The differential relation of trauma types with negative and positive emotion dysregulation

ABSTRACT

Background and Objectives: Research provides robust support for an association between traumatic exposure and emotion dysregulation. Less understood is the relation of emotion dysregulation stemming from positive emotions to traumatic exposure, or the extent to which negative and positive emotion dysregulation may be uniquely related to specific trauma types.

Design and Methods: The present study explored the associations between negative and positive emotion dysregulation and specific trauma types in a community sample of 433 adults (M age = 43.81, 68.4% women).

Results: Results highlighted three main findings: (1) negative and positive emotion dysregulation were significantly higher among individuals with vs. without exposure to six and nine specific trauma types, respectively; (2) negative and positive emotion dysregulation were significantly and positively related to total number of specific traumatic events; and (3) negative emotion dysregulation was significantly higher among individuals with Victimization Traumas in the overall sample as well as the no-PTSD and no-MDD subsamples, and positive emotion dysregulation was significantly lower among individuals with Accidental/Injury Traumas and Victimization Traumas in the PTSD subsample.

Conclusions: Results underscore the relative and unique roles of negative and positive emotion dysregulation in trauma types; these findings may inform future research.

KEYWORDS:

• traumatic exposure
• emotion dysregulation
• emotion regulation
• difficulties regulating negative emotions
• difficulties regulating positive emotions

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Funding

Work on this paper was supported by National Institutes of Health Grants K23DA039327 and P20GM125507 awarded to NHW and F31DA051167 awarded to SRF.