Emotion regulation strategies in relation to personality characteristics indicating low and high self-control of emotions

Abstract

The study was part of the Jyväskylä Longitudinal Study of Personality and Social Development, in which children's (196 boys, 173 girls) behavioral characteristics indicating the self-control of emotions were studied at age 8 using teacher ratings. At age 36, 140 men and 128 women filled in several inventories, including the Meta-Regulation Scale [Mayer, J. D., & Stevens, A. A. (1994). An emerging understanding of the reflective (meta-)experience of mood. Journal of Research in Personality, 28, 351–373] and the Karolinska Scales of Personality [Af Klinteberg, B., Schalling, D., & Magnusson, D. (1986). Childhood behavior and adult personality in male and female subjects. European Journal of Personality, 4, 57–71]. The study examined the relationships between the adults' emotion regulation strategies (ERS) of Repair, Maintenance and Dampening and concurrent personality characteristics. The question of the heterotypic continuity of the self-control of emotions, and of how the use of ERS might account for this was also examined. Correlational analysis, multivariate analysis of variance and path analysis showed, for men only, that low use of ERS relates to low self-control of emotions, whereas high use relates to high self-control. Moreover, the self-control of emotions showed heterotypic continuity over a period of 28 years, which can partly be explained by the mediating role of ERS. Individuals with low Repair had characteristics indicating low self-control of emotions at both ages. Conversely, individuals with high Repair showed high self-control of emotions at both ages. The somewhat different findings for women are discussed in relation to the literature on gender differences in emotionality and emotion regulation.