The Emotional Approach Coping Scales in Chinese: Validation, Psychometric Properties, and Measurement Invariance

American and Chinese literatures on emotion-focused coping show inconsistent associations with distress, attributable to criterion contamination problems with measures. This problem was remedied by the American Emotional Approach Coping (EAC) scales, which are not confounded with distress; however, there is no Chinese counterpart. The EAC is of theoretical interest for exploring cross-cultural models of psychological and physical health since it allows one to measure emotion processing (theoretically lowering distress) without emotion expression (maintaining collectivist group harmony). In the present study, the EAC scales were translated into Chinese and their factorial, criterion, and discriminant validity as well as measurement invariance of the two versions were examined in 353 Chinese and 491 Americans. Previous validational findings for American EAC scales were replicated and configural and metric invariance demonstrated, supporting the comparable reliability and validity of the Chinese EAC scales. Chinese showed fewer gender differences than Americans.