How often do people intend to engage in interpersonal emotion regulation in day-to-day life? Existing literature has focused primarily on asking about the strategies people use to regulate, which means researchers have little understanding of how often people actually aim to engage in regulation to begin with. To answer this foundational question, we conducted two studies using daily diary (N = 171) and experience sampling methods (N = 239). We explored how often people use others to regulate their own emotions, and how often they regulate others’ emotions. Almost everyone engaged in interpersonal emotion regulation at least once over the course of a week, primarily with the goal to help themselves or others feel better, rather than worse. In fact, people regulated others’ emotions nearly twice as often as they turned to others to regulate their own emotions, and put more conscious effort into regulating others’ emotions compared to their own. Trait perceived efficacy of engaging in interpersonal emotion regulation was the most consistent predictor of momentary regulation intentions. The medium of the interaction—in person or digital—did not consistently predict momentary intentions or effort. Together, these findings provide a foundational picture of the interpersonal emotion regulation landscape, and lay the groundwork for future exploration into this emerging subfield of affective science.

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, policy makers have tried to balance the effectiveness of lockdowns (or stay-at-home orders) with their potential mental health costs. Yet, two years into the pandemic, we are still lacking solid evidence about the emotional toll of lockdowns. Across two intensive longitudinal datasets with 14,511 observations collected in Australia in 2021 (total N = 441), we compare the degree, persistence, and regulation of people’s emotions on days in and out of lockdown. We find that lockdowns take an emotional toll, but that this toll is relatively mild. In lockdown, people experienced slightly more negative and slightly less positive emotion; returned to a mildly negative emotional state more quickly; and used low-effort emotion regulation strategies. We conclude that people are resilient to the challenges lockdowns pose to personal and social well-being.

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, policy makers have tried to balance the effectiveness of lockdowns (i.e., stay-at-home orders) with their potential mental health costs. Yet, several years into the pandemic, policy makers lack solid evidence about the toll of lockdowns on daily emotional functioning. Using data from two intensive longitudinal studies conducted in Australia in 2021, we compared the intensity, persistence, and regulation of emotions on days in and out of lockdown. Participants (N = 441, observations = 14,511) completed a 7-day study either entirely in lockdown, entirely out of lockdown, or both in and out of lockdown. We assessed emotions in general (Dataset 1) and in the context of social interactions (Dataset 2). Lockdowns took an emotional toll, but this toll was relatively mild: In lockdown, people experienced slightly more negative and less positive emotion; returned to a mildly negative emotional state more quickly; and used low-effort emotion-regulation strategies (i.e., distraction). There are three interpretations for our findings, which are not mutually exclusive. First, people may be relatively resilient to the emotional challenges posed by repeated lockdowns. Second, lockdowns may not compound the emotional challenges of the pandemic. Third, because we found effects even in a mostly childless and well-educated sample, lockdowns may take a greater emotional toll in samples with less pandemic privilege. Indeed, the high level of pandemic privilege of our sample limits the generalizability of our findings (e.g., to people with caregiving roles).

The growing literature on interpersonal emotion regulation has largely focused on the strategies people use to regulate. As such, researchers have little understanding of how often people regulate in the first place, what emotion regulation goals they have when they regulate, and how much effort they invest in regulation. To understand the identification stage of the regulation process, we conducted two studies using daily diary (N = 171) and experience sampling methods (N = 239), exploring interpersonal emotion regulation in the context of everyday social interactions. We found people regulated others’ emotions nearly twice a day, regulated their own emotions through others around once a day, and regulated both their own and others’ emotions in the same interaction roughly every other day. Further, not only did people regulate others’ emotions more often than regulating their own emotions through others, but they also put in more effort to do so. The goals of regulation were primarily to make themselves or others feel better, most often through increasing positive emotions, rather than decreasing negative emotions. Together, these findings provide a foundational picture of the interpersonal emotion regulation landscape, and lay the groundwork for future exploration into this emerging subfield of affective science.