Capturing the dynamics of adolescent emotion regulation in anxiety-inducing situations through development and evaluation of a state emotion regulation questionnaire for adolescents

The development of functional emotion regulation (ER) is crucial for mental health in childhood and adolescence—especially in today’s context of multiple crises, which have led to rising anxiety even in the general population. Although the importance of ER is widely acknowledged, existing assessments have yet to adequately measure state ER, particularly in anxiety-inducing situations. We aimed to develop and evaluate the psychometric properties of the State Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ State) for adolescents, with a future focus on clinical populations. An online experiment was conducted with 105 German adolescents (Mage = 13.5 years, SDage = 2.4), using four types of anxiety-inducing vignettes (social anxiety, general anxiety, specific phobia, separation anxiety) to examine potential correlations with trait anxiety. Confirmatory factor analyses were performed to refine the ERQ State-short item pool, revealing strong support for its theoretical structure in scenarios related to social anxiety (Vignette 1). However, model fit was less satisfactory for the remaining forms of anxiety (separation anxiety, specific phobia, generalized anxiety; Vignette 2). While further refinement and validation are needed, the ERQ State-short appears to be a promising tool for assessing ER in anxious adolescents, particularly in contexts involving social anxiety.