Emotional Inertia is Associated with Lower Well-Being when Controlling for Differences in Emotional Context

Abstract

Previous studies have linked higher emotional inertia (i.e., a stronger autoregressive slope of emotions) with lower well-being. We aimed to replicate these findings, while extending upon previous research by addressing a number of unresolved issues and controlling for potential confounds. Specifically, we report results from two studies (Ns = 100 and 202) examining how emotional inertia, assessed in response to a standardized sequence of emotional stimuli in the lab, correlates with several measures of well-being. The current studies build on previous research by examining how inertia of both positive emotions (PE) and negative emotions (NE) relates to positive (e.g., life satisfaction) and negative (e.g., depressive symptoms) indicators of well-being, while controlling for between-person differences in the mean level and variability of emotions. Our findings replicated previous research and further revealed that (a) NE inertia was more strongly associated with lower well-being than PE inertia; (b) emotional inertia correlated more consistently with negative indicators (e.g., depressive symptoms) than positive indicators (e.g., life satisfaction) of well-being; and (c) these relationships were independent of individual differences in mean level and variability of emotions. We conclude, in line with recent findings, that higher emotional inertia, particularly of NE, may be an indicator of increased vulnerability to depression.

Affective variability in depression: Revisiting the inertia–instability paradox

“…Fluctuations in affect may especially be functional at the shorter timescale, that is, seconds or minutes. At this timescale, moment‐to‐moment variability may reflect functional responsiveness to situational contingencies (Koval et al ., ). At longer timescales (e.g., several hours or days), moment‐to‐moment variability may rather reflect mood swings and may thus be unfavourable (Koval et al ., ).…”

“…This effect disappeared when mean levels were adjusted for. Interestingly, the AR has been found to be related to depression in laboratory studies using a film task, even after adjustment for dispersion and mean levels of affect (Koval et al ., , ). In this film task, the emotional content to which people were exposed was under the experimenter's control.…”

“… The terms ‘emotion’ and ‘affect’ are often used interchangeably in the literature (Koval, Sütterlin, & Kuppens, ; Kuppens, ). …”

Predicting Depression From Language-Based Emotion Dynamics: Longitudinal Analysis of Facebook and Twitter Status Updates (Preprint)

“…While depression has also been associated with a blunted emotional response to stimuli and smoother emotional experiences from day to day (inertia) [30,36,37]; variability and instability span major categories of emotion dynamics as they relate to depression and are the focus of the current study. Table 1 outlines the definitions of variability, instability and inertia and describes their conceptual overlap.…”

For Value or for Worth? Part 2: A Neuroeconomical Thought-Action-Mood-Space Modulated by (Un-)Certainty as Sign- or Goal-tracking

“…Thus, besides some focus on duration [127,128], mainly the cost of suppressing emotions is monitored [129]. Fortunately affect dynamics are taking momen-tum also in the case of a likely alias of increased emotional effort suspected to be a pre-depressive signature of decoup-ling from usual functional connectivity: rigid emotional inertia [130]…”