The Difficulties in Interpersonal Regulation of Emotions Scale (DIRE): Factor Structure and Measurement Invariance across Gender and Two Chinese Youth Samples

Abstract

Effective interpersonal emotion regulation (IER) strategies have been found to be meaningful predictors for positive psychological functioning. The Difficulties in Interpersonal Regulation of Emotions Scale (DIRE) is a measure developed to assess maladaptive IER strategies. This study aimed to examine the psychometric properties of the Chinese version of DIRE using two college student samples (Sample 1: n = 296; Sample 2: n = 419). The two-factor structure of DIRE (venting and excessive reassurance-seeking) was confirmed through an exploratory structure equation modeling approach. Our results demonstrated that the Chinese version of DIRE exhibits a similar factor structure (in both samples) as the original DIRE. Measurement invariance across gender and samples was also achieved. Latent mean analyses demonstrated that females more frequently reported excessive reassurance-seeking (in both samples) and venting (in Sample 1) than males. Furthermore, venting and excessive reassurance-seeking were significantly related to intrapersonal emotion regulation and well-being indicators. Although in Chinese culture DIRE performs somewhat differently from the original DIRE, the current findings suggest that DIRE is a reliable and valid scale with which to measure the IER strategies in Chinese culture and the use of this measure in clinical practice may allow for an accurate assessment of emotion regulation deficits in clients from other diverse cultures.

Keywords

• difficulties in interpersonal emotion regulation
• venting
• excessive reassurance-seeking
• difficulties in intrapersonal emotion regulation
• well-being