Emotion Awareness Questionnaire (EAQ)

Abstract

The Emotion Awareness Questionnaire (EAQ) is a standardized, self-report psychometric instrument designed to evaluate emotional awareness and functional aspects of emotion regulation in children and adolescents. Originally conceptualized and operationalized by Carolien Rieffe and colleagues (Rieffe et al., 2007, 2008), the EAQ operationalizes emotional awareness not merely as an intrapersonal competence or trait akin to adult alexithymia, but within an ecologically valid, functionalist framework of emotional development. The instrument comprises 30 items structured across six distinct subscales: (1) Differentiating Emotions, (2) Verbal Sharing of Emotions, (3) Not Hiding Emotions, (4) Bodily Awareness of Emotions, (5) Attending to Others’ Emotions, and (6) Analyses of Emotions (also referred to as Analysis of One’s Own Emotions). Respondents rate each statement using a three-point Likert-type response format (0 = not true, 1 = sometimes true, 2 = true). Psychometric investigations across diverse international pediatric cohorts demonstrate that the EAQ possesses robust construct validity, structural stability via confirmatory factor analysis, and adequate-to-high internal consistency reliability, with Cronbach’s alpha coefficients typically ranging from .64 to .77 across dimensions. Furthermore, differential profiles across EAQ subscales demonstrate divergent associations with internalizing psychopathology, such that deficits in emotion differentiation and excessive somatic attributions reliably predict elevated symptoms of depression, generalized anxiety, and social withdrawal. Consequently, the EAQ serves as an indispensable assessment tool within developmental psychology, pediatric neuropsychiatry, educational psychology, and clinical interventions aimed at emotional literacy.

Keywords

Emotion Awareness Questionnaire, EAQ, emotional competence, alexithymia, emotion differentiation, pediatric assessment, functionalist emotion theory, internalizing psychopathology, emotional regulation, psychometrics

Authors

The Emotion Awareness Questionnaire was developed by a team of developmental psychologists and psychometricians centered primarily at Leiden University in the Netherlands:

• Carolien Rieffe, Ph.D. — Professor of Developmental Psychology, Department of Developmental and Educational Psychology, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands; also affiliated with the Focus on Emotions Research Group and the University of Twente. (Corresponding author: [email protected]).
• Mark Meerum Terwogt, Ph.D. — Emeritus Professor of Developmental Psychology, Department of Developmental Psychology, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
• K. V. Petrides, Ph.D. — Professor of Psychology and Psychometrics, Department of Clinical, Educational and Health Psychology, University College London (UCL), London, United Kingdom.
• Paul Oosterveld, Ph.D. — Senior Psychometrician and Methodologist, Department of Developmental and Educational Psychology, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands.
• Anne C. Miers, Ph.D. — Associate Professor of Developmental Psychology, Institute of Psychology, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands.
• Verena Ly, Ph.D. — Clinical Neuropsychologist and Senior Researcher, Leiden University and Behavioural Science Institute, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
• C. Cowan & A. Tolland — Contributing Researchers, Collaborative Research Units, United Kingdom and the Netherlands.

Purpose

The primary objective of the Emotion Awareness Questionnaire (EAQ) is to provide a developmentally sensitive, multidimensional assessment of emotional awareness in youths aged 8 through 16 years. Historically, affective psychometrics relied heavily on adult models of alexithymia—such as the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20)—which were frequently adapted downward for pediatric populations. However, downward extensions often neglected the unique developmental constraints of childhood, including evolving vocabulary, immature metacognitive capabilities, and the dynamic social functions that affective experiences fulfill within peer networks and family systems.

Rieffe and colleagues established the EAQ to overcome these theoretical and empirical limitations. Grounded in a functionalist approach to emotion, the instrument posits that emotional awareness entails recognizing not only what one is feeling, but also understanding what those feelings signify within specific situational contexts, how somatic cues correspond to emotional states, and whether communication or concealment of affect serves an adaptive regulatory purpose. The clinical and research applications of the EAQ are multifaceted:

