Differences In Emotion Regulation Research Articles

Evaluating Individual Differences in Emotion Regulation in Response to Sadness Using Digital Phenotyping

Evaluating Individual Differences in Emotion Regulation in Response to Sadness Using Digital Phenotyping

Taking Anger Home: Are Employees Who Experience Ostracism from Supervisors More Likely to Undermine Family Harmony? The Perspective of Anger Displacement

Supervisor ostracism is commonplace in work settings. Previous studies have mainly focused on the influence of supervisor ostracism on employees’ work behavior and performance, while the impact of supervisor ostracism on employees’ family harmony has garnered less attention. Based on the affective events theory, we analyzed data collected from 3 time points and 343 employees in the Chinese context. We found that supervisor ostracism significantly undermines employee-family harmony, which is mediated by workplace anger. In addition, our study demonstrated that high emotional regulation alleviates the relationship between workplace anger and family undermining, reducing the destructive consequences for the family. Our results indicated that individual differences in emotional regulation are responsible for moderating the mediating effects of workplace ange between supervisor ostracism and family undermining, shedding light on future research directions and providing practical implications for solving work-family conflict.

Functional Communication in Autistic Children Impacts Skill Development After Participation in a CBT-Based Program

Challenges with functional communication (e.g., language use in situational contexts), are a core feature of autism. Challenges in functional communication are related to social interaction difficulties and may impact engagement in interventions such as cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT). CBT is a common intervention used to support emotion regulation and social skills development in autistic children. Programming relies on the participant’s ability to engage in complex language. The present study examined whether the functional communication level of autistic children (8-12 years) impacted social skills and emotion regulation development after participation in a CBT-based program. Repeated measures ANOVAs revealed no significant differences in emotion regulation, however, there was a significant main effect for social skills, based on functional communication levels. T-tests revealed significant improvements for all measures in the clinically significant functional communication group, but not the at-risk or non-significant groups. These results illustrate the importance of considering functional communication levels in autistic children.

The impact of emotion regulation strategies on disordered eating behavior in children and adolescents with type 1 diabetes: a cross-sectional study.

Difficulties in emotion regulation (DERs) can contribute to disordered eating behavior in children and adolescents with type 1 diabetes (T1D), although it is unknown how DERs may affect eating behavior in these children and adolescents. This study examined the relationship between disordered eating behaviors and emotion regulation in children and adolescents with T1D. For this cross-sectional study, 128 patients (aged 8-16 years) were recruited to complete the Diabetes Eating Problem Survey-Revised (DEPS-R) and Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERs). The mean age of the 128 patients (99 females) who completed the DEPS-R was 11.63 ± 2.27 years. The participants' mean DEPS-R score was 17.78 ± 8.56 points. Of the total sample, 61 participants' scores surpassed the established threshold, resulting in a DEPS-R positivity rate of 47.66%. The participants' mean total DERS score was 72.3 ± 21.15 points, and it was found that children and adolescents with T1D who had a positive DEPS-R screening result had significant differences in emotional regulation and that eating behavior disorders were positively correlated with emotional regulation and all dimensions scores. The prevalence of disordered eating behavior is high among children and adolescents with T1D. DERs are related to disordered eating behavior in children and adolescents with T1D. The novel finding that DERs may be a predictor of eating problems lends preliminary support for the inclusion of DERs in future risk models and as a potential target for intervention.

Individualism, collectivism, and emotion regulation: a cross-cultural examination among young adults from seven countries

Individualism and collectivism are dimensions of cultural variation thought to shape differences in emotion regulation tendencies, yet research to date has examined these cultural dimensions as country-level features, emphasizing variability across nations. The present study takes the approach of examining cultural differences within nations as predictors of emotion regulation strategies, shifting the perspective instead to individual differences. This present study aimed to address how individual endorsement of individualism-collectivism (i.e. prioritizing individual versus group goals) and vertical-horizontal attitudes (preference for hierarchy versus equality) are associated with use of emotion regulation strategies (i.e., reappraisal and suppression) among college students from seven countries (n = 5,900; female = 70.80%). Overall, we found that individual differences in individualism-collectivism and vertical-horizontal attitudes had strong connections with young adults’ emotion regulation styles. Results of our multivariate (i.e., all variables were simultaneously examined) regression model revealed: a) higher endorsement of horizontal individualism and horizontal collectivism were associated with higher use of reappraisal strategies; b) higher endorsement of horizontal individualism and vertical collectivism were associated with higher use of suppression strategies; while higher endorsement of horizontal collectivism was associated with lower use of suppression strategies. A multi-group model supported the generalizability of these associations across countries. These findings demonstrate the value of approaching cultural differences in emotion regulation from an individual differences framework, and not assuming country-level differences are representative of individuals’ affective experiences. Further work is needed examining models within-country to examine cultural variation in individualism vs collectivism compared to country-level norms.

