Negative life events, cognitive emotion regulation and emotional problems

Abstract

A new questionnaire, named the Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire, has been constructed, measuring nine cognitive coping strategies people tend to use after having experienced negative life events. A test–retest design was used to study the psychometric properties and relationships with measures of depression and anxiety among 547 high school youngsters. Principal component analyses supported the allocation of items to subscales, while alphas of most subscales exceeded 0.80. Cognitive coping strategies were found to play an important role in the relationship between the experience of negative life events and the reporting of symptoms of depression and anxiety. The results suggest that cognitive coping strategies may be a valuable context of prevention and intervention

Introduction

Emotion regulation is assumed to be an important factor in determining well being and/or successful functioning (Cicchetti et al., 1995, Thompson, 1991). The general concept of emotion regulation can be understood as “all the extrinsic and intrinsic processes responsible for monitoring, evaluating and modifying emotional reactions, especially their intensive and temporal features, to accomplish one's goals” (Thompson, 1994, p. 27). According to this definition, the concept of emotion regulation is a very broad conceptual rubric encompassing many regulatory processes, such as the regulation of emotions by oneself versus the regulation of emotions by others and the regulation of the emotion itself versus the regulation of its underlying features (Thompson & Calkins, 1996). Emotion regulation, therefore, can refer to a wide range of biological, social, behavioral as well as conscious and unconscious cognitive processes. For example, in a physiological way, emotions are self-regulated by a rapid pulse, increased breathing rate (or shortness of breath), perspiration or other concomitants of emotional arousal. In a social way, emotions are regulated by seeking access to one's interpersonal and material support resources, while in a behavioral way emotions are regulated through a variety of behavioral (coping) responses. Shouting, screaming, crying or withdrawing are examples of behaviors displayed to manage the emotions arisen in response to a stressor. Finally, emotions can also be managed by a range of unconscious cognitive processes, such as selective attention processes, memory distortions, denial, or projection or by more conscious cognitive (coping) processes, such as blaming oneself, blaming others, ruminating or catastrophizing.

Although the concept is very useful as a theoretical description or explanation of the emotion system, the total process of emotion regulation is too complex and too broad to enable us to empirically focus on all aspects, mechanisms and processes at once. In this article we will restrict ourselves to the self-regulatory, conscious, cognitive components of emotion regulation. Although not many studies have explicitly been addressed to this aspect of emotion regulation, conscious cognitive components of emotion regulation have generated some interest in the form of research activities focused on coping strategies. Remarkably, however, cross-referencing between studies on emotion regulation and studies on coping, is scarce.

The general definition of coping is given by Monat and Lazarus (1991) as: “an individual's efforts to master demands (conditions of harm, threat or challenge) that are appraised (or perceived) as exceeding or taxing his or her resources” (p. 5). In our opinion, according to this definition, all coping efforts by an individual come under the broad definition of emotion regulation. In general, two major functions of coping are distinguished: problem-focused coping and emotion-focused coping. Whereas problem-focused coping strategies refer to attempts to act on the stressor, emotion-focused coping refers to attempts to manage the emotions associated with the stressor (Compas, Orosan & Grant, 1993). Generally speaking, acting directly on the stressor by problem-focused coping is considered a more effective coping strategy than emotion-focused coping. Nevertheless, it is also acknowledged that under certain conditions, e.g. a situation in which nothing useful can be done to change it, problem-focused coping strategies may fail or even be counterproductive. In such situations emotion-focused coping efforts would be a better strategy (Lazarus, 1993).

Although most stressors may elicit both types of coping, problem-focused coping tends to predominate when people feel that something constructive can be done, whereas emotion-focused coping tends to predominate when people feel nothing can be done about the stressor (Carver, Scheier & Weintraub, 1989).

Even though the operationalization of coping by the distinction between problem-focused and emotion-focused coping strategies is widely accepted and most coping measures are based on it, this approach gives rise to a number of conceptual problems:

• Data analyses on most coping measures show that far more factors can be distinguished than just the two (Parker & Endler, 1992). Often largely differing in character, these ‘sub’ factors (of which most are seen as variations on emotion-focused coping) sometimes have been shown to even have opposite adaptational outcomes. Examples of two such very different emotion-focused coping strategies are ‘denial’ on the one hand and ‘social support seeking’ on the other hand.

• Another conceptual problem, associated with the former, is that the division into problem-focused and emotion-focused coping is not the only dimension by which coping strategies can be ‘classified’. In fact, another important dimension crosses the boundaries of this division, i.e. the cognitive (what you think) versus the behavioral (what you do) strategies. Therefore, the fact that in most current measures, coping strategies can both be carried out through either cognitive or behavioral channels, is confusing. An example of problem-focused coping in a cognitive way is ‘planning’; an example of problem-focused coping in a behavioral way is ‘taking direct actions’. Examples of cognitive versus behavioral expressions of emotion-focused coping are, again, respectively ‘denial’ and ‘social support seeking’.

