Links Between Daily Life and Laboratory Emotion Regulation Processes: The Role of Age and Cognitive Status.

OBJECTIVES: This study investigates how daily use of emotion regulation (ER) strategies predicts ER processes in the laboratory among young adults and cognitively diverse older adults. METHODS: Young adults (aged 21-34, n = 66), cognitively normal (CN) older adults (aged 70-83, n = 87), and older adults with researcher-defined mild cognitive impairment (MCI; aged 70-84; n = 58) completed an experience sampling procedure (7×/day for 9 days) reporting their distraction and reappraisal use in daily life. In a laboratory task inducing high-arousal negative emotion, they reported their (a) distraction and reappraisal use when instructed to reduce negative emotion and (b) ER success and perceptions when randomly assigned to regulate using distraction or reappraisal. RESULTS: Among CN older adults, a higher frequency of using a strategy in daily life predicted greater success deploying the strategy when instructed to do so but was unrelated to spontaneous strategy use in the laboratory. In contrast, among older adults with researcher-defined MCI, greater daily life strategy use predicted greater laboratory use, but not greater success. Daily strategy use in younger adults was unrelated to strategy use and success in the laboratory. Older adults with researcher-defined MCI experienced ER as more demanding but did not differ from non-impaired individuals in terms of perceived ER effort. DISCUSSION: Cognitively normal older adults may be better able to leverage their ER experience in novel contexts than younger adults. Older adults with MCI may be motivated to manage their emotions but experience more ER difficulty, perhaps in part due to reliance on default strategies.

Distinguishing Emotion Regulation Success in Daily Life From Maladaptive Regulation and Dysregulation.

ACADEMIC ABSTRACT: This paper aims to motivate research on emotion regulation success in naturalistic settings. We define emotion regulation success as achieving one's emotion regulation goal and differentiate it from related concepts (i.e., maladaptive regulation and dysregulation). As goals vary across individuals and situations, it is insufficient to conceptualize emotion regulation success as maximizing positive affect and minimizing negative affect. Instead, emotion regulation success can be measured through novel approaches targeting the achievement of emotion regulation goals. In addition to utilizing novel data analytic tools (e.g., response surface analyses), future research can make use of informant reports and observing ambulatory behavior or physiology. Considering emotion regulation goals when measuring daily emotion regulation success has the potential to answer key questions about personality, development, and mental health. PUBLIC ABSTRACT: People differ in how they want to feel in daily situations (e.g., excited) and why they want to feel that way (e.g., to make others feel better), depending on factors such as culture or age. Although people manage their emotions to reach these goals, most research assessing emotion regulation success has not taken individual goals into account. When assessing if people successfully regulate their emotions, most research in daily life has been focused on whether people feel more positive or less negative. To help study emotion regulation success in a more thoughtful and inclusive way, we propose a new approach to conceptualizing emotion regulation success that incorporates individual differences in what motivates people to regulate and discuss future research directions and applications.

Perceived responses, capitalization, and daily gratitude: Do age and closeness matter?

Successful capitalization and feelings of gratitude are both dependent upon perceived responsiveness of a social partner, but they are understudied in combination and have yet to be studied jointly in a daily context. Taking a new approach to studying capitalization, the current study examines the effect of daily capitalization on momentary gratitude and investigates the role of the capitalizer's typical perceived responses to capitalization attempts (PRCA) on daily gratitude and future capitalization attempts. Age and social closeness are studied as amplifiers, as older adults prioritize positive emotional experiences and it is more common to capitalize with closer others for whom the capitalizer's good news is salient and who are thus motivated to provide support to the capitalizer. Participants (N = 290) aged 25-85 years completed a trait-level survey followed by ecological momentary assessment surveys (six per day) for 10 days. Results demonstrate that people experienced higher daily gratitude when capitalizing, especially when interacting with a social partner rated as high in closeness. Those who had higher trait active-constructive PRCA also experienced higher daily gratitude, with this effect strengthened among older adults. Perceived responses were also associated with more attempts to capitalize in daily life. This work suggests engaging in capitalization and perceiving regular enthusiastic and supportive responses to one's capitalization attempts have daily emotional and behavioral benefits. Notably, regular enthusiastic responses to capitalization attempts may be a motivator for future attempts across adulthood, but it may be particularly likely to foster feelings of gratitude in old age. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Beyond strategies: The when and why of emotion regulation in aging.