Negative emotional eating patterns in general Chinese adults: A replication and expansion study examining group differences in eating disorder symptomatology, psychosocial impairment, and emotion regulation difficulties

Previous research identified four patterns of negative emotional eating in American and Chinese university students and proposed future directions (e.g., exploring potential differences in emotion regulation across patterns and replicating the patterns in a general, non-student population). Furthermore, prior research has not explored group differences in muscularity-oriented eating disorder symptomatology or psychosocial impairment. Therefore, the present study addressed these gaps in a sample of general Chinese adults, further testing group differences in typical and muscularity-oriented eating disorder symptomatology, psychosocial impairment, and emotion regulation difficulties across patterns of negative emotional eating. A total of 600 Chinese adults were recruited. Latent class analysis (LCA) was used. Results replicated the four patterns of negative emotional eating in previous research, including non-emotional eating (non-EE), emotional over- and under-eating (EOE-EUE), emotional over-eating (EOE), and emotional under-eating (EUE). Significant class differences were identified in eating disorder symptomatology, psychosocial impairment, and emotion regulation difficulties. Specifically, individuals with EOE and EOE-EUE patterns exhibited higher eating disorder symptomatology, higher psychosocial impairment, and more emotion regulation difficulties than those with non-EE and EUE patterns. Therefore, these two classes (i.e., EOE and EOE-EUE), especially the poorly researched EOE-EUE group, should be further examined to elucidate research and clinical applications. Furthermore, findings underscore the role of emotion regulation difficulties in further describing the differences across these negative emotional eating patterns, which can be considered in future interventions for reducing negative emotional eating.

Emotion regulation in people living with dementia and their spouses: the role of neuropsychiatric symptoms

Objectives People with dementia (PwD) and their care partners (CP) may have difficulties in emotion regulation, and individual differences in emotion regulation may be related to PwD’s neuropsychiatric symptoms. This study explores whether there is self-awareness of PwD’s difficulties in emotion regulation and whether CP’s emotion regulation relates to the PwD’s neuropsychiatric symptoms, potentially revealing bias or interpersonal effects. Method We used data from the Wish Outcome Obstacle Plan Study with a sample of 45 PwD and their spousal CP (n = 90 individuals). Multivariate linear regression models were used to investigate the associations between the CP-reported neuropsychiatric symptoms in PwD and self-reports of emotion regulation in both dyad members, net of sociodemographic and health factors. Separate analyses were conducted for each neuropsychiatric subsyndrome and each domain of difficulties in emotion regulation. Results Increasing severity of neuropsychiatric symptoms was associated with higher difficulties in emotion regulation in PwD (ß = 1.23, p < 0.05), but not with CP’s difficulties in emotion regulation. When CP reported more severe neuropsychiatric symptoms in PwD, PwD reported that they had difficulties in accepting emotions, controlling impulses, goal-directed behaviors, and accessing emotion regulation strategies, but not in emotion awareness and clarification. Proxy-reports of hyperactivity and psychosis subsyndromes are significantly related to PwD’s self-reported difficulties in emotion regulation. Conclusion PwD reported difficulties in emotion regulation at the early stage of dementia. Proxy-reported neuropsychiatric symptoms may capture PwD’s emotion regulation capability and not be biased by CP’s difficulties in emotion regulation.