In our opinion it is not appropriate to range the concepts of cognitive and behavioral coping strategies in one and the same dimension, as thinking and acting are two different processes employed at different points in time. According to this line of reasoning, the problem of cognitive and behavioral dimensions crossing the boundaries of the dimensions prevailing in the literature might inhibit coping research. It seems reasonable to assume that cognitive appraisal processes — although not necessarily in a conscious way — precede the process of taking action. For example, first ‘plans are made to take action’, subsequently ‘action is taken’. Therefore, from the point of view of intervention, it is more fruitful to teach people to plan their actions and subsequently act in a conscious way than to teach them to take immediate actions without focusing on the accompanying cognitions.

In order to measure them in a conceptually pure way, we need to measure cognitive coping strategies separately, while excluding the dimension of behavioral strategies. The aim of the present study is to focus on this cognitive part of coping strategies.

In this study, the terms ‘cognitive coping’ and ‘cognitive emotion regulation’ are used as interchangeable terms. Generally speaking, both concepts can be understood as the cognitive way of managing the intake of emotionally arousing information (Thompson, 1991). The regulation of emotions through cognitions is inextricably associated with human life. Cognitions or cognitive processes may help us to manage or regulate emotions or feelings, and to keep control over our emotions and/or not getting overwhelmed by them, for example, during or after the experience of threatening or stressful events.

As we have stated above, until now cognitive coping or the cognitive components of emotion regulation have not been studied separately from other coping dimensions. As a consequence — although there has been a considerable interest in cognitive processes as regulators of other developmental processes — we do not know much about how cognitive processes regulate emotions and how this may affect the course of emotional development.

To be able to provide an answer to questions such as whether and to what extent certain cognitions regulate emotions, a standard measure should be developed that measures cognitive emotion regulation strategies. As such a measure was not available yet, this study reports on its development. To guide the scale's content, we have used a theory-based or ‘rational’ approach. In defining and clarifying the dimensions of cognitive coping we made use of existing measures of coping (de Ridder, 1997). Our strategy has been to consider coping strategies from existing measures, either by taking out and reformulating the cognitive dimensions (as far as they existed), by ‘transforming’ non-cognitive coping strategies into cognitive dimensions or by adding new strategies on ‘rational’ grounds, for which we especially consulted and/or made use of the COPE (Carver et al., 1989), the Coping Inventory for Stressful Situations (CISS; Endler and Parker, 1990, Endler and Parker, 1994, Parker and Endler, 1992) and the Ways of Coping Questionnaire (WCQ; Folkman & Lazarus, 1988).

The instrument we developed includes nine conceptually distinct scales, each consisting of four items and each referring to what you think and not to what you actually do following the experience of threatening or stressful life events.

Self-blame refers to thoughts of blaming yourself for what you have experienced. Although inconsistent findings as regards the exact relationship have been produced, most studies have shown that an attributional style of self-blaming is related to depression and other measures of ill-health (Anderson, Miller, Riger, Dill & Sedikides, 1994). Despite the fact that some of the items of the WCQ subscale ‘accepting responsibility’ are conceptually comparable to our instrument, the concept as a whole is not, as the WCQ contains both cognitive and behavioral items in one and the same subscale. As regards the CISS: whereas items such as ‘I blame myself for having gotten into this situation’ are included, self-blame is not distinguished as a separate concept in this instrument. Instead, it is a part of the concept of ‘Emotion-oriented Coping’, which includes a broad range of emotion-focused thoughts and behaviors (including items such as getting angry or feeling anxious). A one-item subscale of ‘blaming self’ can be found in the ‘Kidcope’ (Spirito, Stark & Williams, 1988).

Blaming others refers to thoughts of putting the blame of what you have experienced on others. Studies have shown that across samples having experienced different forms of threatening events, blaming someone else is associated with poorer emotional well being (Tennen & Affleck, 1990). A one-item subscale of ‘blaming others’ can be found in the ‘Kidcope’ (Spirito et al., 1988). The A-COPE includes one item referring to blaming others, but this item is part of the broader concept of ‘ventilating feelings’ (Patterson & McCubbin, 1987).

Acceptance refers to thoughts of accepting what you have experienced and resigning yourself to what has happened. Carver et al. (1989) have shown that acceptance as a coping strategy (largely comparable to our definition of acceptance) has a moderately positive relationship with measures of optimism and self-esteem and a (moderately) negative relationship with measures of anxiety. The items in our subscale of ‘acceptance’ are based on a rephrasing of items in the subscale ‘acceptance’ of the COPE. It could be argued that in most cases acceptance can be considered a functional coping response, as accepting the reality of the situation implies a certain attempt to deal with that situation.

