Assessing decentering: Validity, reliability and factor structure of experiences questionnaire in university students

Decentering is an adaptive emotion regulation strategy that refers to the ability to gain perspective from one’s thoughts and feelings. The purpose of the present study was to examine psychometric properties of Farsi version of the Experiences Questionnaire (EQ; assessing decentering factor, Fresco et al., 2007) in student sample. All of the 182 students completed the experiences questionnaire, emotion regulation questionnaire, Beck depression inventory-II and Beck anxiety inventory. Pearson`s correlation, chronbach`s alpha and exploratory factor analysis used for analyzing the data. The internal consistency of EQ was 0.77. The convergent validity examined by using reappraisal subscale of emotion regulation questionnaire and the findings showed r= 0.462. To investigate the discriminate validity, subscale suppression of ERQ, BDI-II, & BAI were used. EQ and Suppression subscale dont have a significant correlation (r= 0.096) with each other. In addition, there were negative relationship between EQ and BDI-II (r=-0.543) and BAI (r=-0.359). Finally, Exploratory Factor Analysis identified two factors. This research provides promising evidence about psychometric properties of Farsi version of experiences questionnaire in non-clinical student population.