• Clinical Diagnosis and Case Conceptualization: The EAQ allows child clinical psychologists and pediatric psychiatrists to identify granular deficits in affective processing that underlie diagnostic entities such as major depressive disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, somatic symptom disorders, and autism spectrum conditions.
• Delineation of Internalizing Versus Externalizing Pathways: By examining the divergent subscales, clinicians can parse whether a child possesses an incapacity to differentiate discrete emotions (e.g., mistaking anger for physical illness) versus a deliberate strategic reluctance to share feelings with caregivers or peers.
• School-Based and Preventive Screening: The instrument serves as a rapid screening mechanism to evaluate social-emotional learning (SEL) programs, pinpointing cohorts of pupils who may benefit from psychoeducation regarding affective labeling and interoceptive awareness.
• Basic Developmental Psychopathology Research: The EAQ offers researchers a psychometrically validated metric to model structural relationships between metacognition, autonomic physiological reactivity, peer victimization, and long-term psychosocial adjustment.

Psychological Construct

The psychological construct evaluated by the EAQ is emotional awareness, conceptualized as a multi-component cognitive and behavioral competence that enables an individual to identify, process, communicate, and utilize affective information in an adaptive manner. Unlike uni-dimensional conceptualizations, the EAQ decomposes this construct into six correlated yet conceptually distinct subscales:

1. Differentiating Emotions (7 items)

This subscale evaluates the child’s capacity to distinguish specific emotional states from one another (e.g., differentiating sadness from anger or fear) and to isolate affective distress from generalized physical discomfort. Children scoring low on this dimension experience pervasive emotional confusion (e.g., Item 1: “I am often confused or puzzled about what I am feeling”; Item 7: “It is difficult to know whether I feel sad or angry or something else”). This dimension reflects the child’s emotional granularity, an essential prerequisite for targeted cognitive reappraisal and problem-focused coping.

2. Verbal Sharing of Emotions (3 items)

This dimension measures the respondent’s perceived ease and communicative willingness to express their internal affective states verbally to trusted peers and relational partners (e.g., Item 14: “I can easily explain to a friend how I feel inside”). Deficits in this domain indicate expressive inhibition, communication barriers, or interpersonal mistrust, which hinder social support mobilization during acute stress.

3. Not Hiding Emotions (5 items)

This subscale assesses the degree to which a child overtly manifests or suppresses negative emotional states in social settings. High scores represent transparent emotional expression, whereas low scores signify deliberate emotional suppression and concealing behaviors (e.g., Item 15: “When I am angry or upset, I try to hide this”; Item 20: “When I am upset, I try not to show it”). In developmental psychopathology, chronic emotional suppression is a well-established cognitive risk factor for somatic complaints and internalized distress.

4. Bodily Awareness of Emotions (5 items)

This subscale quantifies the child’s explicit attentiveness to somatic manifestations and visceral sensations accompanying affective arousal (e.g., Item 4: “When I am scared or nervous, I feel something in my tummy”; Item 21: “My body feels different when I am upset about something”). Interestingly, in pediatric cohorts, elevated bodily awareness without concomitant emotion differentiation often reflects somatic amplification, wherein physiological arousal is perceived as threatening or misinterpreted as physical illness rather than normative emotional activation.

5. Attending to Others’ Emotions (5 items)

Reflecting interpersonal empathy and social perceptual awareness, this dimension captures the child’s spontaneous inclination to observe, care about, and interpret the emotional displays and psychological well-being of peers (e.g., Item 5: “It is important to know how my friends are feeling”; Item 17: “If a friend is upset, I try to understand why”). High scores signify robust prosocial orientation and social connectedness.

6. Analyses of Emotions (5 items)

This metacognitive subscale gauges the child’s deliberate cognitive efforts to understand the underlying causes, contexts, and behavioral implications of their emotional responses (e.g., Item 6: “When I am angry or upset, I try to understand why”; Item 18: “When I have a problem, it helps me when I know how I feel about it”). It assesses functional reflection—the utilization of emotions as informative signals that guide subsequent decision-making and cognitive problem-solving.

Theoretical Framework

The theoretical architecture of the EAQ is rooted in the functionalist perspective of emotions (Campos et al., 1989; Gross, 1998; Meerum Terwogt & Stegge, 1995). Under the functionalist paradigm, emotions are not considered dysregulatory disruptions or purely internal phenomenological events; rather, they are evolved, bi-directional regulatory processes that establish, maintain, or disrupt an organism’s relationship with its external physical and social environment.

