Mapping the interplay between psychological vulnerability and protective factors in mental health: a network analysis study

The Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ) assesses emotion regulation strategies, particularly expressive suppression and cognitive reappraisal. However, the ERQ does not discern between regulating positive vs. negative emotions. Recent research suggests that suppression and reappraisal can impact mental health differently when targeting positive vs negative emotions. We developed and validated the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire - Positive/Negative (ERQ-PN), designed to measure positive and negative forms of suppression and reappraisal strategies. We recruited 963 participants (female = 478) through Prolific.com and administered the ERQ-PN. Participants had an average age of 45 years and were predominantly White (74%) and heterosexual (84%). Structural validity was assessed through confirmatory factor analyses. Model fit was estimated using the comparative fit index and the root-mean-square error of approximation. We also used the Bayesian information criterion to compare the fit of different models. Overall, participants used reappraisal more often to decrease negative emotions (vs. increasing positive) and leaned toward using suppression more for negative (vs. positive) emotions. These analyses revealed that the four-factor model (Model 2) delineating four latent variables (positive reappraisal, negative reappraisal, positive suppression, and negative suppression) had a good fit (RMSEA = 0.07, CFI = 0. 97, TLI = 0.96, χ 2(98) = 531.28, p < 0.001). An incremental validity assessment revealed that positive and negative reappraisal correlated similarly with related mental health constructs. By contrast, suppression of negative vs. positive emotions was differentially associated to the validators tested. The ERQ-PN represents a valid measure of emotion regulation that accounts for both positive and negative emotions.

Positive reappraisal is an important cognitive strategy for older adults associated with wide-ranging improvements in psychological well-being. However, little is known about the relationship between positive reappraisal and positive and negative emotion, anxiety and depression, and whether positive reappraisal is associated with continued increases in positive emotion over time. In the first study, 61 participants aged 62 to 88 years (M = 72, SD = 5.8) completed current measures of cognitive emotion regulation, positive emotion, negative emotion, anxiety and depression regarding their most distressing aging-related adverse life event, and rated (retrospectively) positive reappraisal use at the time of the stressor. Utilizing a longitudinal design, in a second study 60 participants aged 62 to 88 years (M = 71.2, SD = 5.7) completed the same measures for a recent adverse life event and repeated the measures 3 and 6 months later. In the first study, positive reappraisal reported for both time periods was significantly correlated with current positive emotion, but not negative emotion with mixed findings for anxiety and depression, and positive reappraisal use increased with time since stressor onset. In the second study, positive reappraisal was significantly correlated with positive emotion and significantly predicted positive emotion from 3-month to 6-month follow-up, and was related to anxiety and depression but not general negative emotion. These findings indicate that positive reappraisal is related to positive emotion but not consistently with negative emotion, and continues to be beneficial over time in older adults who have experienced a stressor.

Understanding variables that predict increased pain and disability in children with JIA remains an important avenue for research and intervention.The present study sought to evaluate the extent to which regulation of positive and negative emotions predicts pain intensity and disability at a given moment for children with JIA.

When negative interpretations persist, positive emotions don't! Inflexible negative interpretations encourage depression and social anxiety by dampening positive emotions

We examined the associations between observed expressions of positive and negative emotions during conflict discussions and depressive symptoms during a 2-year period in a sample of 160 adolescents in 80 romantic relationships (M age = 15.48, SD = 1.16). Conflict discussions were coded using the 10-code Specific Affect Coding System. Depressive symptoms were assessed at the time of the observed conflict discussions (Time 1) and 2years later (Time 2). Data were analyzed using actor-partner interdependence models. Girls' expression of both positive and negative emotions at T1 was related to their own depressive symptoms at T2 (actor effect). Boys' positive emotions and negative emotions (actor effect) and girls' negative emotions (partner effect) were related to boys' depressive symptoms at T2. Contrary to expectation, relationship break-up and relationship satisfaction were unrelated to changes in depressive symptoms or expression of negative or positive emotion during conflict discussion. These findings underscore the unique quality of adolescent romantic relationships and suggest new directions in the study of the link between mental health and romantic involvement in adolescence.

