The Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (CERQ) is a multidimensional questionnaire constructed in order to identify the cognitive emotion regulation strategies (or cognitive coping strategies) someone uses after having experienced negative events or situations. The questionnaire refers exclusively to an individual's thoughts after having experienced a negative event. The CERQ is a self-report questionnaire consisting of 36 items. The questionnaire has been constructed both on a theoretical and empirical basis and measures nine different cognitive coping strategies. The CERQ makes it possible to identify individual cognitive strategies and compare them to norm scores from various population groups. In addition, the questionnaire offers the opportunity to investigate relationships between the use of specific cognitive coping strategies, personality variables, psychopathology and other problems.

The CERQ can be administered in normal populations and clinical populations, in different age groups. Separate versions for adults, adolescents and children as well as a short 18-item version have been developed. All of these versions are available in Dutch and English. The CERQ can be used for research purposes.

Develop at the University of Leiden, the questionnaire and numerous papers are available on the questionnaire are available to download from the University website as PDF files.

A recent selection of papers include:-

Amone-P`Olak, K., Garnefski, & Kraaij, V. (2007). Adolescents caught between fires: Cognitive emotion regulation in response to war experiences in Northern Uganda. Journal of Adolescence, 30, 655-669.

D'Acremont, M., & Van der Linden, M. (2007). How is imulsivity related to depression in adolescence? Evidence from a French validation of the Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire. Journal of Adolescence, 30, 271-282.

Dasgupta, M., & Sanyal, N. (2007). Relationships between controllability awareness and cognitive emotion regulation in selected clinical samples: A psychosocial perspective. Journal of Projective Psychology and Mental health, 14, 64-75.

Garnefski, N. & Kraaij, V. (2006). Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire: Development of a short 18-item version (CERQ-short). Personality and Individual Differences, 41, 1045-1053.

Garnefski, N. & Kraaij, V. (2006). Relationships between cognitive emotion regulation strategies and depressive symptoms: A comparative study of five specific samples. Personality and Individual Differences, 40, 1659-1669.

Garnefski, N., & Kraaij,V. (2007). The Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire: Psychometric features and prospective relationships with depression and anxiety in adults. European journal of Psychological Assessment, 23, 141-149.

Garnefski, N., Rieffe, C., Jellesma, F., Meerum Terwogt, M., & Kraaij, V. (2007). Cognitive emotion regulation strategies and emotional problems in 9-11-year-old children: The development of an instrument. European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 16, 1-9.

Jermann, F., Van der Linden, M., d'Acremont, M., Zermatten, A. (2006). Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (CERQ): Confirmatory factor analyses and psychometric properties of the French translation. European Journal of Psychological Assessment, 22, 126-131.

Martin, R.C., & Dahlen, E.R. (2005). Cognitive emotion regulation in the prediction of depression, anxiety, stress, and anger. Personality and Individual Differences, 39, 1249-1260.

Schroevers, M., Kraaij, V., & Garnefski, N. (2007). Goal disturbance, cognitive coping strategies, and psychological adjustment to different types of stressful life event. Personality and Individual Differences, 43, 413-423.

Van der Veek, S.M.C., Kraaij, V., Van Koppen, W., & Garnefski, N., & Joekes, K. (2007). Goal disturbance, cognitive coping and psychological distress in HIV-infected persons. Journal of Health Psychology, 12 (2), 225-230.

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University of Leiden website