The Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS) is a poor fit when your goal is to explain one workplace interaction or choose a specific behavior to change. It asks about perceived, general difficulties with emotion regulation, rather than documenting a particular meeting and its conditions. It may still prompt reflection on a broader pattern; use that prompt to identify what to observe in a real work situation.
What does DERS ask you to reflect on?
The original 36-item Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS) asks people how they generally experience emotions and respond when distressed. Its framework spans awareness and understanding, acceptance, goal-directed action, impulse control, and perceived access to strategies. A result summarizes self-perceived difficulty across these areas; it does not record a conversation or provide an outside rating of behavior. The scale is often discussed through a total and six facets, but these labels describe reported difficulty, not separate demonstrations of skill. Its clinical-contextual framework treats emotion regulation broadly, including acceptance and staying goal-directed during distress.
Gratz and Roemer’s development study examined questionnaire responses from two undergraduate samples and reported preliminary support for reliability and validity. Later, Hallion, Steinman, Tolin, and Diefenbach examined 427 treatment-seeking adults with emotional disorders. Their analysis found weaker performance for the awareness subscale and best fit for a model that omitted it. This clinical sample helps describe the measure’s psychometric behavior in treatment-seeking adults; neither it nor the original student samples establish workplace norms or show that a score explains a work event.
Sources: Multidimensional Assessment of Emotion Regulation and Dysregulation: Development, Factor Structure, and Initial Validation of the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale; Psychometric Properties of the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS) and Its Short Forms in Adults With Emotional Disorders
When does a broad score miss the work question?
A workplace exchange has more than one possible influence: the task, clarity of expectations, feedback, time pressure, power differences, and each person’s response. DERS does not distinguish among them. For example, difficulty returning to a task after sharp feedback could involve distress, unclear instructions, an unreasonable deadline, or several factors together. The scale cannot identify which explanation fits. That distinction matters when the aim is to decide what to change: a broad self-report can raise a question, while an account of the episode and its conditions is needed to examine it. A score cannot show whether a colleague experienced the same exchange differently or whether a change in workload would alter the response. Those are questions about interaction and setting, outside what an individual questionnaire measures.
The same caution applies to interpreting a single facet. Hallion and colleagues’ clinical analysis and earlier factor studies they review report differing results for the scale’s structure, with awareness performing less consistently. This does not invalidate the whole measure; it means a facet should not be treated as a settled account of an employee’s actions.
Sources: Psychometric Properties of the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS) and Its Short Forms in Adults With Emotional Disorders; Measures of emotion regulation: Convergence and psychometric properties of the difficulties in emotion regulation scale and emotion regulation questionnaire
What is a fair comparison for one work habit?
The Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ) asks about two strategies, cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression, while DERS covers broader perceived difficulties. In a 2022 comparison, Sörman and colleagues studied 843 community adults. DERS scores had stronger associations with depression and anxiety symptoms than ERQ strategy scores, and the measures were moderately correlated. Those results distinguish their scope; they do not establish which is more useful at work.
The Workplace Emotion Regulation Preference Inventory (WERPI) was developed for a work setting. Its university repository abstract reports preliminary validity evidence and differences in customer-service performance among four identified groups, without giving a sample size. That is a narrow basis for considering a work-oriented measure, not evidence that it suits every role or individual reflection. Its work-specific name does not by itself establish broader validity, and the repository abstract is not enough to compare its scores with an employee’s account of a particular event.
A two-week diary study of 165 teachers found that strategy combinations varied with emotion, situation valence, and whether teachers were teaching. The authors describe the findings as exploratory and correlational and note possible end-of-day recall bias. The study offers context for why responses can vary by situation; it does not validate DERS or event notes. For one work habit, a brief note about the situation, feeling, response, goal, and what followed captures details that a general scale does not ask for. This recommendation follows from matching the record to the question; no cited study directly compares it with DERS, ERQ, or WERPI for everyday workplace reflection. Keep the note descriptive: separate what you observed from your interpretation, and include relevant conditions such as timing, role, or an unclear request. That makes a follow-up question more concrete without turning the note into a validated assessment.