I rely on a little help from my friends: the effect of interpersonal and intrapersonal emotion regulation on the relationship between FOMO and problematic internet use

BackgroundThis study investigated the role of emotion regulation in relation to the links between fear of missing out (i.e., FOMO) and two components of problematic internet use: problematic social media use and doomscrolling.MethodsParticipants (N = 603, Mage = 30.41, SDage = 7.64; 49.1% male-identifying) completed measures of fear of missing out, intrapersonal and interpersonal emotion regulation, and problematic social media use, and doomscrolling. A parallel mediation model was tested to examine the nature of the associations between fear of missing out, intrapersonal, and interpersonal emotion regulation, in accounting for variance in the outcome measures.ResultsAnalyses revealed that the effect of fear of missing out on problematic social media use was fully mediated by both intrapersonal and interpersonal emotion regulation. In contrast, the effect on doomscrolling was fully mediated by intrapersonal emotion regulation only.ConclusionsFindings clarify the role of emotion regulation in explaining the relationship between fear of missing out and two types of problematic internet use, indicating a need to consider individual differences in emotion regulation in an evolving social media landscape.

Emotion Dynamics among Late Adolescents and Emerging Adults: The Role of Maternal Privacy Invasion Perceptions.

Prior research suggests that youth experience immediate emotional distress following privacy invasion, but it is unclear whether and how persistent privacy invasion over longer periods destabilizes the intrapersonal emotional regulatory functions that privacy serves. This study investigated whether late adolescents and emerging adults who reported different patterns of maternal privacy invasion over a full academic year showed differences in emotion regulation, as reflected by the frequency and lability of negative and positive emotional experiences. Participants were first-year university students (n = 349; 60.2% female) in Hong Kong, aged 17 to 24 (MT1 = 18.20, SDT1 = 1.10). They self-reported maternal privacy invasion perceptions and negative and positive emotions 16 times, at bi-weekly intervals. Latent class growth analyses divided participants into a Higher Invasion Perceptions group (24.9%), a Moderate Invasion Perceptions group (46.4%), and a Lower Invasion Perceptions group (28.7%). A one-way MANCOVA examined potential differences in negative and positive emotion dynamics across groups, indexed by frequency (means) and instability (mean square of successive differences and probability of acute change). In line with predictions, both the Higher Invasion and Moderate Invasion groups reported higher negative emotion frequency and instability, compared to the Lower Invasion group. However, groups showed no significant differences regarding positive emotion frequency and instability. The findings indicate that perceptions of maternal privacy invasion predict youth's negative emotion regulation processes over their first collegiate year. Prolonged, higher levels of maternal privacy invasion may disrupt the intrapersonal regulatory functions that privacy serves over time.

Do pictures' emotional valence and arousal affect younger and older adults' narratives?

Emotional content, specifically negative valence, can differentially influence speech production in younger and older adults' autobiographical narratives, which have been interpreted as reflecting age differences in emotion regulation. However, age differences in emotional reactivity are another possible explanation, as younger and older adults frequently differ in their affective responses to negative and positive pictures. The present experiment investigated whether a picture's valence (pleasantness) and arousal (intensity) influenced older adults' production of narratives about those pictures. Thirty younger and 30 older participants produced narratives about pictures that varied in valence (positive, negative, and neutral) and arousal (high, low). Narratives were recorded via Zoom, transcribed, and analyzed with Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count-22 to get measures of emotional word use, disfluencies, and linguistic distance. Results showed that negative valence increased age differences in speech production independent of picture arousal: Relative to younger adults, older adults used more positive words, fewer negative words, and had more silent pauses when telling narratives about negative pictures. In contrast, high arousal decreased age differences such that older adults used fewer positive words in narratives about positive pictures and more linguistically distant words evidenced by fewer present-tense verbs, relative to narratives about low-arousal pictures. Contrary to an explanation of enhanced regulation or control over emotions in older adulthood, these findings support the idea that older adults' speech production is influenced by their reactivity or affective response to emotional stimuli even when the task is not to communicate one's emotions. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Association between stressful life events and sleep quality in Chinese university students: Mediating and moderating roles of emotion regulation.