Most research to date on potential age differences in emotion regulation has focused on whether older adults differ from younger adults in how they manage their emotions. We argue for a broader consideration of the possible effects of aging on emotion regulation by moving beyond tests of age differences in strategy use to also consider when and why emotion regulation takes place. That is, we encourage deeper consideration of contextual factors that spark regulation as well as the goals and motives underlying individuals' attempts to regulate their emotions. There may be age-related variation in all, some, or none of these components of emotion regulation. Descriptive work across all dimensions of emotion regulation is necessary to test and refine theories of emotional aging.

Examining situational differences in momentary emotion differentiation and emotional clarity in everyday life.

People experience momentary fluctuations in how much they differentiate between emotions and how clear they are about what they are feeling. To better understand situational predictors of shifts in emotion differentiation and emotional clarity, we investigated whether individuals are more differentiated and clearer about their emotions in social situations (vs. alone) given that emotions fulfill important social functions. We tested if these within-person associations varied depending on socially relevant individual differences, including age, extraversion, and social connectedness. We also examined whether people are more differentiated and clearer in situations that have previously been processed (i.e., familiar situations) and if this effect was stronger for older (vs. younger) adults. Community adults (N = 290, aged 25-85 years) completed measures of extraversion and social connectedness and then were randomly prompted 6 times a day for 10 days to report on their current emotional experience and situation. Using multilevel structural equation modeling, social context was associated with less positive emotion differentiation and not associated with emotional clarity; these within-person associations did not differ by age, extraversion, or social connectedness. Individuals experienced more differentiated positive emotions and higher emotional clarity than usual when they were in more (vs. less) familiar situations. Familiarity was especially predictive of higher positive emotion differentiation among relatively older (vs. younger) adults. These findings suggest positive emotion differentiation, particularly in familiar situations could be a way in which the quality of one's emotional experience changes with age. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Keeping Up Appearances: The Role of Motives and Utility Beliefs in Expressive Suppression.

We examined the role of impression management motives and utility beliefs in predicting suppression. In Study 1, 222 participants were assigned one of four motives (warmth, competence, pro-hedonic, control) during a job interview and reported their strategy use. In Study 2, 150 participants completed 9 days of experience sampling surveys assessing momentary emotion regulation motives and strategy use. In both studies, participants reported suppression utility beliefs. Lab results suggested a decreased preference for suppression when pursuing warmth motives over competence motives. This effect did not emerge when examining daily motives. In both studies however, people believed it was more useful to suppress negative than positive emotions, and more useful to suppress negative emotion when appearing competent than warm. Utility beliefs did not predict suppression or moderate motive-strategy links. Overall, there was mixed evidence about how suppression links to specific motives. Results suggest suppression is perceived as useful for certain impressions, but people do not act in accordance with these beliefs.

Everyday emotion regulation goals, motives, and strategies in current and remitted major depressive disorder: An experience sampling study.

People with major depressive disorder (MDD) report difficulties with emotion regulation (ER), particularly in habitual strategy use. We examined ER strategy use and other aspects of ER-desired emotional states (emotion goals) and reasons for ER (ER motives)-in current and remitted MDD. In a 2-week experience sampling study, adults with current MDD (n = 48), remitted MDD (n = 80), and healthy controls (n = 87) reported their negative affect (NA) and positive affect (PA), emotion goals (frequency, direction), ER motives (hedonic, instrumental), and ER strategy use (social sharing, acceptance, savoring, reappraisal, suppression, distraction). Multilevel modeling and Bayes factors were used to assess differences and similarities across groups. Compared to the remitted MDD and control groups, the current MDD group regulated emotion more frequently in general but showed weakened associations between initiating regulation and momentary affect and reported different emotion goal directions. Although all groups mostly reported emotion goals to regulate prohedonically (decrease NA, increase or maintain PA), the current MDD group was the most likely to try to amplify NA and PA simultaneously. Current MDD and remitted MDD groups endorsed hedonic motives more than controls, but the three groups did not differ in instrumental motives. The only group difference in ER strategy use was that the current MDD group used distraction more than controls. Most group differences in ER were between the current MDD group and controls, with the remitted MDD group and controls being quite similar. ER in current MDD is characterized by frequent regulation, weakened association between initiating regulation and momentary affect, increased hedonic-focused ER motives, and a greater use of distraction. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Age and Cognitive Ability Predict Emotion Regulation Strategy Use.

