Depressive Styles and the Regulation of Negative Affect: A Daily Experience Study

Abstract

An experience-sampling methodology was used toexplore the relation between depressive personalitystyles and daily mood regulation. Ninety-five womencompleted the Depressive Experiences Questionnaire (Blatt et al., 1976), and recorded their affectand use of specific mood-regulation strategies twicedaily over a 2-week period. We hypothesized that active,distracting strategies would be more effective in alleviating negative affect than wouldpassive, emotion-focused strategies, and thatself-criticism and dependency would be associated withpoor mood management. Results indicated that engaging ina pleasant, rewarding activity was successful inreducing negative affect, whereas venting prolongednegative affect. Self-criticism was related to poor moodmanagement, as it was associated with venting and failing to spend time with others.Dependency was associated with venting,consumption-based self-indulgence, and being less likelyto spend time alone when regulating negativeaffect.