Emotional Inertia and Psychological Maladjustment

Abstract

This paper examines the concept of emotional inertia to capture a fundamental property of the emotion dynamics that may characterize psychological maladjustment. Emotional inertia simply refers to the degree to which emotional states are resistant to change. As psychological maladjustment has been associated with both emotional underreactivity and ineffective emotion regulation skills, we hypothesized that its overall emotion dynamics would be characterized by high levels of inertia. Using different methods, we provide evidence from two naturalistic studies that the emotional fluctuations of individuals suffering from low self-esteem (Study 1) and depression (Study 2) are indeed characterized by higher levels of emotional inertia in both positive and negative emotions than those of their counterparts. We discuss the usefulness of the concept of emotional inertia as a hallmark feature of maladaptive emotion dynamics. Keywordsemotion; psychological adjustment; emotional inertia; emotional variability Feelings change. Our emotional lives are characterized by ups and downs, changes and fluctuations following the ebb and flow of daily life. Studying the patterns and characteristics of these changes gives researchers insight into the dynamics of emotions and how people regulate their emotions, for better or for worse. In this paper we examine the concept of "emotional inertia" as a fundamental feature of the dynamics of emotional experience, and study its relationship to psychological maladjustment. Emotional variability and adjustmentOne of the most pervasive findings in the study of emotion dynamics is that high levels of emotional variability are associated with maladaptive psychological functioning. Individuals who display large emotional variability over time (expressed as for instance the standard deviation of repeated emotion assessments across time) are characterized by higher levels of depression, neuroticism, and lower self-esteem, among others (e.g., Eid & Diener, 1999; Kuppens, Van Mechelen, Nezlek, Dossche, & Timmermans, 2008).This line of research could be interpreted as showing that psychological maladjustment is characterized by greater emotional reactivity (Kuppens, et al., 2008 with the demands and threats in the environment (Frijda, 2007;Izard, 2009). Anger motivates antagonism and the removal of the object of frustration, fear motivates avoiding or fleeing a threatening environment, happiness signals that things are going well and promotes further approach. In sum, the adaptive value of emotions lies in their capacity to be mobilized in response to (internal or external) events. It therefore seems contradictory that emotional reactivity per se would be maladaptive. Experiencing changing emotions should be generally functional and adaptive (depending on how attuned these emotional changes are to environmental contingencies), and lack of emotional responsiveness may be a sign that emotional responses have become decoupled from environmental or psychological demands, and thus, may be indicati...

A Model of Socioemotional Flexibility at Three Time Scales

“…Recently, Kuppens and colleagues have explored context insensitivity through the construct of emotional inertia (Suls, Green, & Hillis, 1998) in adolescence (Kuppens et al, 2010;Kuppens et al, 2012). Emotional inertia reflects the tendency to perseverate in a particular emotional state despite shifting contextual demands.…”

“…& Winter, 2011), peer interactions (Lavictoire, Snyder, Stoolmiller, & Hollenstein, 2012), dyadic relationships (Branje, 2008;Gruber-Baldini, Schaie, & Willis, 1995;Paulhus & Martin, 1988), coping (Cheng, 2001(Cheng, , 2009, emotional expressivity (Bonanno, Papa, Lalande, Westphal, & Coifman, 2004;Westphal, Seivert, & Bonanno, 2010), mood variability (Kuppens, Allen, & Sheeber, 2010;Kuppens et al, 2012;Wichers et al, 2010), personality (DeYoung, Peterson, & Higgins, 2002), depression (Deveney & Deldin, 2006), and anxiety (Davis, Montgomery, & Wilson, 2002). These investigations have exposed normative individual differences as well as the problems associated with extreme levels of either flexibility or rigidity.…”

Simplifying complexity : reflections on ecosystems, psychiatric disorders and biogeochemical pathways

“…This is consistent with the idea that such transitions tend to happen when a subject is close to a tipping point. The relationship between elevated temporal correlations and upcoming transitions we detected is also consistent with independent earlier studies, showing that 'emotional inertia' (slower rates of change in emotion scores) is associated with future transition into a more depressed state (Kuppens et al 2010. Moreover, the corresponding view of depression as an alternative stable state is in line with the finding of reinforcing feedbacks between emotions, and with the sudden character of shifts to depression and recovery (Aderka et al 2012).…”

Capturing Context-Related Change in Emotional Dynamics via Fixed Moderated Time Series Analysis

“…interactions or activities, or encounter stressful events (e.g., Koval & Kuppens, 2011;Kuppens, Allen, & Sheeber, 2010;Zautra, Berkhof, & Nicolson, 2002). In this paper, we propose a dynamic model suited to capture changes in the dynamics of emotional functioning via time-varying model parameters.…”