This study investigated whether emotion regulation mediates or modulates the relationship of SLEs with sleep quality and potential sex differences. A total of 1447 Chinese university students completed the Adolescent Self-Rating Life Events Checklist, the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index, and the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire. The results indicated that both cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression significantly mediated and moderated the negative association between SLEs and sleep quality. Additionally, sex differences were found for the mediating role of cognitive reappraisal and for the modulating roles of cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression in the relationship between SLEs and sleep quality. Although the present cross-sectional data does not allow us to test any causal relationships, these results help clarify the underlying emotion-regulation process between SLEs and sleep in university students and highlight the importance of considering sex differences in emotion regulation.

Emotional Regulation Among Postgraduate Students

The current research aims to identify the emotional regulation among postgraduate students and the significance of differences in emotional regulation according to the variables of gender (male - female) and specialization (scientific - humanities). The researchers prepared an emotional regulation scale consisting of (24) items distributed over five domains (situation selection, situation modification, cognitive change, attention deployment, response modulation). The research was conducted on a sample of (277) male and female students at the University of Dhi Qar. The items of the scale were statistically analyzed to calculate their discriminative ability and validity coefficients. The researchers verified the face validity and construct validity indicators of the scale and calculated the reliability coefficient (alpha - test-retest). To ensure the research procedures and results, the researchers used appropriate statistical methods. The results are as follows: Postgraduate students possess emotional regulation. There are no statistically significant differences according to the variables of gender (male - female) and specialization (scientific - humanities). The results were interpreted based on theory, the theoretical framework, and the results of previous studies. In light of the findings of the current research, the researchers made several recommendations and suggestions. Recommendations: The Ministry of Education should hold training workshops and specialized seminars to increase awareness of emotional regulation at all educational stages, which can enhance and stimulate strategic thinking. Suggestions: Study the correlational relationship between emotional regulation and other variables such as aggressive behavior. :

Three facets of emotion regulation in old and very old age: Strategy use, effectiveness, and variability.

The ability to regulate emotions in stressful situations is an important building block for high well-being across the lifespan. Yet, very little is known about how old and very old adults regulate their emotions. In this study, 123 young old adults (Mage = 67.18, SD = 0.94) and 47 very old adults (Mage = 86.70, SD = 1.46) were prompted 6 times a day for 7 consecutive days to report both their stressors and 10 emotion regulation strategies. Overall, there was little indication of age differences in the use of emotion regulation strategies during exposure to stressors, but very old, as compared with young old, individuals used three of the 10 strategies considered here more intensively. The 10 emotion regulation strategies were similarly effective across age groups based on their association with perceived overall emotion regulation success. We also did not find age group differences in within-strategy variability, defined as the variation in using a given strategy across stressor situations. By contrast, between-strategy variability, defined as the selective use of fewer rather than many strategies across stressor situations, was lower for very old participants. Only between-strategy, and not within-strategy, variability contributed to overall emotion regulation success. There was no age group difference in this regard. Taken together, the evidence suggests small age differences in emotion regulation if at all. This is noteworthy given the advanced age of the very old subsample in this study and the deficits in multiple domains of functioning reported in the literature for this advanced age. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Multimodal Associations of FKBP5 Methylation With Emotion-Regulatory Brain Circuits

BackgroundUnderstanding the biological processes that underlie individual differences in emotion regulation and stress responsivity is a key challenge for translational neuroscience. The gene FKBP5 is a core regulator in molecular stress signaling that is implicated in the development of psychiatric disorders. However, it remains unclear how FKBP5 DNA methylation in peripheral blood is related to individual differences in measures of neural structure and function and their relevance to daily-life stress responsivity. MethodsHere, we characterized multimodal correlates of FKBP5 DNA methylation by combining epigenetic data with neuroimaging and ambulatory assessment in a sample of 395 healthy individuals. ResultsFirst, we showed that FKBP5 demethylation as a psychiatric risk factor was related to an anxiety-associated reduction of gray matter volume in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, a brain area that is involved in emotion regulation and mental health risk and resilience. This effect of epigenetic upregulation of FKBP5 on neuronal structure is more pronounced where FKBP5 is epigenetically downregulated at baseline. Leveraging 208 functional magnetic resonance imaging scans during a well-established emotion-processing task, we found that FKBP5 DNA methylation in peripheral blood was associated with functional differences in prefrontal-limbic circuits that modulate affective responsivity to daily stressors, which we measured using ecological momentary assessment in daily life. ConclusionsOverall, we demonstrated how FKBP5 contributes to interindividual differences in neural and real-life affect regulation via structural and functional changes in prefrontal-limbic brain circuits.