Sources: Measures of emotion regulation: Convergence and psychometric properties of the difficulties in emotion regulation scale and emotion regulation questionnaire; Development and validation of a measure for emotion regulation at work: Introducing the Workplace Emotion Regulation Preference Inventory (WERPI)
How should you use a DERS result at work?
First decide what you want to learn. If you are exploring a recurring sense that distress is hard to manage, DERS may serve as one prompt. If you want to change an interaction, choose a recent example and note what happened, what you noticed, what you did, and what constraints were present. Use those details to identify one behavior to try, rather than turning a difficult day into a lasting label. For example, the next step might be to ask a clarifying question before replying, or to agree on a time to resume a tense discussion. Select an action that fits the event rather than assuming the result names the solution.
You can then ask the other person: “Could you give me one example from that conversation of something I did that helped or made the work harder, and what would be more useful next time?” Their answer can add an outside perspective to your account; this is a practical suggestion, not a protocol tested by the cited studies. The private 32-item Emotional Skills Profile at /assessment is another structured reflection resource, covering recent-behavior summaries and judgments about authored scenarios. It is educational self-reflection, not a standardized ability measure or a substitute for workplace feedback.
Sources: Multidimensional Assessment of Emotion Regulation and Dysregulation: Development, Factor Structure, and Initial Validation of the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale; Psychometric Properties of the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS) and Its Short Forms in Adults With Emotional Disorders; Measures of emotion regulation: Convergence and psychometric properties of the difficulties in emotion regulation scale and emotion regulation questionnaire
Questions readers ask
Can DERS be useful if I am reflecting on work?
It can prompt consideration of a broad, recurring difficulty with emotion regulation. Gratz and Roemer’s initial validation involved undergraduate samples, and later psychometric work includes clinical samples; neither provides workplace norms.
What should I use if I want to examine one workplace behavior?
Choose a recent episode and record the situation, your response, and what followed. You can then seek a specific example or alternative from someone involved. This helps organize the question but has not been shown to outperform DERS or ERQ in a workplace study.
Sources
- Multidimensional Assessment of Emotion Regulation and Dysregulation: Development, Factor Structure, and Initial Validation of the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale
Reports the DERS framework and preliminary validation findings from two undergraduate questionnaire samples, which bound the original evidence away from workplace interpretation.
- Psychometric Properties of the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS) and Its Short Forms in Adults With Emotional Disorders
Reports psychometric analyses in 427 treatment-seeking adults, including weaker awareness performance and clinical outcome associations, limiting direct transfer to work settings.
- Measures of emotion regulation: Convergence and psychometric properties of the difficulties in emotion regulation scale and emotion regulation questionnaire
Compares DERS and ERQ in 843 community adults on scale properties and symptom associations, supporting a breadth-versus-strategy distinction but not a workplace-use conclusion.
- Development and validation of a measure for emotion regulation at work: Introducing the Workplace Emotion Regulation Preference Inventory (WERPI)
The accessible university repository abstract reports preliminary validity evidence for WERPI and differences among four identified groups in customer-service performance; it does not report the sample size, so no sample count is claimed here.
- Unveiling situation-specific emotion regulation behaviour among teachers: Insights from a multilevel latent profile analysis
In a two-week diary study of 165 teachers, emotion-regulation strategy combinations varied with emotion, situation valence, and teaching versus non-teaching context; the authors describe findings as exploratory and warranting replication, and note that end-of-day recall and correlational data limit interpretation.
Apply it to the real situation
Turn a broad result into one behavior to notice
From this guide: If DERS has raised a general question, the next step is identifying which recent response you want to understand in context.
The private 32-item Emotional Skills Profile offers a structured way to reflect on recent behavior and judgments about authored scenarios. It can give you another starting point for deciding what to observe in a feedback exchange, disagreement, or repair. Use it as educational self-reflection, then compare your interpretation with a specific example or feedback that you trust.