Validation of the Arabic Levels of Emotional Awareness Scale (LEAS-Arb)

Emotional awareness is a cognitive skill that has gained recognition as being important for psychological and physical health. It is measured with the Levels of Emotional Awareness Scale (LEAS), which is a 20-item written performance measure in which an individual is asked to write about how they and another person would feel in a series of hypothetical scenarios. The LEAS has been translated and validated in 19 languages. The aim of the current paper is to describe the translation and validation of the LEAS in Arabic (LEAS-Arb). To achieve our goal, we recruited 134 Arabic-speaking adults ages18 and above to complete the LEAS in Arabic, along with additional self-report and performance measures that have been used in previous LEAS validation studies. Our findings support the reliability and validity of the Arabic translation of the LEAS originally created in English. The interrater reliability between the two scorers for the first ten study participants was very high, Cronbach's α = 0.951 for self, 0.997 for other, and 0.962 for total LEAS scores. Internal consistency of the 20 LEAS items alpha scores for LEAS-Arb were self-Cronbach's α = .81, other α = .96, and total α = .86. In addition, LEAS-Arb scores demonstrated convergent validity through expected associations with related constructs, including positive mood and alexithymia, consistent with prior LEAS validation studies. This study can facilitate the use of LEAS-Arb in varied settings across different Arabic speaking populations, which will allow better understanding of awareness of emotion in the Arab world and cross-culturally. This easily accessible measure can be used in clinical and research settings. Further research is needed to examine cross-cultural differences in emotional awareness as a function of culture and language.