More (of the right strategies) is better: disaggregating the naturalistic between- and within-person structure and effects of emotion regulation strategies

ABSTRACT

Although people often use multiple strategies to regulate their emotions, it is unclear if using more strategies effectively changes emotional outcomes. This may be because there is no clear, data-driven structure to organise which strategies people use together, so strategies with opposing impacts are modelled together. We first conducted a multilevel factor analysis of negative- and positive-emotion regulation strategies among undergraduates (n = 92) completing ecological momentary assessment three times per day for 10 days. Solutions including 3-within/3-between factors were most interpretable. Using more between-person Adaptive Engagement strategies and within-person Adaptive Engagement, Enhancement, and Behavioural strategies predicted improved mood, whereas using more between-person Aversive Cognitive and within-person Aversive Cognitive and Disengagement strategies predicted worse mood, ps < .05. Using a greater quantity of strategies may thus promote better, or worse, emotional outcomes, depending on the class of strategies used.

KEYWORDS:

• Emotion regulation
• flexibility
• ecological momentary assessment
• affect
• HLM

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Jane E. Heiy for her efforts in the original study design and data collection.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Based on the NEO Personality Inventory-Revised, Neuroticism subscale (Costa & McCrae, 1992). Items from this measure demonstrated excellent internal consistency in the current sample (Cronbach’s α = .95).

2 We used observed variables to enhance the interpretability of our results (i.e. a one-unit increase in emotion regulation indicates the use of one more emotion regulation strategy), recognizing that such scoring implies a different factor structure (i.e. loadings fixed to 1) than fit by our EFAs.

3 For full results with the four-factor solution, see Table S10.

4 For full results with the four-factor solution, see Table S10.