Can you get emotional support through a screen? A look into digital and in-person emotional support and emotion regulation

Abstract

Social support is positively related to overall well-being and relationship quality with others, and specifically, may help with successful emotion regulation (Himle, Jayaratne, & Thyness, 2008; Liang, Ho, Li, & Turban, 2014; Strine, Chapman, Balluz, & Mokdad, 2008; Thoits, 2011). With the rapid increase in the use of information and communication technologies (ICT), much social support is now sought and received digitally rather than in person, which involves different methods of interacting with others. The current study examines the indirect effects of seeking and receiving social support both digitally and in-person on the relationship between emotion intensity and emotion regulation success. Two hundred participants were recruited from the Queen’s University psychology participant pool. Participants were prompted through a smart phone experience sampling app three times a day for two weeks to answer questions about their emotions and social support. We predict that emotion intensity will be related to lower emotion regulation success but more seeking and receiving social support. We also predict that seeking and receiving social support will be related to each other and that they will both be related to higher emotion regulation success. Additionally, it is expected that seeking and receiving emotional support in-person and digitally will be part of two indirect pathways from emotion intensity and emotion regulation success. The current study will provide information on whether digital emotional support has equivalent beneficial effects on emotion regulation as in-person emotional support, which could inform targets for future emotion regulation interventions.