How Is Emotional Awareness Related to Emotion Regulation Strategies and Self-Reported Negative Affect in the General Population?

Abstract

ObjectiveThe Levels of Emotional Awareness Scale (LEAS) as a performance task discriminates between implicit or subconscious and explicit or conscious levels of emotional awareness. An impaired awareness of one's feeling states may influence emotion regulation strategies and self-reports of negative emotions. To determine this influence, we applied the LEAS and self-report measures for emotion regulation strategies and negative affect in a representative sample of the German general population.Sample and MethodsA short version of the LEAS, the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) and the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ), assessing reappraisal and suppression as emotion regulation strategies, were presented to N = 2524 participants of a representative German community study. The questionnaire data were analyzed with regard to the level of emotional awareness.ResultsLEAS scores were independent from depression, but related to self-reported anxiety. Although of small or medium effect size, different correlational patters between emotion regulation strategies and negative affectivity were related to implict and explict levels of emotional awareness. In participants with implicit emotional awareness, suppression was related to higher anxiety and depression, whereas in participants with explicit emotional awareness, in addition to a positive relationship of suppression and depression, we found a negative relationship of reappraisal to depression. These findings were independent of age. In women high use of suppression and little use of reappraisal were more strongly related to negative affect than in men.DiscussionOur first findings suggest that conscious awareness of emotions may be a precondition for the use of reappraisal as an adaptive emotion regulation strategy. They encourage further research in the relation between subconsious and conscious emotional awareness and the prefarance of adaptive or maladaptive emotion regulation strategies The correlational trends found in a representative sample of the general population may become more pronounced in clinical samples.

Investigating the moderating role of emotional awareness in the association between urgency and binge eating

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Analyzing the effects of emotion management on time and self-management in computer-based learning

“…Limited research attempted to explore some aspect of this relationship, whereas there are virtually no empirical data on when or why relations exist (or do not exist). In one of these works, Subic-Wrana et al (2014) examines the way emotion awareness influences emotion regulation strategies and self-reports of negative emotions. Their first findings suggested that conscious awareness of emotions may be a precondition for the use of reappraisal as an adaptive emotion regulation strategy.…”

Momentary emotion identification in female adolescents with and without anorexia nervosa

“…Valid emotion identification is considered a precursor for adaptive emotion regulation (Subic-Wrana et al, 2014). Functional magnetic resonance imagery studies have associated emotion identification with a subsequent decrease in amygdala activity (Lieberman et al, 2007), which indicates that labeling an emotion might be a form of arousal regulation itself.…”

“…Emotion identification is defined as the ability to identify and label a specific self-experienced emotion, and is a key feature to adaptive emotion regulation and interpersonal communication of feelings (Lane and Schwartz, 1987; Subic-Wrana et al, 2014). Most research on emotion identification in eating disorders has relied on questionnaires regarding alexithymia, a broader personality-based concept characterized by a reduced ability to identify, differentiate and communicate emotions (Nowakowski et al, 2013).…”