OBJECTIVES: This study examines how age and cognitive ability predict use of different emotion regulation strategies in a laboratory task eliciting emotions varying in valence and arousal. METHODS: Participants (N = 287) aged 25-85 completed the NIH Toolbox Cognitive Battery and an emotion regulation task in a laboratory setting. They watched a series of emotional clips (disgust, sadness, amusement, and contentment) under instructions to increase positive emotions or decrease negative emotions. After each clip, they rated the extent to which they used emotion regulation strategies that involve different types of engagement with emotional stimuli and disengagement from emotional stimuli. RESULTS: Older age was predictive of greater use of immersive-engagement strategies (e.g., perspective taking) and less use of disengagement strategies (e.g., distraction). Fluid cognitive ability was positively associated with immersive-engagement strategy use, particularly for high-arousal clips. For older adults, fluid cognitive ability was also associated with using positive-engagement strategies (e.g., positive reappraisal) to a greater extent to regulate negative emotions. DISCUSSION: Patterns of emotion regulation strategy use varied by age, even when accounting for differences in reactivity. Findings suggest that older adults may not necessarily prefer strategies that are lower in cognitive demands or that focus on enhancing positivity. Results support the idea that strategy preferences are driven by a combination of characteristics of the regulator and the regulation context. The relevance of cognitive resources likely varies across situations, perhaps being most consequential for deeper processing of high-arousal stimuli and for older adults' engagement with positive aspects of an otherwise negative situation.

Age, Resources, and Emotion Regulation Need in Daily-Life Emotional Contexts.

OBJECTIVES: The Strengths and Vulnerabilities Integration model (Charles, 2010) suggests older adults experience difficulty regulating emotions with high-arousal negative stimuli due to decreases in resources. We investigate relationships among age, physical and cognitive resources, emotional experience, and perceived emotion regulation (ER) needs. METHODS: Participants aged 25-85 (N = 290) completed assessments of cognitive ability and physical health. In an experience sampling procedure (6x per day for 10 days), participants reported their momentary emotion experience and perceived need to regulate their emotions. RESULTS: Regardless of arousal level, negative emotion was associated with higher ER need and positive emotion was associated with lower ER need. This pro-hedonic orientation was stronger among older adults and individuals with more cognitive resources. In contrast to predictions, older adults in poor physical health who experience high levels of high-arousal negative emotion on average reported lower ER need compared with younger adults in poor physical health. However, older adults with lower cognitive resources who experience high levels of high-arousal negative emotion on average reported higher ER need. DISCUSSION: Findings suggest that younger age and lower levels of cognitive ability are linked to less perceived need to regulate negative emotional states. Physical vulnerabilities also may dampen the perceived need for regulating high-arousal negative emotions, but only among older adults. Age-related shifts in resources and emotional goals may influence the likelihood that individuals are motivated to engage in ER, as well as the effectiveness of those efforts.

Fluid and crystallized cognitive resources differentially linked to emotion regulation success in adulthood.

Effective emotion regulation (ER) is theorized to require cognitive resources. Past work has identified inconsistent relationships between cognitive ability and ER success and has focused on implementation of instructed ER strategies. In the present study, we examine a wide range of cognitive abilities as predictors of ER success in the absence of constraints on strategy selection. An age-diverse sample of participants (N = 129, age 25-83) completed an ER task in which they viewed film clips eliciting disgust, sadness, and amusement under instructions to regulate in a prohedonic fashion. ER success was measured through self-reports of positive emotion (PA) and negative emotion (NA) following each clip. Fluid and crystallized cognitive ability were assessed with tasks from the NIH Toolbox Cognitive Battery. Effects of fluid cognition varied by film type, such that fluid cognition was generally less associated with ER success for the disgust clip. Effects of fluid cognition also varied by facet (e.g., processing speed and inhibitory control related to lower NA with the sadness clip, while working memory and episodic memory related to higher PA with the amusement and disgust clips). Crystallized cognition was positively associated with ER success (lower NA) across film types. Findings suggest that both fluid and crystallized cognition are important resources for effective emotion regulation. We propose that crystallized cognition may be particularly important when regulators can rely on life experience to select ER strategies. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Cognitive Effort-Based Decision-Making Across Experimental and Daily Life Indices in Younger and Older Adults.