Variability in the emotion regulation (ER) strategies one uses throughout daily life has been suggested to reflect adaptive ER ability and to act as a protective factor in mental health. Moreover, psychological inflexibility and persistent negative affect (or affective inertia) are key features of depression and other forms of mental illness and are often further exacerbated by rigid or overly passive regulatory behaviours. The current study investigated the hypothesis that ER variability might serve as a protective factor against depressive symptoms and affective inertia. Using experience-sampling (N = 213), we tested whether two indictors of ER variability (between- and within-strategy SDs) were related to depressive symptoms and affective inertia. We found that people with higher between-strategy variability and within-strategy variability (specifically for reappraisal and distraction) reported fewer depressive symptoms. Both within- and between-strategy variability were negatively related to negative affective inertia. Between-strategy variability and negative affective inertia had unique effects on depression, when used as simultaneous predictors. Altogether, this study provides further evidence for the utility of ER as a factor buffering against depressive symptoms and particularly for the use of variable ER strategies.

&lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;The ways in which people regulate their emotions is central to achieving wellbeing in our everyday lives. Typically it is assumed that everyone tries to experience the positive and avoid the negative, however research conducted over the last decade has demonstrated that not everyone is motivated to experience valenced emotions in this normative ‘hedonic’ fashion all of the time. Sometimes people hold and seek to satisfy ‘contra-hedonic’ motives, i.e., trying to experience negative emotions. To investigate the implications of holding one or the other type of motive, this thesis is composed of three studies that investigate the implications of holding these types of motives for emotions: 1) the first paper determined whether the motive to avoid happiness predicts depressive symptoms through the mechanism of lessened hope, 2) the second paper featured the development of a new measure designed to assess a broad range of motives for emotions, and 3) the third paper described the associations between this new measure with a commonly used emotion regulation measure.&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;The first research paper addresses the phenomenon that some individuals do not approach and seek to experience happiness in a normative fashion. Research on this so-called ‘fear of happiness’ or ‘happiness aversion’ tendency has identified about 10-15% of community samples as composed of individuals who report not wanting to experience happy mood states. Importantly these individuals repeatedly also report elevated levels of depressive symptoms. In this study, I sought to investigate the associations among happiness aversion, hope (a protective factor against negative mood states), and depressive symptoms. Evidence was found that hope functioned both as a mediator as well as a buffer between happiness aversion and resultant depressive symptoms in a concurrent sample of 588 undergraduate psychology students. Follow-up exploratory analysis with a small longitudinal sample suggested that the concurrent findings were replicated across time. Overall findings within Study 1 suggested that interventions which promote hope can be effective in disrupting the relationship between happiness aversion and depressive symptoms.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;Happiness aversion research, similar to Study 1 described above, has documented that some individuals are motivated to avoid experiencing happiness (this non-conventional approach is termed ‘contra-hedonic’). I then asked: what about other emotions? Would it be feasible and interesting to assess how individuals try to experience and try to avoid experiencing a range of positive AND negative emotions? The second paper of this thesis describes the development of a new self-report measure, termed the General Emotion Regulation Measure (GERM), that assesses how people are motivated to experience or avoid experiencing clusters of positive and negative emotions in their everyday lives. This paper describes the literature concerning positive and negative emotion regulation motivations (both hedonic and contra-hedonic types) and shows how the new measure provides new information about people’s emotion motives. Latent profile analysis (LPA) was implemented to explore individual differences in general emotion motives, and three different profiles of individuals were identified. In a sample of 833 undergraduate students, a LPA identified these distinct profiles: 1) a normative group in which people tried to experience positive emotions and tried to avoid experiencing negative emotions; 2) a non-normative group which exhibited an aversion to positive emotions and an attraction to negative emotions; and 3) another non-normative group which displayed an unwillingness or inability to regulate either positive or negative emotions. Comparisons of psychological wellbeing were computed among the three profiles using a MANOVA: it identified that the normative group reported higher levels of wellbeing (e.g., optimism) and lower levels of illbeing (e.g., depressive symptoms) compared to the other two groups. The new GERM measure highlights the general utility of these general emotion regulation motives, which, arguably, can be used to inform research on wellbeing across a wide range of psychological fields.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;The final and concluding paper within this thesis examined whether the GERM is effective in predicting facets of the commonly used emotion dysregulation scale, the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS). Further, emotion dysregulation was predicted to mediate the relationship between emotion motives identified by the GERM measure and depressive symptoms. Based on previous research, it was expected that the two contra-hedonic motives’ relationships (trying to experience negative emotions and trying to avoid experiencing positive emotions) with depressive symptoms would be mediated by facets of emotion dysregulation. Findings demonstrated that two facets of emotion dysregulation, namely, lack of impulse control and lack of access to strategies, fully mediated the relationship between both contra-hedonic ER motives and depressive symptoms. The third paper demonstrated that contra-hedonic motives predict depressive outcomes through the use and instantiation of several different facets of emotion regulation difficulties. These results show that emotion motives are important in regards to setting the stage for maladaptive emotion regulation strategies and depressive symptoms.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;The three studies’ findings show that the ways in which we manage our emotions in our daily lives are guided and constrained by how individuals are motivated to experience positive and negative emotions. These studies highlight the importance that motivation has in directing individuals to choose particular ways to regulate their emotions, and these, in turn, have important effects for emotional wellbeing.&lt;/p&gt;