Relationship Between Habitual Use and Degree of Emotion Regulation: Age Differences in Cognitive Reappraisal and Expressive Suppression.

The present study examined age differences in and the relationship between two indices of cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression: the degree of emotion regulation and the habitual use of emotion-regulation strategies. In total, 101 younger and 99 older participants were included in this study. The degree of emotion regulation was measured using an experimental task in which participants were presented with negative or positive pictures and required to regulate their emotions. Habitual use of emotion regulation strategies was measured using an emotion regulation questionnaire. The results showed that younger adults regulated their emotions to a greater extent than older adults in both reappraisal and suppression. Younger adults were more likely to use reappraisal than were older adults, although there were no age differences in the use of suppression. No significant correlations were found between the degree of emotion regulation and the habitual use of emotion regulation strategies. These results suggest that age differences in emotion regulation depend on the regulation strategy and that the degree of emotion regulation and habitual use of emotion regulation strategies are independent and quite different indicators in nature.

Adolescents’ cyberbullying experience and subjective well-being: Sex difference in the moderating role of cognitive-emotional regulation strategy

Individuals who experience cyberbullying are at increased risk for future health and social difficulties. Despite this correlation, not all individuals who encountered cyberbullying experience exhibit poor subjective well-being, indicating the need for further investigation into potential protective factors. Cognitive emotional regulation strategy may help buffer or reinforce the negative emotions triggered by cyberbullying and prevent psychological problems, and there may be sex differences in emotion regulation resulting from the influence of social expectations and gender norms. Therefore, the present study examined sex differences in the moderating role of cognitive-emotional regulation strategies on the association between cyberbullying experiences and well-being outcomes in adolescents. We analyzed data from 5151 adolescents from 30 secondary schools (female = 53.9%, Mean grade level = 8.68, SD = 1.98) in Hong Kong. The results indicated that the experience of cyberbullying perpetration, victimization, and bystander was negatively associated with adolescent girls' well-being, whereas only the experience of cyberbullying perpetration was negatively associated with adolescent boys' well-being. Girls who reported blaming others more often had better well-being when they were victims of cyberbullying, and those who engaged in more cognitive reappraisal had better well-being when they were perpetrators of cyberbullying. Boys who reported blaming others more often had better well-being if they were cyberbullying perpetrators. These findings provide valuable insights for the development of gender-specific interventions aimed at reducing the negative impact of cyberbullying experience on adolescents’ well-being.

COGNITIVE ASPECTS OF MANAGING STRESS AND UNWANTED EMOTION SUCCESSFULLY IN OLD AGE

Abstract The ability to cope with stressors and manage unwanted emotion is central to health-related outcomes across adulthood. Prominent models of adult development suggest there may be age-related shifts in motivational strivings and accumulated knowledge that help support emotional well-being in old age. At the same time, older adults have cognitive and physical vulnerabilities that may offset some of these strengths. This session will showcase new work leveraging experimental and experiencing sampling methods to examine how people of varying ages and resource levels manage their emotions. These studies provide new insights into how older adults respond to stressors and adverse stimuli in controlled settings and daily life contexts. The first talk centers on how individuals are negatively impacted by cognitive stressors regardless of age, but older adults show more resilience than younger adults after stressor exposure. The second talk focuses on how a cognitive process known as affective labeling (or naming one’s emotions) can create emotion regulation difficulties, especially in old age. The third talk examines emotion regulation success and the benefits of instructional support for cognitively normal older adults compared to those with mild cognitive impairment (MCI). The fourth talk extends this work by tracking emotion regulation motives in daily life, showing that cognitively diverse older adults report fewer attempts to manage their emotions, but similar reasons for doing so, compared to relatively younger adults. Together these presentations delineate age-related similarity and differences in emotion regulation, highlighting avenues through which coping capacity may be maintained and improve in late life.

