Hohensee Nicola, Joormann Jutta, Gadassi-Polack Reuma
Christoph-Dornier Foundation.
Department of Psychology, Yale University.
Emotion. 2025 Feb;25(1):144-157. doi: 10.1037/emo0001424. Epub 2024 Sep 26.
Emotional clarity and emotion differentiation (ED) are two core aspects of the application of emotional knowledge. During adolescence, novel emotional experiences result in temporary decreases of differentiation and clarity. These temporary difficulties might profoundly impact choices of regulatory strategies. And indeed, prior research has shown that lower emotional clarity and emotion differentiation are each associated with higher use of putatively maladaptive emotion regulation strategies in youth. The two constructs, however, are rarely examined together, and it remains unclear how they are associated in daily life, particularly in children and adolescents. In addition, previous studies have focused on the regulation of negative but not positive affect. To address these gaps, the present study used an intensive longitudinal design in youth. Between June 2021 and March 2022, 172 children and adolescents ( = 12.99 years) completed a 28-day diary (> 3,500 entries in total) reporting daily affect, emotional clarity, and the use of five emotion regulation strategies in response to negative and positive affect (i.e., rumination, dampening, behavioral avoidance, negative and positive suppression). As predicted, on both between- and within-person levels, higher emotional clarity was associated with decreased use of all maladaptive emotion regulation strategies after adjusting for mean affect intensity. Results for emotion differentiation were mostly nonsignificant. Only higher daily positive emotion differentiation was associated with decreased rumination. In sum, this innovative study explores multiple aspects of emotional knowledge usage and regulation during a critical developmental stage and emphasizes the role of emotional clarity in the regulation of negative and positive affect. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).
情绪清晰度和情绪分化是情绪知识应用的两个核心方面。在青春期，新奇的情绪体验会导致分化和清晰度暂时下降。这些暂时的困难可能会深刻影响调节策略的选择。事实上，先前的研究表明，较低的情绪清晰度和情绪分化各自与青少年更多地使用假定的适应不良情绪调节策略相关。然而，这两个概念很少被一起研究，它们在日常生活中如何关联仍不清楚，尤其是在儿童和青少年中。此外，以前的研究集中在对负面情绪而非正面情绪的调节上。为了填补这些空白，本研究在青少年中采用了密集纵向设计。在2021年6月至2022年3月期间，172名儿童和青少年（平均年龄 = 12.99岁）完成了一份为期28天的日记（总共超过3500条记录），报告每日情绪、情绪清晰度以及针对负面和正面情绪使用的五种情绪调节策略（即沉思、抑制、行为回避、负面和正面抑制）。正如预期的那样，在个体间和个体内水平上，在调整平均情绪强度后，较高的情绪清晰度与所有适应不良情绪调节策略的使用减少相关。情绪分化的结果大多不显著。只有较高的每日积极情绪分化与沉思减少相关。总之，这项创新性研究探索了关键发育阶段情绪知识使用和调节的多个方面，并强调了情绪清晰度在调节负面和正面情绪中的作用。（《心理学文摘数据库记录》（c）2025美国心理学会，保留所有权利）
