THE DEVELOPMENT AND VALIDATION OF THE EMOTIONAL ENTITLEMENT QUESTIONNAIRE (EEQ)

Beliefs about what one is entitled to emotionally may make a unique contribution to emotional and interpersonal experiences.In the current study we introduce the concept of emotional entitlement, the degree to which people believe they have the right to experience different emotions (e.g., the right to feel happy, angry etc.).Our aim was to develop and validate the emotional entitlement questionnaire (EEQ).In a series of 3 studies, we constructed and validated a 3-factor, 15-item emotional entitlement questionnaire (EEQ), in Hebrew and in English: emotional entitlement to positive emotions (EEP), to negative emotions (EEN), and the maladaptive aspect of emotional entitlement which we termed uncompromised emotional entitlement (EEU).Different dimensions of the EEQ were related to different levels of life satisfaction and loneliness.The results indicate that emotional entitlement is a multidimensional construct and that the EEQ is a reliable and valid tool with good psychometric properties and that overall, we would suggest that EEP represents an adaptive aspect of emotional entitlement, EEU represents a maladaptive aspect, and EEN has both adaptive and maladaptive aspects.