O-131: Negative emotion predicts poor outcome in poor prognosis IVF patients

Adolescents who possess effective emotion regulation skills are more likely to feel better and show positive development. While the social context plays an important role in emotional experiences and emotion regulation, research is lacking on the influence of social context on emotion regulation effectiveness. By capturing dynamic within-person patterns of emotion regulation strategy (ERS) use and emotions in adolescents’ social contexts, this study investigated associations between positive and negative ERS use in the past hour and changes in both positive and negative emotions in the current moment. Additionally, we examined whether these relationships were moderated by peer affiliation, as measured by peer closeness and peer status. This study employed Experience Sampling Methods during 14 consecutive days in 291 Dutch adolescents, collected in Spring 2023 and 2024 (N observations = 6,685, 36.3% boys, 92.6% Dutch, mean age = 15.76, SDage = 0.70, age range = 14-19, compliance = 54.70%). Findings indicated that rumination, expression, and sharing of negative emotions were related to increases in negative emotions, whereas rumination, expression, and sharing of positive emotions related to increases in positive emotions. Although ERS use of negative emotions was not associated with positive emotions, rumination over positive emotions was associated with increases in negative emotions and expression of positive emotions with decreases in negative emotions. No moderation effects of peer closeness and peer status were identified. Results highlight that ERS use has distinct effects on positive and negative emotions, emphasizing the potential importance of encouraging the use of certain positive ERS to support adolescents' mental well-being.