Refocus on planning refers to thinking about what steps to take and how to handle the negative event. It is the cognitive part of action-focused coping, which does not automatically imply that actual behavior will follow. Action-focused coping strategies are included in all existing coping questionnaires. The WCQ distinguishes confrontive coping (aggressive efforts to alter the situation) and planful problem solving. Planful problem solving consists of both cognitive-focused items (analytic approaches to solving the problem) and behavioral-focused items (problem-focused efforts to alter the situation). The COPE also distinguishes two dimensions of problem-focused coping: a behavioral-focused dimension (active coping) and a cognitive-focused dimension (planning). The content of ‘planning’ (thinking about how to cope with a stressor) is comparable to the content of our concept of ‘planful thinking’. The CISS includes the dimension of ‘task-oriented coping’, consisting of a mixture of cognitive and behavioral items. Carver et al. (1989) have shown that using ‘planning’ as a coping strategy is positively related to measures of optimism and self-esteem and negatively to anxiety.

Positive refocusing refers to thinking about joyful and pleasant issues instead of thinking about the actual event. Refocusing on positive things can be considered a form of ‘mental disengagement’ and can be defined as turning or refocusing thoughts to more positive issues in order to think less about the actual event. It can be argued that refocusing thoughts to more positive issues could be considered a helpful response in the short term; it might, however, impede adaptive coping in the long term. Whereas the COPE also has a subscale called ‘mental disengagement’ and the WCQ has a subscale called ‘escape/avoidance’ which can also be considered as a form of ‘mental disengagement’, both subscales are almost exclusively focused on the behavioral dimension. Although the avoidance-oriented coping subscale of the CISS does include the item ‘thinking about the good times I've had’, here, too, the majority of items belonging to the scale are behavioral oriented (‘go out for a walk’).

Rumination or focus on thought refers to thinking about the feelings and thoughts associated with the negative event. It has been shown that a ruminative coping style tends to be associated with higher levels of depression (Nolen-Hoeksema, Parker & Larson, 1994). In the coping instruments consulted, rumination as such has not been included. Some elements of the concept are included in emotion-focused coping subscales, such as ‘ventilation of feelings’ (COPE, A-COPE).

Positive reappraisal refers to thoughts of attaching a positive meaning to the event in terms of personal growth. Carver et al. (1989) have shown that using ‘positive reappraisal’ as a coping strategy is positively related to measures of optimism and self-esteem and negatively to anxiety. The WCQ also includes a ‘positive reappraisal’ dimension. Unlike in our concept, though, in their concept religious thoughts are included. The KIDCOPE includes a one-item scale called ‘cognitive restructuring’ (Spirito et al., 1988). The COPE has the comparable concept of ‘positive reinterpretation and growth’, which is also exclusively focused on reappraisal of stressful events in positive terms. The items of our subscale of ‘positive reappraisal’ are based on a rephrasing of the items of this COPE subscale.

Putting into perspective refers to thoughts of playing down the seriousness of the event or emphasizing its relativity when compared to other events. Although it has been shown that the concept of (social) comparison is an important issue in relation to different types of psychopathology (Allan & Gilbert, 1995), as yet the concept has not been included as such in any of the coping measures, neither as a scale, nor as an item.

Catastrophizing refers to thoughts of explicitly emphasizing the terror of an experience. In general, a catastrophizing style appears to be related to maladaptation, emotional distress and depression (e.g. Sullivan, Bishop & Pivik, 1995). None of the coping measures we consulted, however, include items referring to catastrophizing thoughts.

A new questionnaire has been constructed, measuring the above-mentioned nine cognitive strategies of emotion regulation. The questionnaire has been named the Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (CERQ). During the developmental phase we performed a number of pilot studies, starting with an initial pool of 40 items. During this process, items with weak loadings were revised or discarded. After various stages of refinement, a total set of 36 items remained, some of which have been determined early in the process and others later on. The CERQ can be used to measure cognitive strategies that characterize the individual's style of responding to stressful events as well as cognitive strategies that are used in a particular stressful event or situation, depending on the nature of the questions under study. The CERQ is designed to be a self-report questionnaire that can be administered to people aged 12 years and older as from that age people can be considered to have the cognitive abilities to grasp the meaning of the items.

Aim of the present study is to report on the factor structure, the alphas, test–retest reliabilities, and inter-scale correlations of the CERQ as well as on the correlations between CERQ scales and measures of ill-health, on the basis of a general population sample comprising about 550 adolescents. The subscales as tested in this study were used to measure relatively stable dispositional cognitive emotion regulation strategies.