Cognitive risk factors are key in the vulnerability for internalizing disorders. Cognitive risk factors modulate the way individuals process information from the environment which in turn impacts the day-to-day affective experience. In 296 young adults, we assessed two transdiagnostic, general risk factors—repetitive negative thinking (RNT) and anxiety sensitivity in a high-RNT subsample (N = 119). We also assessed disorderand content-specific risk factors including worry, rumination, and three facets of anxiety sensitivity (cognitive, social, physical). To determine the day-to-day affective experience, we used cell-phone-based ecological momentary assessment to assess the mean and variability of positive and negative affect (PA; NA) over 3–4 months. Two multilevel multivariate Bayesian models were used to predict PA and NA mean and variability from (1) general and (2) specific cognitive risk factors. Mean NA was a nonspecific correlate of cognitive risk across both models, while mean PA was most strongly related to RNT and rumination. NA variability was most strongly related to RNT, rumination, and the physiological facet of anxiety sensitivity. PA variability was a specific correlate of RNT. Results highlight that cognitive risk factors for internalizing disorders manifest in unique patterns of day-to-day emotional experience.

Anxiety and depression are common and challenging to treat. Yet our understanding of the dynamic emotional processes that underlie internalizing illness remains incomplete, thwarting treatment development. Here, we used ecological momentary assessment to understand relations between real-world affective dynamics and specific internalizing facets in a young adult sample enriched for internalizing risk. Momentary reports of high average negative affect (NA) levels and low average positive affect (PA) levels were associated with elevated symptoms, broadly. Contrary to expectations, high PA variability, but not NA variability, evidenced a similarly broad profile of associations. Clustering analyses indicated that Panic and Suicidality, and separately, Dysphoria, Lassitude, and Social Anxiety shared common emotional fingerprints, marked by high average/low variability in NA, and high average NA/low average PA/high PA variability, respectively. These results provide a novel framework for understanding the everyday mood dynamics that underlie specific symptoms of internalizing illness.