Interpersonal Regulation Questionnaire (IRQ): Psychometric Properties and Gender Differences in Chinese Young Adolescents.

The Interpersonal Regulation Questionnaire (IRQ) is a scale developed to measure the tendency and efficacy of intrinsic interpersonal emotion regulation across positive and negative affective states. As the psychometric properties of the IRQ across cultures and different ages have not been well established, the current study was conducted to examine the applicability of the translated IRQ in a sample of Chinese young adolescents (initial n = 487; 50.20% are males; M = 14.52 years old, SD =.75). The original four-factor structure of the IRQ (i.e., negative-tendency, negative-efficacy, positive-tendency, and positive-efficacy) and other parsimonious models were examined and compared using confirmatory factor analysis. The results demonstrated that only the correlated-four-factor model had acceptable model fit indices. The internal consistencies of the four sub-scales were all above.70. Strict measurement invariance (i.e., configural, metric, and scalar) was achieved between males and females. In addition, latent mean comparison showed that females reported higher negative-efficacy and positive-tendency than males, while no gender variations were found for the remaining two factors. The validity of the IRQ was further supported by its convergent–discriminant associations with emotional well-being and distress, emotional expressivity, social competence, empathic responding, cognitive reappraisal, and delinquent behavior. Taken together, the IRQ is a reliable and valid measure for Chinese young adolescents' intrinsic interpersonal emotion regulation. Public Significance Statement: The present study suggests that after being translated to Mandarin, the Interpersonal Regulation Questionnaire (IRQ), which was originally developed by Williams et al. (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2018, 115, p. 224) to assess the tendency and efficacy of interpersonal emotion regulation in Western adults, applies to Chinese adolescents. It documents that the psychological attribute measured by IRQ may be an important concept universal for broader population groups and cultural contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]