Morning affect, eveningness, and amplitude distinctness: associations with negative emotionality, including the mediating roles of sleep quality, personality, and metacognitive beliefs

ABSTRACT

Eveningness has been associated with maladaptive behavior, poor sleep quality, and psychological disorder. However, while much research has utilized unidimensional measures of morningness-eveningness, the current study aimed to test associations between negative emotionality (depression, anxiety, and stress/DAS) and the circadian rhythm components of morning affect/alertness, eveningness, and amplitude of diurnal variation (distinctness). Associations with maladaptive metacognitive beliefs, neuroticism, conscientiousness, and sleep quality were also investigated, and possible indirect (mediation) effects between the circadian rhythm components and negative emotionality were explored. A sample of 625 Chinese university students (aged 18–33, mean = 19.78; 189 males) completed validated questionnaire measures in an online survey. Morning affect was positively correlated with conscientiousness, and negatively correlated with neuroticism, poor sleep quality, and aspects of maladaptive metacognitive belief (including belief in the uncontrollability and danger of thoughts). Distinctness generally showed the opposite associations. DAS was negatively correlated with morning affect, and positively correlated with eveningness and distinctness. However, after controlling for morning affect the correlations with eveningness were near zero. With either morning affect or distinctness as the predictor for negative emotionality (combined DAS scores), significant indirect effects were found through neuroticism, sleep disturbances, and belief in the uncontrollability and danger of thoughts. These results are consistent with other recent findings that indicate morning affect/alertness, and a stronger amplitude of diurnal variation, may both be more strongly related to negative emotionality than is eveningness preference. They also highlight that these relationships may involve associations with aspects of personality, sleep quality, and also maladaptive metacognitive beliefs. Further research is needed to establish the directions of possible causal relationships, which may help to inform interventions for psychological distress and disorder.

KEYWORDS:

• Morningness-eveningness
• morning affect
• amplitude of diurnal variation
• personality
• sleep quality
• metacognitive beliefs
• depression
• anxiety
• stress

Declarations of interest

The author reports no conflicts of interest.

Notes

1. When using raw sleep hours and % sleep efficiency scores, instead of the coded scores for PSQI components 3 and 4, sleep efficiency (component 4) also showed significance, although with an inconsistent, positive mediation effect (.0240;.0018/.0680), in addition to subjective sleep quality (−.1293; −.2383/-.0456), sleep disturbances (−.1587; −.2541/-.0860), and daytime dysfunction (−.2025; −.3206/-.0999), which again did not show any significant contrasts.

2. Using raw sleep hours and % sleep efficiency scores, instead of the coded scores, did not change the results with significance only shown by: subjective sleep quality (.1032;.0413/.1988), sleep disturbances (.1423;.0759/.2315), sleep medication (.0378;.0056/.0915), daytime dysfunction (.1897;.1120/.3021). Contrast analysis showed the same pattern (sleep disturbances and daytime dysfunction both stronger than sleep medication, but not differing from each other or from subjective sleep quality).

3. Including raw % sleep efficiency scores produced a nearly identical regression model (R =.8048, R² =.6477), with the same significant indirect effects: MCQ4 (−.4205; −.5598/-.3050), neuroticism (−.3811; −.5072/-.2781), and sleep disturbances (−.0992; −.1665/-.0516), with no significant difference between MCQ4 and neuroticism, but both having stronger effects than sleep disturbances. The indirect effect through sleep efficiency was not significant (−.0068; −.0340/.0062).

4. A Reviewer of this manuscript suggested comparison with a composite measure of morningness-eveningness prompting re-analysis of data from Carciofo and Song (2019). This included the MESSi, rMEQ (higher score = more morningness), and a measure of negative affect (NA), reporting a zero-order correlation for Eveningness (MESSi) and NA, r =.072 (p =.046). Re-analysis, partialling for Morning Affect (MA), produced r = −.035 (p =.339). For rMEQ-NA, r = −.089 (p =.014); partialled for MA, r =.068 (p =.059). So, comparable with the current results, the weak positive associations with eveningness were reduced, or somewhat reversed to weak negative associations. Also, MA was a significant mediator between EV-NA (.1915;.1294/.2652), and rMEQ-NA (−.3713; −.4980/-.2584). Three rMEQ items include clock times for rising, tiredness, and peak feeling, one is self-categorized chronotype, and one involves MA. Excluding the MA item: zero-order correlation, r = −.075 (p =.037); partial correlation, r =.059, p =.101; mediation effect: −.3441 (−.4650/-.2372).

Additional information

Funding

This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.