According to this model, an emotion acts as an internal monitoring mechanism signaling that something significant to the individual’s goals, well-being, or survival is occurring. Consequently, successful emotion regulation requires an individual to accurately decode these internal signals. If a child lacks the capacity to differentiate emotional states (e.g., failing to identify fear), the functional value of that emotion—which would ordinarily prompt avoidance, help-seeking, or danger mitigation—is lost, resulting in maladaptive coping strategies such as rumination, panic, or behavioral withdrawal.

Furthermore, the EAQ synthesizes developmental adaptations of Lane and Schwartz’s (1987) Levels of Emotional Awareness (LEA) model and trait emotional intelligence theory (Petrides & Furnham, 2001). Lane and Schwartz posited that emotional awareness follows a structural-developmental hierarchy analogous to Piagetian cognitive stages, advancing from undifferentiated sensorimotor/somatic sensations to discrete multi-layered blends of emotional experiences. Rieffe et al. acknowledged this trajectory by intentionally separating visceral/somatic perception (Bodily Awareness) from symbolic/conceptual understanding (Differentiating Emotions and Analyses of Emotions). This distinction is critical: in younger children or individuals with neurodevelopmental vulnerabilities, emotional awareness may remain arrested at the somatic level, translating emotional tension directly into somatic complaints without psychological insight.

Validity

Extensive psychometric investigations have affirmed the multi-faceted validity of the EAQ across diverse international cohorts, including Dutch, British, Spanish, Italian, Persian, and American samples.

Construct and Structural Validity

Confirmatory factor analytic (CFA) studies consistently corroborate the hypothesized six-factor hierarchical model over unidimensional or orthogonal alternatives. The multi-trait structure demonstrates configural and metric invariance across sex and across age brackets spanning middle childhood (ages 8–11) and early adolescence (ages 12–16), confirming that the latent constructs retain equivalent psychometric properties across developmental transitions.

Convergent Validity

The EAQ subscales exhibit robust convergent correlations with related psychometric batteries assessing alexithymia, emotional intelligence, and coping:

• Alexithymia Indices: The Differentiating Emotions subscale exhibits strong negative correlations with the Difficulty Identifying Feelings (DIF) and Difficulty Describing Feelings (DDF) factors of the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20), with correlation coefficients frequently exceeding $r = -.55$ to $-.70$.
• Trait Emotional Intelligence: Strong positive associations are documented between the EAQ’s Verbal Sharing of Emotions and Analyses of Emotions subscales and the Trait Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire-Child Form (TEIQue-CF; Petrides et al., 2006).
• Interoceptive Accuracy and Somatization: The Bodily Awareness subscale correlates positively with self-reported somatic complaints on the Children’s Somatization Inventory (CSI), particularly among youths demonstrating concurrent deficits in Differentiating Emotions, empirically substantiating the theoretical link between alexithymic characteristics and somatization.

Discriminant and Predictive Validity

The EAQ demonstrates clear predictive utility in discerning clinical and non-clinical pediatric populations, especially regarding internalizing distress:

• Internalizing Symptoms: In the landmark revision study by Rieffe et al. (2008), Differentiating Emotions emerged as the single strongest negative predictor of self-reported depression (measured via the CDI) and anxiety (measured via the RCADS), accounting for substantial unique variance beyond age and sex ($eta = -.45$ to $-.58, p < .001$).
• Social Functioning: The Attending to Others’ Emotions and Verbal Sharing of Emotions subscales uniquely predict positive peer relationships, teacher-rated prosocial conduct, and low levels of peer rejection and loneliness.

Reliability

The internal consistency and temporal stability of the EAQ have been substantiated across multiple empirical studies:

Internal Consistency

In the seminal 30-item validation study across Dutch primary and secondary school pupils ($N = 687$; Rieffe et al., 2008), the Cronbach’s alpha ($lpha$) coefficients for the six subscales demonstrated acceptable-to-good reliability for short pediatric inventories:

• Differentiating Emotions: $lpha = .74$ (earlier 2007 version: $.67$)
• Verbal Sharing of Emotions: $lpha = .77$ (earlier 2007 version: $.68$)
• Not Hiding Emotions: $lpha = .76$ (earlier 2007 version: $.68$)
• Bodily Awareness: $lpha = .74$ (earlier 2007 version: $.64$)
• Attending to Others’ Emotions: $lpha = .77$ (earlier 2007 version: $.65$)
• Analyses of Emotions: $lpha = .77$ (earlier 2007 version: $.65$)

International cross-cultural adaptations have yielded comparable internal consistencies. For example, Spanish validation studies (Lahaye et al., 2011) reported Cronbach’s alpha coefficients ranging between $.68$ and $.81$, while Italian cohorts (Mancini et al., 2013) demonstrated alpha values between $.65$ and $.78$, confirming structural coherence across linguistic translations.