OBJECTIVES: The study investigated whether cognitive effort decision-making measured via a neuroeconomic paradigm that manipulated framing (gain vs. loss outcomes), could predict daily life engagement in mentally demanding activities in both younger and older adults. METHOD: Younger and older adult participants (N = 310) completed the Cognitive Effort Discounting paradigm (Cog-ED), under both gain and loss conditions, to provide an experimental index of cognitive effort costs for each participant in each framing condition. A subset of participants (N = 230) also completed a 7-day Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) protocol measuring engagement in mentally demanding daily life activities. RESULTS: In a large, online sample, we replicated a robust increase in cognitive effort costs among older, relative to younger, adults. Additionally, costs were found to be reduced in the loss relative to gain frame, although these effects were only reliable at high levels of task difficulty and were not moderated by age. Critically, participants who had lower effort costs in the gain frame tended to report engaging in more mentally demanding daily life activities, but the opposite pattern was observed in the loss frame. Further analyses demonstrated the specificity of reward-related cognitive motivation in predicting daily life mentally demanding activities. DISCUSSION: Together, these results suggest that cognitive effort costs, as measured through behavioral choice patterns in a neuroeconomic decision-making task, can be used to predict and explain engagement in mentally demanding activities during daily life among both older and younger adults.

Adult attachment and interpersonal emotion regulation motives in daily life.

Interpersonal goals and adult attachment have implications for how people interact with others as well as for emotion experience and regulation. Literature on intrapersonal emotional processes has typically not examined motivations underlying people's engagement with others' emotions and its connections to individual differences related to close relationships such as attachment. This study analyzed the relationships between interpersonal emotion regulation motives, perceived social interaction outcomes, and attachment. Undergraduates (N = 211) reported their trait attachment. Experience sampling was used to examine the reasons why they wanted to regulate others' emotions during daily interactions and perceived changes in their own well-being and relationship quality with the target of regulation. Attachment anxiety was associated with more self-focused prohedonic motives and impression management motives, while attachment avoidance predicted less perceived increases in emotional and relational well-being after interactions. People who tended to report more (self- and other-focused) prohedonic and less impression management motives in daily life perceived more positive changes in their emotional well-being and people who tended to report higher emotional similarity motives perceived more positive changes in their relational well-being after interactions People also perceived more positive emotional and relational interaction outcomes at times when they held more (self- and other-focused) prohedonic, impression management, or relationship maintenance motives and less self-focused performance and relationship distancing motives. Overall, these findings suggest that attachment anxiety may guide why people engage with other people's emotions and these extrinsic interpersonal emotion regulation motives may play a role in socioemotional outcomes of daily interactions. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Decoding the Regulator: Accuracy and Bias in Emotion Regulation Judgments.

Accurately judging emotion regulation (ER) may help facilitate and maintain social relationships. We investigated the accuracy and bias of ER judgments and their social correlates in a two-part study with 136 married couples (ages 23-85 years). Couples completed trait measures of their own and their partner's suppression, reappraisal, and situation selection. On a separate day, they discussed a conflict, then rated their own and their partner's suppression during the discussion. Couples accurately judged their partner's trait level use of all ER strategies, but they were most accurate for suppression. In contrast, they did not accurately judge state suppression; they showed a similarity bias, such that their own use of state suppression predicted judgments of their partner's suppression. Greater relationship satisfaction predicted positive biases at the trait level (e.g., overestimating reappraisal, underestimating suppression), but not the state level. Relationship length did not predict ER accuracy or bias. Findings suggest ER is more detectable at the trait level than state level and for strategies with more behavioral cues. Greater relationship satisfaction may signal positive perceptions of partners' ER patterns. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s42761-022-00144-3.

Incorporating ecological momentary assessment into multimethod investigations of cognitive aging: Promise and practical considerations.

Ecological momentary assessment (EMA) represents a promising approach to study cognitive aging. In contrast to laboratory-based studies, EMA involves the repeated sampling of experiences in daily life contexts, enabling investigators to gain access to dynamic processes (e.g., situational contexts, intraindividual variability) that are likely to strongly contribute to aging and age-related change across the adult life-span. As such, EMA approaches complement the prevailing research methods in the field of cognitive aging (e.g., laboratory-based paradigms, neuroimaging), while also providing the opportunity to replicate and extend findings from the laboratory in more naturalistic contexts. Following an overview of the methodological and conceptual strengths of EMA approaches in cognitive aging research, we discuss best practices for researchers interested in implementing EMA studies. A key goal is to highlight the tremendous potential for combining EMA methods with other laboratory-based approaches, in order to increase the robustness, replicability, and real-world implications of research findings in the field of cognitive aging. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Supporting robust research on adult emotional development by considering context.

