Momentary emotion regulation strategy use and success: Testing the influences of emotion intensity and habitual strategy use.

Abstract

Successful emotion regulation (ER) is important for a wide range of psychosocial outcomes. Specific ER strategies have been identified as being more or less likely to be successful. However, recent evidence suggests significant individual differences in the association between strategy implementation and ER success. Indeed, 2 key factors may play an important role in moderating the link between ER strategy use and ER success in the moment: (a) the intensity of the specific emotional experience, and (b) the relative frequency in using a given ER strategy. Experience-sampling across 14-days (N = 304, Mage = 19.14, % female = 87.5) was used to assess whether emotion intensity and trait ER strategy use were differentially associated with perceived regulatory success depending on which ER strategy was used. Multilevel modeling revealed that more intense emotions were associated with lower perceived success for all strategies. Additionally, habitual reappraisal predicted greater success and habitual rumination predicted lower success. We discuss the possibility that results reflected intensity-based ER strategy choices and add to the growing call to abandon the reductive labeling of ER strategies as either “adaptive” or “maladaptive.”

Affect and Mental Health Across the Lifespan During a Year of the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Role of Emotion Regulation Strategies and Mental Flexibility

“…It is also possible that the relationship between emotion regulation strategy use and heightened emotional intensity in adolescents may be bidirectional; whereby heightened emotional states may deplete cognitive control, which in turn may lead to an increased use of maladaptive emotion regulation strategies or reduced regulation success (Blanke et al, 2022;Cracco et al, 2017). In line with this postulation, a recent experience-sampling study in young people (Mage = 19.14 years) found Emotion Regulation and Mental Health During the COVID-19 Pandemic 30 that heightened emotional intensity was associated with lower perceived regulation success (Wylie et al, 2022).…”

Reconceptualizing emotion regulation and coping strategy usage in eating disorders research: The utility of a regulatory flexibility framework

“…Reinterpreting the meaning of a stressor (Gross, 2002) Focusing on the potential benefits of a romantic relationship ending (e.g., having more time to spend with friends and family) event, situational feature, or internal characteristic) in which they are implemented (Bonanno & Burton, 2013). Context shapes ER processes, including the selection of regulatory strategies (De France & Hollenstein, 2022;Del Palacio-Gonzalez & O'Toole, 2022;Koval et al, 2023;Socastro et al, 2022;Wenzel et al, 2022;Wylie et al, 2023), and the effectiveness of a particular strategy in modulating emotions varies across contexts (Bonanno & Burton, 2013). For example, reappraisal, which involves reinterpreting the meaning of a stressor (e.g., focusing on the potential benefits of a breakup), requires cognitive functions that are impaired during strong emotional states (Pessoa, 2009;Silvers et al, 2015).…”

Studying Emotion Regulation with Daily Diaries and Ecological Momentary Assessment

“…Researchers have used daily life methods to investigate a number of different emotion-regulation tendencies, such as the frequency of different emotion-regulation goals or motives (e.g., English et al, 2017), or the breadth and content of people's daily emotionregulation strategy repertoire (Grommisch et al, 2020; see also Kalokerinos & Koval, this volume). However, most of the diary/EMA research on tendencies has sought to quantify how much (or how often) people tend to use various emotion-regulation strategies in daily life (e.g., Brans et al, 2013;Heiy & Cheavens, 2014;Wylie et al, 2022). As shown in Figure 1, the tendency to use emotion-regulation strategies is typically operationalized as the (observed or latent) mean across all daily life reports.…”

“…Thus, it is important for daily life research to investigate other consequences beyond affective change. For example, a small number of studies have investigated perceived success-which may capture success in regulating one's emotions and/or achieving other non-emotional goals-as an outcome of deploying emotion-regulation strategies in daily life (Pauw et al, 2021;Wylie et al, 2022).…”

“…Furthermore, the influence of affect on strategy selection may vary over time within a single emotional episode (Kalokerinos et al, 2017). As a final example, affect intensity may moderate the implementation of emotion-regulation strategies (e.g., Blanke et al, 2022;Wylie et al, 2022). Put otherwise, antecedents may moderate consequences.…”