Psychometric Features of The Turkish Version of the Negative Mood Regulation Scale

Abstract

Negative mood regulation expectancies (NMRE) constitute a construct that explains individual beliefs and degree of confidence in the ability to address negative emotions. The significance of this concept is that it is a meta-emotion regulation variable that functions as a resilience factor. Based on social learning theory (Rotter 1954), scholars proposed that believing that one exerts control over life events (e.g., through thoughts and actions) may be relatively beneficial when addressing difficult emotions. Such expectancies give the impression that one possesses the resources necessary for coping and, thus, alleviate subjectively felt distress. The NMRE scale, which was constructed to measure individual differences in NMRE, has been adapted to different languages and examined in terms of factor structure, reliability, and validity. The current study aims to examine the psychometric characteristics of the NMRE Scale (Catanzaro & Mearns, 1990) in the Turkish context. A total of 399 (female: n = 271, 68%) participants completed the NMRE scale along with measures of emotion regulation, learned resourcefulness, and self-efficacy as well as depression and anxiety. All scales and tests were administered face-to-face. The findings yielded a two-factor structure, namely, positive and negative expectancies, and provided support for the reliability (internal consistency and test–retest reliability with a five-week time interval) of the measure. Additionally, high scores for NMRE were positively associated with emotion regulation, learned resourcefulness, and self-efficacy, whereas they were negatively associated with depression and anxiety. Furthermore, NMRE scores explained the variance in depression and anxiety scores above and beyond emotion regulation, learned resourcefulness, and self-efficacy, which provides support for its incremental validity. Furthermore, the study found that the additional variance explained is due to the subscores for negative expectations. The overall results provided evidence for reliability and validity, which makes the NMRE scale appropriate for use in research settings.

Keywords

• Negative mood regulation expectancies
• self-efficacy
• learned resourcefulness
• emotion regulation
• psychological distress

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