Emotional Reappraisal

What it measures

This scale measures how much a person tries to change the way they are thinking about a situation in order to feel more emotionally positive. Hasford et al. (2022) used a rephrased version of Gross and John's (2003) widely used Emotion Regulation Questionnaire reappraisal subscale in Study 4 with undergraduate students, applied to a specific fraud-related scenario.

Response format

5-point scale (assumed 1=not at all, 5=a great deal)

Scale items

• I controlled my emotions by changing the way I thought about the situation.
• I tried to feel less negative emotion about the situation.
• I thought about the situation in a way that made me stay calm instead of stressed.
• I changed the way I was thinking to feel more positive emotions.
• I reconsidered any negative emotions I was feeling.
• I changed the way I thought about negative emotions in the situation.

Full scale items shown. Always cite the original source when using this scale in research.

Usage notes & scoring

The scale's alpha was .94 (Hasford et al. 2022, p. 120). Validity was not separately discussed. The extreme verbal anchors were not described by the authors but were likely 'not at all' (1) and 'a great deal' (5), consistent with other scales in the study (pp. 127-128). This is an adaptation (rephrasing) of the seminal Emotion Regulation Questionnaire reappraisal subscale (Gross and John 2003); flagged as non-verbatim adaptation per QC policy since Hasford et al. (2022) report their own reliability data. A situational framing phrase should be inserted into the directions to focus respondents on the focal scenario.

Citation

Hasford, Jonathan, Blair Kidwell, David M. Hardesty, and Adam Farmer (2022), "Your Cheatin' Heart: How Emotional Intelligence and Selfishness Impact the Incidence of Consumer Fraud," Journal of Consumer Research, 49 (1), 112–131.

Keywords