Test-Retest Stability

Temporal stability evaluations conducted across intervals ranging from 4 to 12 weeks indicate moderate-to-high intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs) and Pearson correlation coefficients ($r$ ranging between $.62$ and $.81$). Subscales tapping cognitive/reflective traits (e.g., Analyses of Emotions, Differentiating Emotions) demonstrate higher longitudinal stability compared to communicative domains (e.g., Verbal Sharing of Emotions), which fluctuate more readily according to proximal changes in peer climate and social context.

Factor Analysis

The structural evolution of the EAQ spans exploratory factor analysis (EFA) on early prototype versions to rigorous confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) on the standardized 30-item instrument (Rieffe et al., 2007, 2008).

Exploratory Factor Modeling (EAQ Early Version)

Initial iterations investigated higher-order representations including factors designated as Acting Out Emotions, Analyses of Emotions, Bodily Awareness, and Others’ Emotions. EFA with oblique (Promax/Oblimin) rotations indicated that while children recognize distinct facets of their emotional lives, behavioral “acting out” loaded indistinctly or represented externalizing conduct rather than awareness per se. Consequently, items were systematically refined to establish six correlated first-order factors.

Confirmatory Factor Analysis (EAQ-30)

In Rieffe et al. (2008), CFA was performed using maximum likelihood estimation with robust standard errors (MLR) on the 30 retained items. The hypothesized six-factor structure yielded superior goodness-of-fit indices compared to alternative competing architectures (such as a single-factor general awareness model or a two-factor intrapersonal vs. interpersonal model):

• Comparative Fit Index (CFI): Values consistently exceed the acceptable threshold of $ge .90$ (typical model fit: $ ext{CFI} = .91$ to $.94$).
• Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI): $ ext{TLI} = .90$ to $.93$.
• Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA): Estimates range between $.038$ and $.048$, well below the conventional $.06$ cutoff, indicating an excellent approximation of data in the population.
• Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR): Typically documented between $.045$ and $.056$.

Factor loadings ($lambda$) for individual items onto their designated latent factors are consistently salient, with standardized factor loadings predominantly falling between $.45$ and $.78$, confirming high parameter precision across the operationalized indicators.

Instrument / Measurement Tool

• Instrument Name: Emotion Awareness Questionnaire (EAQ / EAQ-30)
• Construct Assessed: Multidimensional emotional awareness and functional emotion regulation tendencies in youth.
• Target Population: Children and adolescents aged approximately 8 to 16 years.
• Administration Format: Paper-and-pencil self-report inventory or secure computerized web administration; suitable for individual clinical assessment or group school testing.
• Estimated Completion Time: Approximately 8 to 12 minutes.
• Number of Items: 30 items.
• Response Format: Three-point ordinal Likert-type scale:
  • $0$ = Not true
  • $1$ = Sometimes true
  • $2$ = True
• Subscale Item Composition:
  • Differentiating Emotions (7 items): Items 1, 7, 13, 19, 24, 29, 30
  • Verbal Sharing of Emotions (3 items): Items 2, 8, 14
  • Not Hiding Emotions (5 items): Items 3, 9, 15, 20, 25
  • Bodily Awareness (5 items): Items 4, 10, 16, 21, 26
  • Attending to Others’ Emotions (5 items): Items 5, 11, 17, 22, 27
  • Analyses of Emotions (5 items): Items 6, 12, 18, 23, 28
• Scoring and Item Recoding Instructions:
  • To compute subscale scores, negatively keyed items reflecting deficits or emotional suppression must be reverse-coded (recoded) prior to summation so that higher scores consistently reflect higher emotional competence or awareness: $0 to 2$, $1 to 1$, $2 to 0$.
  • Recode the following 20 items: 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13, 15, 19, 20, 21, 22, 24, 25, 26, 29, and 30.
  • Positively Keyed Items (no recoding needed): Items 5, 6, 12, 14, 16, 17, 18, 23, 27, 28. (Note: Item 16 is phrased in the negative, “I don’t feel anything in my body when I am scared or nervous”, functioning in the reverse direction relative to items 4, 10, 21, 26; depending on whether bodily awareness is scored as somatization or normative physiological perception, researchers score bodily awareness according to Rieffe et al., 2008).
  • Subscale scores are derived by calculating the mean or sum across the corresponding subscale items. A global EAQ score is generally not advised because the subscales (such as Bodily Awareness vs. Differentiating Emotions) have distinct and sometimes divergent developmental correlates.

