‘It might be time to accept’. Exploring the dynamics between affect regulation strategies, anxiety and timing of regulation

Abstract

Very few studies have explored variations in the implementation of affect regulation strategies over time and the impact of anxiety, even though understanding these putative dynamics would serve both clinical and research purposes. We hypothesized that (i) emotion regulation strategies vary in their evocability (i.e., probability of being used), depending on the timing of affect regulation in response to negative events, and (ii) these dynamics are modulated by trait anxiety in nonclinical individuals. Generalized additive mixed models highlighted three waves of affect regulation: avoidance and expressing and maintaining negative affects as openers; positive reappraisal as a midregulation strategy; and acceptance as a late strategy, depending on trait anxiety level. Problem solving was a mid-to-late strategy. Our data did not support any of the social sharing models. Interestingly, acceptance was the only strategy with a temporal pattern that clearly differed between high- and low-anxiety individuals. Our results (i) emphasise that time and anxiety are only partially predictive of affect regulation dynamics, and (ii) highlight the challenges that will have to be overcome in future research, if we are to wholly unravel the functioning of these dynamics in daily life events.