New Scale Measures Why Iranian Adults Regulate Their Emotions

Psychologists have developed and validated a culturally adapted instrument for measuring emotion regulation goals—the motives that drive people to change or maintain their emotional states—in Iranian adults. The Emotion Regulation Goals Scale – Culturally Redeveloped Version (ERGS-CRV) was tested on 1,475 Iranian adults aged 18 to 71, of whom 67.9 percent were women, and the results support a five-factor structure covering distinct reasons people pursue emotional change. The study, published in BMC Psychology, addresses a gap in a research field where most existing measures focus on how people regulate emotions rather than why they do so.

The validation process combined several established psychometric procedures. The researchers used exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses with split-sample cross-validation, meaning the participant pool was divided so that the factor structure identified in one half could be tested independently in the other. The five dimensions that emerged were Pro-Hedonic, Contra-Hedonic, Performance, Pro-Social, and Impression Management.

Reliability estimates ranged from 0.54 to 0.91 across the subscales, with stronger internal consistency observed for the Performance, Pro-Social, and Impression Management dimensions. Convergent validity—evidence that the scale's subscales relate to external measures as theory predicts—was strongest for the Pro-Social and Impression Management dimensions, acceptable for the Performance dimension, and comparatively weaker for the Pro-Hedonic and Contra-Hedonic dimensions. Discriminant validity was confirmed using both the Fornell–Larcker criterion and the heterotrait–monotrait ratio of correlations (HTMT), two complementary statistical approaches for checking that conceptually distinct dimensions do not collapse into one another.

Temporal stability was assessed through test–retest reliability, with coefficients indicating good to excellent stability of scores over time. The researchers also examined measurement invariance across gender using multi-group confirmatory factor analyses. The results supported configural, metric, scalar, and strict invariance, meaning the scale's structure, item loadings, item intercepts, and residual variances functioned equivalently for women and men in the sample.

This level of invariance allows researchers to compare mean scores across gender groups with greater confidence that observed differences reflect genuine differences rather than measurement artifacts. The authors conclude that the ERGS-CRV provides a culturally informed measure of emotion-regulation motives in Iranian adults, with stronger psychometric support for the Pro-Social and Impression Management dimensions, acceptable support for the Performance dimension, and comparatively weaker support for the Pro-Hedonic and Contra-Hedonic dimensions. They note that the findings support the scale's use in research on emotion-regulation motives among Persian-speaking populations and potentially other non-Western groups.

Subject of Research: Cultural redevelopment and validation of the Emotion Regulation Goals Scale in Iranian adults

Article Title: Cultural redevelopment and validation of the emotion regulation goals scale – culturally redeveloped version (ERGS-CRV): evidence from Iran

Article References: Moghadasin, M., Salem, K., & Eldesouky, L. (2026). Cultural redevelopment and validation of the emotion regulation goals scale – culturally redeveloped version (ERGS-CRV): evidence from Iran. BMC Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40359-026-05480-8

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1186/s40359-026-05480-8

Keywords: emotion regulation, psychometrics, scale validation, Iranian adults, cultural psychology, factor analysis, measurement invariance, self-regulation, BMC Psychology, Cultural, redevelopment, validation