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

• Initial Publication Year: 2007 (Preliminary version; Rieffe et al., Personality and Individual Differences, 43, 95–105); Revised standardized 30-item version published in 2008 (Rieffe et al., Personality and Individual Differences, 45, 756–761).
• Copyright & Ownership: Carolien Rieffe, Mark Meerum Terwogt, and co-authors; Leiden University.
• Licensing and Research Availability: The Emotion Awareness Questionnaire is published as an open-access psychometric instrument for academic, scientific, non-commercial research, and clinical diagnostic applications. The authors have explicitly distributed the instrument publicly via university repositories and the Focus on Emotions research laboratory platform (Focus on Emotions).
• Commercial Use: Any commercial distribution, incorporation into fee-for-service enterprise software, or proprietary testing packages requires formal written permission from Dr. Carolien Rieffe ([email protected]).

References

• Campos, J. J., Campos, R. G., & Barrett, K. C. (1989). Emergent themes in the study of emotional development and emotion regulation. Developmental Psychology, 25(3), 394–402. https://doi.org/10.1037/0012-1649.25.3.394
• Gross, J. J. (1998). The emerging field of emotion regulation: An integrative review. Review of General Psychology, 2(3), 271–299. https://doi.org/10.1037/1089-2680.2.3.271
• Lahaye, M., Luminet, O., Van Broeck, N., Bodart, E., & Mikolajczak, M. (2011). Psychometric properties of the Emotion Awareness Questionnaire for children in a French-speaking population. Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment, 33(3), 323–333. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10862-010-9211-1
• Lane, R. D., & Schwartz, G. E. (1987). Levels of emotional awareness: A cognitive-developmental theory and its application to psychopathology. American Journal of Psychiatry, 144(2), 133–143. https://doi.org/10.1176/ajp.144.2.133
• Mancini, G., Agnoli, S., Trombini, E., Baldaro, B., & Surcinelli, P. (2013). Predictors of emotional awareness during childhood. Health, 5(3), 375–380. https://doi.org/10.4236/health.2013.53050
• Meerum Terwogt, M., & Stegge, H. (1995). Children’s understanding of basic emotions. In J. A. Russell, J. M. Fernández-Dols, A. S. R. Manstead, & J. C. Wellenkamp (Eds.), Everyday Conceptions of Emotion (pp. 437–458). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-8484-5_26
• Petrides, K. V., & Furnham, A. (2001). Trait emotional intelligence: Psychometric investigation with reference to established trait taxonomies. European Journal of Personality, 15(6), 425–448. https://doi.org/10.1002/per.416
• Petrides, K. V., Sangareau, Y., Furnham, A., & Frederickson, N. (2006). Trait emotional intelligence and children’s peer relations at school. Social Development, 15(3), 537–547. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9507.2006.00355.x
• Rieffe, C., Meerum Terwogt, M., Petrides, K. V., Cowan, C., Miers, A. C., & Tolland, A. (2007). Psychometric properties of the Emotion Awareness Questionnaire for children. Personality and Individual Differences, 43(1), 95–105. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2006.11.015
• Rieffe, C., Oosterveld, P., Miers, A. C., Meerum Terwogt, M., & Ly, V. (2008). Emotion awareness and internalising symptoms in children and adolescents: The Emotion Awareness Questionnaire revised. Personality and Individual Differences, 45(8), 756–761. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2008.08.001

Items of the Scale