BackgroundInefficient mechanisms of emotional regulation appear essential in understanding the development and maintenance of binge-eating disorder (BED). Previous research focused mainly on a very limited emotion regulation strategies in BED, such as rumination, suppression, and positive reappraisal. Therefore, the aim of the study was to assess a wider range of emotional regulation strategies (i.e. acceptance, refocusing on planning, positive refocusing, positive reappraisal, putting into perspective, self-blame, other-blame, rumination, and catastrophizing), as well as associations between those strategies and binge-eating-related beliefs (negative, positive, and permissive), and clinical variables (eating disorders symptoms, both anxiety, depressive symptoms, and alexithymia).MethodsWomen diagnosed with BED (n = 35) according to the DSM-5 criteria and healthy women (n = 41) aged 22–60 years were assessed using: the Eating Attitudes Test-26, the Eating Beliefs Questionnaire-18, the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale, the Toronto Alexithymia Scale-20, the Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire, and the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale. Statistical analyses included: Student t - tests or Mann–Whitney U tests for testing group differences between BED and HC group, and Pearson’s r coefficient or Spearman’s rho for exploring associations between the emotion regulation difficulties and strategies, and clinical variables and binge-eating-related beliefs in both groups.ResultsThe BED group presented with a significantly higher level of emotion regulation difficulties such as: nonacceptance of emotional responses, lack of emotional clarity, difficulties engaging in goal-directed behavior, impulse control difficulties, and limited access to emotion regulation strategies compared to the healthy controls. Moreover, patients with BED were significantly more likely to use maladaptive strategies (rumination and self-blame) and less likely to use adaptive strategies (positive refocusing and putting into perspective). In the clinical group, various difficulties in emotion regulation difficulties occurred to be positively correlated with the level of alexithymia, and anxiety and depressive symptoms. Regarding emotion regulation strategies, self-blame and catastrophizing were positively related to anxiety symptoms, but solely catastrophizing was related to the severity of eating disorder psychopathology.ConclusionsOur results indicate an essential and still insufficiently understood role of emotional dysregulation in BED. An especially important construct in this context seems to be alexithymia, which was strongly related to the majority of emotion regulation difficulties. Therefore, it might be beneficial to pay special attention to this construct when planning therapeutic interventions, as well as to the maladaptive emotion regulation strategies self-blame and catastrophizing, which were significantly related to BED psychopathology.

This study explored the relationship between temperament-i.e., negative affectivity (NA) and effortful control (EC)-and depression in preadolescents, considering emotion regulation (ER) strategies as mediating mechanisms in this relationship. We examined data from 535 children aged 8-12years (M ± SD = 10.01 ± 1.42) who completed self-report measures related to NA, EC, ER strategies, depressive symptoms, and depressive mood. The results demonstrated that NA was significantly positively related to both depressive symptoms and depressive mood, while EC was significantly negatively related to both depressive symptoms and depressive mood. The structural equation model of latent variable analysis showed that cognitive reappraisal mediated the relationship between NA and depressive symptoms and depressive mood. Moreover, cognitive reappraisal was also identified as a mediator of the association between EC and depressive symptoms and depressive mood. However, expressive suppression only mediated the relationship between NA and depressive symptoms. Interventions aimed at ER strategies would be an effective program for preadolescents with depression and further improve preadolescents' social-emotional development.

Acceptance (i.e., embracing emotions and thoughts without judging them) is an emotion regulation strategy that may become particularly important in late life. While research on other strategies (e.g., positive reappraisal) has been blossoming, we know surprisingly little about acceptance. We present findings from a research program on acceptance that combines laboratory-based and survey-based approaches. Findings from our laboratory-based research show that acceptance of negative emotions (a) is preferred over other strategies (i.e., detachment, positive reappraisal), (b) predicts greater vagal reactivity during instructed emotion regulation (for habitual acceptance), and (c) predicts greater mental health, especially when executive functioning is constrained in older adults (N = 129, age 64-83). In a new line of survey-based research, we examine age differences in acceptance, distinguishing between the acceptance and rejection of positive and negative emotions. Across three studies with age-diverse samples (N = 416, 402, 412; age range: 18-87), findings show that (a) older adults are less likely to reject positive emotions and (albeit less consistently) more likely to accept positive emotions compared to younger adults. Moreover, (b) while no consistent age effects are found for negative emotions broadly, clear age differences emerge for the acceptance and rejection of anger and sadness specifically. Older adults (65+) are less likely than younger adults (18-35) to reject anger and sadness and more likely to accept anger and sadness (with sadness showing significantly steeper age gradients than anger). Together, these findings underscore the important role that acceptance plays in late life and contribute to longstanding discussions about emotion regulation across adulthood.

