Emotion regulation and mood brightening in daily life vary with depressive symptom levels

ABSTRACT

Naturalistic studies of emotional reactivity in depression have repeatedly found larger decreases in negative affect (NA) among depressed individuals in response to daily positive events. This so-called mood-brightening (MB) effect represents a theoretical and empirical oddity. The current study is a secondary analysis investigating whether the MB effect is moderated by spontaneous use of emotion regulation strategies, which have been implicated in the maintenance and modulation of NA in prior work. Participants (N = 95) representing a large spectrum of depressive symptom severity reported their experiences of NA and the occurrence of positive events in daily life over the course of seven days using the experience sampling method. Our findings replicate and build upon those of prior studies relating to the MB effect in the following ways: (1) we observed the MB effect for specific negative emotions of sadness, anger, anxiety; and (2) we found evidence that the MB effect is moderated by spontaneous use of rumination, distraction, and expressive suppression, which have been shown to enhance or dampen NA. The role of emotion regulation strategies in daily emotional reactivity to pleasant events is discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Mood brightening
• negative affect
• depressive symptoms
• emotional reactivity
• positive events

Acknowledgements

The contents of this publication do not represent the views of the Department of Veterans Affairs or the United States Government.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Egon Dejonckheere http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7219-7506

Additional information

Funding

This research was partly supported by a grant from the Australian Research Council (DP160102252) awarded to P. Koval and P. Kuppens.