Key Laboratory of Cognition and Personality (SWU), Ministry of Education, Chongqing, People's Republic of China.
Department of Psychology, Southwest University, Chongqing, People's Republic of China.
Cogn Emot. 2021 Mar;35(2):324-340. doi: 10.1080/02699931.2020.1840337. Epub 2020 Nov 5.
Variability in the emotion regulation (ER) strategies one uses throughout daily life has been suggested to reflect adaptive ER ability and to act as a protective factor in mental health. Moreover, psychological inflexibility and persistent negative affect (or ) are key features of depression and other forms of mental illness and are often further exacerbated by rigid or overly passive regulatory behaviours. The current study investigated the hypothesis that ER variability might serve as a protective factor against depressive symptoms and affective inertia. Using experience-sampling ( = 213), we tested whether two indictors of ER variability (between- and within-strategy SDs) were related to depressive symptoms and affective inertia. We found that people with higher between-strategy variability and within-strategy variability (specifically for reappraisal and distraction) reported fewer depressive symptoms. Both within- and between-strategy variability were negatively related to negative affective inertia. Between-strategy variability and negative affective inertia had unique effects on depression, when used as simultaneous predictors. Altogether, this study provides further evidence for the utility of ER as a factor buffering against depressive symptoms and particularly for the use of variable ER strategies.
日常生活中情绪调节（ER）策略的变化被认为反映了适应性 ER 能力，并作为心理健康的保护因素。此外，心理不灵活性和持续的负面情绪（或）是抑郁症和其他形式的精神疾病的关键特征，并且通常会因僵化或过度被动的调节行为而进一步加剧。本研究假设 ER 变异性可以作为预防抑郁症状和情感惯性的保护因素。使用经验抽样（ = 213），我们测试了 ER 变异性的两个指标（策略间和策略内标准差）是否与抑郁症状和情感惯性有关。我们发现，策略间变异性和策略内变异性（特别是再评价和分心）较高的人报告的抑郁症状较少。内策略和外策略变异性均与负性情感惯性呈负相关。当同时作为预测因子使用时，策略间变异性和负性情感惯性对抑郁有独特的影响。总之，这项研究为 ER 作为预防抑郁症状的因素提供了进一步的证据，尤其是对于使用可变的 ER 策略。
