*2.3. Measures*

A socio-demographic questionnaire was designed to collect information concerning age, gender, education level, relationship/social status, and current or previous clinical and mental diagnoses.

The Symptom Checklist-90-Revised (SCL-90-R) [19] is a 90-item self-report questionnaire that measures mental and physical symptoms which have occurred in the previous week. Each item is rated by respondents on a five-point Likert scale (0–4) ranging from having caused no discomfort to having caused extreme discomfort during the past week. The SCL-90-R has nine subscales, and the Global Severity Index (GSI) score reflects overall mental and physical distress. The questionnaire showed adequate test-retest reliability, internal consistency, and concurrent and discriminant validity [19]. In the present study, Cronbach's alpha of the total scale was α = 0.93, whereas clinical subscales ranged from α = 0.72 to α = 0.87.

The Affective Neuroscience Personality Scale, version 2.4 (ANPS) [20] is a 112-item selfreport questionnaire based on Panksepp's studies and was derived from the description of PES. The items are based on a four-point Likert scale. Six subscales, representing PES, were identified: SEEKING, CARE, PLAY, FEAR, ANGER, and SADNESS/PANIC. The questionnaire showed satisfactory internal consistency and adequate concurrent and discriminant validity [20]. In the present study, Cronbach's alpha values for the subscales were PLAY: α = 0.78; SEEK: α = 0.72; CARE: α = 0.71; FEAR: α = 0.81; ANGER: α = 0.78; SADNESS/PANIC: α = 0.74).

The Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ) [21] is a 10-item self-report scale designed to measure the tendency of respondents to regulate their emotions in two ways: Cognitive-Reappraisal (CR) and Expressive-Suppression (ES), which represent the subscales. Respondents answer each item on a seven-point Likert scale (1–7). The questionnaire showed good internal consistency [21]. Cronbach's alpha values for the present study were: CR: α = 0.82 and ES: α = 0.73.