Assessing Emotion Regulation across Asian and Western Cultures: Psychometric Properties of Three Common Scales across Singaporean and Australian Samples

Given the differences in emotion regulation across cultures, it is paramount to ensure that measures of emotion regulation measure the same construct and that conceptualizations of emotion regulation are valid across cultures. Therefore, the present study assessed the measurement invariance (alongside other psychometric properties) of three popular emotion regulation questionnaires, the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ), Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS), and the Perth Emotion Regulation Competency Inventory (PERCI), across 434 Singaporeans and 489 Australians. Our study showed that all three questionnaires were measurement invariant, had excellent internal consistency, and relatively good concurrent validity with psychopathology and alexithymia across our Singaporean and Australian sample, justifying their use in comparing Asian and Western cultures. Our findings suggest that measures of emotion regulation have utility across both individualistic and collectivistic cultures. Our findings supports the use of these measures in cross-cultural research and provides support for the utility for personality assessments across cultures.

Individual differences in emotion regulation: Personal tendency in strategy selection is related to implementation capacity and well-being.

Individual differences in emotion regulation (ER) are assumed to play an important role in resilience and mental health. In a standardized laboratory setting, we investigated how the individual tendency to select specific ER strategies (reappraisal vs. distraction) and the capacity to implement these strategies are related (a) to each other and (b) to trait markers of mental health in a nonclinical sample. For 159 participants, individual regulatory tendency and capacity were assessed with established experimental tasks focusing on ER selection and implementation, respectively. Trait markers of mental health were assessed with questionnaires on ER habits, trait resilience, and well-being. We observed that ER tendency and capacity were positively correlated specifically for the condition in which participants were facing negative stimuli of high intensity. Furthermore, while ER capacity was not consistently associated with trait markers of mental health, a higher tendency to choose reappraisal (as opposed to distraction) was associated with higher trait resilience and better well-being. This study is the first to provide experimental evidence that a person's tendency to select a particular ER strategy is associated with the person's capacity to implement it successfully. Moreover, based on experimental data, we confirm an association between reappraisal tendency and mental health that has previously been suggested by questionnaire studies. This points to regulatory selection as a potential target for interventions fostering resilience and mental health. In the next step, intervention studies should clarify whether the association reflects a causal influence of regulation tendency on resilience. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

31 Sex Differences in Emotion Regulation and Emotional Awareness in Middle Aged and Older Adults

Objective:We measured sex differences in emotion regulation (ER) abilities – relying on exercise of cognitive reappraisal – during an image rating task in adults over 55 years of age with varying degrees of depression symptom severity. We also collected a self-report measure on participants' views of their own ER capacities. Previous research by this group has demonstrated the importance of emotion processing in the context of sex and aging in depression. We hypothesized that females would (1) score higher on the Cognitive Reappraisal Facet of the ERQ, (2) be more successful in utilizing cognitive reappraisal skills in response to negative stimuli; and (3) have self-report scores on the ERQ that more closely match their success at cognitive reappraisal than would males.Participants and Methods:capacities. Previous research by this group has demonstrated the importance of emotion processing in the context of sex and aging in depression. We hypothesized that females would (1) score higher on the Cognitive Reappraisal Facet of the ERQ, (2) be more successful in utilizing cognitive reappraisal skills in response to negative stimuli; and (3) have self-report scores on the ERQ that more closely match their success at cognitive reappraisal than would males.Results:Only the first of our three outcome measures was successfully predicted by the model including age, MADRS scores, and sex as predictors. Scores on the ERQ cognitive reappraisal facet with sex accounted for 11.3% of the variance (F=7.344, p=.009). Age and depression symptom severity did not reach significance. Performance on the ERT itself and the correlation between the two were not meaningfully modeled.Conclusions:Women showed both better cognitive reappraisal abilities overall and more insight into the level of those abilities, findings that fall in line with most ER literature. However, we found that females were also more likely than males to be skewed in the positive or “overconfident” direction; to overestimate those same abilities. This information is useful for clinicians interpreting self-report information in the emotion regulation domain. These findings may not generalize to a more diverse (racially and socioeconomically) population and given the cognitive nature of the reappraisal strategy; these results may not extend to a less educated population. These data will be useful to inform the interpretation of fMRI images from this same experiment.