Abstract

Measurement invariance testing is considered essential in determining whether a measure can be meaningfully used across cultural groups, though establishing such invariance is relatively rare in cross-national studies. The present study investigated measurement invariance of a widely used measure of emotion dysregulation, the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS; Gratz & Roemer, 2004), in a sample of college students in India (n = 198) and the United States (US; n = 295). Results demonstrated that the item-level six-factor model for the DERS did not fit the data well in either the US or Indian samples. A scale score six-factor model without the item-level information fit the data well in both samples, and a scale score five-factor model (without the Lack of Emotional Clarity subscale) fit the data better in both samples. Using the five-factor scale score models, configural invariance testing indicated that the model varies across the two cultural groups. Overall, our findings failed to demonstrate measurement invariance of the DERS, suggesting that the DERS functions differently in the two cultural groups. Further research is needed to examine cross-national differences in the conceptualization and measurement of emotion regulation.

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