An experimental investigation of spontaneous emotion regulation variability, negative affect, and posttraumatic stress disorder among traumatized refugees.

Abstract

Emotion regulation (ER) may be an important psychological mechanism underpinning the development, and management, of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in refugees. Despite this, little is known about the ER strategies that refugees spontaneously deploy under stress, nor how effective different approaches may be at reducing distress. This was the first study to identify individual differences in patterns of spontaneous ER among refugees and explore their unique associations with negative affect and PTSD. Spontaneous reappraisal and suppression use was measured among 82 refugees following a 5-min exposure to trauma-salient images. Negative affect was indexed before and after the exposure task. Latent profile analysis (LPA) was conducted to identify distinct profiles of participants based on differing levels of ER use. LPA revealed two distinct profiles: a high ER variability profile (37%; high suppression/moderate-high reappraisal) and a low ER variability profile (63%; low suppression/moderate reappraisal). The low ER variability profile was associated with increased negative affect during the experimental paradigm, greater PTSD avoidance symptoms, and greater likelihood of insecure visa status compared with the high ER variability profile. Our findings suggest that a more variable ER approach in response to trauma-salient stressors results in lower distress and is associated with less severe PTSD symptoms. Better understanding the links between patterns of ER strategy use and psychopathology has important implications for the development of effective treatments for refugees. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).