Development of the Japanese version of the Emotion Awareness Questionnaire for junior high school students

This study reports about the development of the Japanese version of the Emotion Awareness Questionnaire for junior high school students. Emotion Awareness Questionnaire (EAQ; Rieffe, Oosterveld, Miers, Meerum Terwogt, & Ly, 2008) for children and adolescents aims not only to monitor and differentiate emotions but also to measure attitudes about emotions. It consists of six factors: differentiating emotions, verbal sharing of emotions, not hiding emotion, bodily awareness, attending to others’ emotion, analyses of emotions. To examine the reliability and validity of the Japanese version of the EAQ, junior high school students (7th to 9th grades) were requested to complete the questionnaires (n=535 in time 1, n=537 in time 2, n=330 in time 3). The results showed that the Japanese version of the EAQ had almost the same six-factor structure as the original one. It also had moderate internal consistency and test-retest reliability (three weeks). The validity of the scale was examined in relation to emotional intelligence, social anxiety, depression, psychological stress responses, evaluation of emotions, self esteem and sense of authenticity. The results confirmed that the Japanese version of the EAQ had good validity.