Emotion regulation strategies vary widely in use and effectiveness across psychological diagnostic categories. However, little data exists on (1) the use of these strategies in social anxiety disorder (SAD), and (2) how trait measures compare with actual daily use of emotion regulation strategies. We collected trait and daily assessments of emotion suppression, cognitive reappraisal, and positive and negative emotions from 40 adults with SAD and 39 matched healthy controls. Participants with SAD reported greater trait suppression and less cognitive reappraisal than healthy controls, and exhibited this same pattern of emotion regulation in daily life. Participants overall reported worse emotional experiences when suppressing positive (vs. negative) emotions, and better emotional experiences when reappraising to feel more positive (vs. less negative) emotions. However, SAD participants exhibited greater benefits (specifically increased positive emotions) from reappraising to feel less negative than healthy controls. These findings highlight the importance of positive emotion regulation strategies, particularly for individuals with SAD.

Low positive emotionality (PE) represents a temperamental vulnerability to depression in youth. Until now, little research has examined the mechanisms linking PE to depressive symptoms. Starting from integrated cognitive-affective models of depression, we aimed to study adaptive emotion regulation (ER) as a key underlying mechanism in the temperament-depression relationship. This study investigated whether adaptive ER strategies mediate the association between PE and depressive symptoms in a large community-based sample of youth, using a cross-sectional design. Participants were 1,655 youth (54% girls; 7-16years, M=11.41, SD=1.88) who filled out a set of questionnaires assessing temperament, adaptive ER strategies, and depressive symptoms. Results revealed that low PE was significantly related to higher depressive symptoms among youth and that a lack of total adaptive ER abilities mediated this relationship. More specifically, the infrequent use of problem-solving appeared to be of significant importance. Problems in positive refocusing and a deficient use of forgetting mediated the relationships between low PE and high negative emotionality (NE) in predicting depressive symptoms. Reappraisal and distraction were not significant mediators. Results highlight the need to account for temperamental PE and adaptive ER strategies when studying youth depression. The findings contribute to a more nuanced understanding on the differential role of temperamental risk factors for developing depressive symptoms at an early stage and advocate for greater attention to adaptive ER strategies. Clinical interventions for youth depression may be improved by incorporating adaptive emotion regulation (ER) strategies and enhancing positive emotions. Youth low in positive emotionality (PE) may especially benefit from learning adaptive ER skills. Clinical practitioners should focus on alleviating negative emotions and enhancing positive emotions, especially among youth low in PE.

For a long time, associations between temperamental reactivity, emotion regulation (ER) strategies, and depression in youth were studied with a primary focus on the adverse impact of the negative emotionality (NE) temperament dimension and maladaptive ER strategies. The current study aims to answer the question whether positive emotionality (PE) and adaptive ER strategies also play a role in these associations. In a convenience sample of 176 youth (9–18 years; M = 13.58, SD = .94) data were obtained on NE and PE, the use of both maladaptive and adaptive ER strategies, and depressive symptoms. Results indicate that higher levels of NE and lower levels of PE were both associated with more depressive symptoms. Additionally, we found the interaction of NE and PE to be significantly related to depressive symptoms, with lower levels of PE being a vulnerability factor, facilitating the relationship between higher levels of NE and symptoms. Third, higher levels of NE were associated with the use of more maladaptive ER strategies, but were unrelated to adaptive ER strategies. There was no association between PE, and either maladaptive or adaptive ER strategies. Fourth, higher levels of maladaptive ER strategies, and lower levels of adaptive ER strategies were both associated with higher levels of depressive symptoms. Finally, no evidence was found for the mediation of ER strategies in the relationship between temperamental reactivity and depressive symptoms. Current study findings underline the need of identifying resilience factors for depression in youth. Insight into such factors is pivotal for the successful development and implementation of prevention and intervention programs.