How much variance can event intensity and emotion regulation strategies explain in momentary affect in daily life?

Abstract

Research based on the process model of emotion regulation has largely focused on affective outcomes of four prominent emotion regulation strategies: distraction, rumination, reappraisal, and suppression. We identified two areas that are relatively understudied regarding the prediction of affect in daily life: (a) comparing the importance of these four strategies to the subjective experience of event intensity and (b) including additional emotion regulation strategies that focus more on positive than negative affect. In two ecological momentary assessment data sets (Nindividuals = 299), we found that event intensity explained an average of 14.8% (4.9% to 25.9%) of the total variance in momentary affect above the variance explained by emotion regulation strategies. In turn, emotion regulation strategies explained an average of 8.3% (2.4% to 19.6%) in additional total variance in momentary affect. The added predictive power of emotion regulation strategies above event intensity was improved when strategies more specific to positive affect (ΔR² = 5.1%) were included. These results highlight avenues for future research that include strategies that focus on the selection and modification of an emotionally relevant situation and on positive affect. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).