion regulation strategies in response to three different emotions. However, the FEEL-KJ has not yet been validated extensively. Therefore, the current study aims to test the internal structure and validity of the FEEL-KJ in a large sample of Dutch-speaking Belgian children and adolescents (N = 1102, 8-18 years old). The investigation of the internal structure confirms earlier reports of a two-factor structure with Adaptive and Maladaptive Emotion Regulation as overarching categories. However, it also suggests that the two-factor model is more complex than what was previously assumed. The evaluation of the FEEL-KJ validity furthermore provides evidence for its construct and external validity. In sum, the current study confirms that the FEEL-KJ is a valuable and reliable measure of emotion regulation strategies in children and adolescents.
Department of Experimental Psychology, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium.
Emiel
E
Cracco
Department of Developmental, Personality and Social Psychology, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium.
Kim
K
Van Durme
Department of Developmental, Personality and Social Psychology, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium.
Caroline
C
Braet
D000223:Adaptation, Psychological; D000293:Adolescent; D002648:Child; D004644:Emotions; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009426:Netherlands