TY  - JOUR
PY  - 2020//
TI  - Variability in emotion regulation strategy use is negatively associated with depressive symptoms
JO  - Cognition and emotion
A1  - Wang, Xiaoqin
A1  - Blain, Scott D.
A1  - Meng, Jie
A1  - Liu, Yuan
A1  - Qiu, Jiang
SP  - ePub
EP  - ePub
VL  - ePub
IS  - ePub
N2  - 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 affective inertia) 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 (N = 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.<p />  <p>Language: en</p>
LA  - en
SN  - 0269-9931
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02699931.2020.1840337
ID  - ref1
ER  -