ABSTRACT

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.

摘要

已经建议人们在日常生活中使用的情绪调节 (ER) 策略的可变性反映了适应性 ER 能力并作为心理健康的保护因素。此外，心理上的僵化和持续的负面影响（或情感惰性）是抑郁症和其他形式的精神疾病的关键特征，并且经常因僵化或过度被动的调节行为而进一步恶化。目前的研究调查了以下假设，即 ER 变异性可能是对抗抑郁症状和情感惰性的保护因素。使用经验抽样（N = 213），我们测试了 ER 变异性的两个指标（策略间和策略内 SD）是否与抑郁症状和情感惰性有关。我们发现策略间变异性和策略内变异性（特别是重新评估和注意力分散）较高的人报告的抑郁症状较少。策略内和策略间的变异性都与消极的情感惯性呈负相关。当用作同时预测因子时，策略间变异性和消极情感惰性对抑郁症具有独特的影响。总而言之，这项研究为 ER 作为缓冲抑郁症状的因素的效用提供了进一步的证据，特别是对于可变 ER 策略的使用。