A criterion for high quality science is to produce findings that are robust and replicable across studies. A potential hinderance to successful replication however is context dependency. To formally address issues of context dependency, context has to be defined and integrated into research and replication practices. Emotion research and particularly research on adult emotional development have long emphasized the importance of context. Drawing on established theories of adult development and existing frameworks of context, we define context as it relates to emotional development in adulthood, highlighting specific aspects of immediate surroundings (familiarity, cognitive demands, and social aspects) as well as sociocultural and socioeconomic context, situated within ontogenetic development and historical time. In order to improve the robustness of research on adult emotional development, we encourage researchers to consider these contextual aspects in formulating and testing research questions as well as when interpreting failed replications. We discuss how to adapt study designs to facilitate more context sensitive adult emotional development research. Considering context not only enables new discoveries in aging research, but also can help clarify significant long-standing research questions and further enhance the robustness of research on adult development in emotion. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Assessing the climate for research ethics in labs: Development and validation of a brief measure.

The environment researchers work in influences their ethical decisions and behavior. A "climate" for research ethics in a research lab exists when members of the lab perceive that the group values and is committed to principles of research ethics. In this study, we aimed to develop a short, reliable and valid measure assessing perceptions of climate for research ethics at the lab level. The resulting measure, Lab Climate for Research Ethics, was developed using standard scale development guidelines. In a large sample of postdoctoral researchers (N = 570), we found preliminary evidence that the new measure has adequate internal consistency reliability. It was also correlated with an existing measure of climate for research ethics and was not correlated with social desirability, demonstrating evidence of construct validity. The new measure can be used in a variety of contexts, including research administrators seeking information about climate within labs across an institution and researchers who study lab environments.

Always in flux: the role of attentional focus in emotion regulation dynamics.

Flexible emotion regulation (ER) in response to contextual changes is important for well-being. However, little is known about predictors of ER dynamics or their consequences. We investigated these questions in 113 romantic couples by priming self-, partner-, or relationship-focus in one partner prior to a 10-min conflict discussion. Afterwards, participants reported their ER using a video-recall task, and independent coders rated participants' affective behaviours. Couples focused on their relationship were more likely to switch between ER strategies, as expected. Switching predicted increased positive affect (PA), and this effect was stronger for couples in the self-focus condition than those in the partner-focus condition. Results suggest that focusing on a wider range of contextual information leads to more dynamic regulation. Further, regulating dynamically may generally be beneficial, especially if one does not neglect the self.

Variability in state authenticity predicts daily affect and emotion regulation.

Authenticity can be defined as congruence between one's outer behavior and one's feelings or sense of self. People can experience moments of lower congruence in their day-to-day lives. Authenticity variability refers to fluctuations over time in momentary congruence. We propose that authenticity variability is linked to lower emotional well-being (i.e., more negative affect and less positive affect) and greater need for emotion regulation. College students (N = 174) participated in an experience sampling study (4×/day for 7 days) assessing state-level authenticity, affect, and emotion regulation during social interactions. State authenticity demonstrated greater within-person than between-person variability, underscoring the importance of considering how experiences of authenticity vary across contexts rather than focusing on individual differences in authenticity. At the within-person level, heightened state authenticity was associated with lower negative affect, higher positive affect, and lower emotion regulation efforts. In contrast, authenticity variability predicted greater negative affect, lower positive affect, and greater effort to regulate emotions, as expected. The variability effects became nonsignificant, however, when controlling for mean state authenticity. Overall, these findings suggest authenticity is highly variable over time and linked to key affective processes in daily life. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Physical attractiveness predicts endorsement of specific evolutionary psychology principles.

Evolutionary psychology has emerged as a controversial discipline, particularly with regard to its claims concerning the biological basis of sex differences in human mate preferences. Drawing on theories of motivated inference, we hypothesized that those who are most likely to be privileged by specific aspects of the theory would be most likely to support the theory. In particular, we predicted that physical attractiveness would be positively associated with endorsement of predictions of evolutionary psychology concerning mating strategies. Two studies confirmed this hypothesis. In Study 1, participants rated as higher in physical attractiveness were more likely to support specific principles of evolutionary psychology. In Study 2, a manipulation designed to boost self-perceived physical attractiveness increased endorsement of those same principles. Observer-rated physical attractiveness generally predicted individuals' support of the theoretical principles better than did gender, political orientation, or self-esteem. Results suggest that those most likely to benefit according to certain predictions of evolutionary psychology are also those most likely to be sympathetic toward its relevant principles.