Supplemental Material for Cause or Symptom? A Longitudinal Test of Bidirectional Relationships Between Emotion Regulation Strategies and Mental Health Symptoms

Emotion ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yang Yang ◽  
Keqiao Liu ◽  
Siqi Li ◽  
Man Shu

The COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically changed the general population’s life worldwide. People may spend more time on social media because of policies like “work at home”. Using a cross-sectional dataset collected through an online survey in February 2020, in China, we examined (1) the relationships between social media activities and people’s mental health status and (2) the moderation effect of emotional-regulation strategies. The sample included people aged ≥18 years from 32 provinces and regions in China (N = 3159). The inferential analyses included a set of multiple linear regressions with interactions. Our results showed that sharing timely, accurate, and positive COVID-19 information, reducing excessive discussions on COVID-19, and promoting caring online interactions rather than being judgmental, might positively associate with the general public’s psychological well-being. Additionally, the relationships between social media activities and psychological well-being varied at different emotion-regulation strategy levels. Adopting the cognitive reappraisal strategy might allay the adverse relationships between certain social media activities and mental health indicators. Our findings expanded the theory of how social media activities can be associated with a human being’s mental health and how it can interact with emotion-regulation strategies during the COVID-19 pandemic.


2019 ◽  
Vol 50 (3) ◽  
pp. 395-410 ◽  
Author(s):  
JohnBosco Chika Chukwuorji ◽  
Charity Ngozi Uzuegbu ◽  
Comfort Victoria Chukwu ◽  
Chuka Mike Ifeagwazi ◽  
Chinedu Ugwu

Several studies have reported the independent roles of social support and emotion regulation in death anxiety. However, there is sparse literature on mediating role of emotion regulatory mechanisms in the link between social support and death anxiety. This study examined whether social support predicts multidimensional death anxiety as a function of emotion regulation strategies (cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression) among people living with HIV/AIDS. Participants were 186 people living with HIV/AIDS (mean age = 34.16 years, standard deviation = 11.16; 56.5% women) drawn from the HIV/AIDS care unit of a tertiary health care institution in south-eastern Nigeria. Data were obtained by means of self-report measures of death anxiety, social support, and emotion regulation. A serial mediation analysis was conducted using Model 6 of the Hayes PROCESS macro for SPSS® which applies two mediators for each single analysis in a regression-based, path-analytical framework. The results showed that emotion regulation strategies, especially expressive suppression, was the indirect pathway through which social support from friends and significant others reduces death anxiety in aspects of death acceptance and death thoughts, but not for externally generated death anxiety and death finality. The mediation mechanism through family support was found for only death acceptance. Findings support existing mental health research and theories elucidating core social mechanisms of emotion regulation in relation to mental health and highlight the recognition of functional roles of multidimensional support in comprehensive case management services for helping people living with HIV/AIDS maintain their health. The study endorses improved social networks as part of the overall care for people living with HIV/AIDS.


2020 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 242-247 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yael Millgram ◽  
Jonathan D. Huppert ◽  
Maya Tamir

Emotion-regulation deficits characterize many psychiatric disorders. To understand such deficits, researchers have focused on emotion-regulation strategies. Building on a motivational approach to emotion regulation, we suggest that to understand emotion regulation in psychopathology, it is necessary to also focus on emotion goals (i.e., what people want to feel). Emotion goals shape whether, when, and how people regulate emotions. Therefore, emotion-regulation deficits might emerge as a function of the emotion goals pursued. Initial research suggests that individuals struggling with psychopathology differ from individuals without psychopathology in how much they want to feel certain emotions and that such differences carry implications for emotion regulation and mental health. In this article, we review this empirical evidence, discuss how research on emotion goals can inform clinical theories and practice, and highlight promising future directions.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joao F Guassi Moreira ◽  
Razia S. Sahi ◽  
Maria D. Calderon Leon ◽  
Natalie Marie Saragosa-Harris ◽  
Yael Haya Waizman ◽  
...  

Typologies serve to organize knowledge and advance theory for many scientific disciplines, including more recently in the social and behavioral sciences. To date, however, no typology exists to categorize an individual’s use of emotion regulation strategies. This is surprising given that emotion regulation skills are used daily and that deficits in this area are robustly linked with mental health symptoms. Here we attempted to identify and validate a working typology of emotion regulation across six samples (collectively comprised of 1492 participants from multiple populations) by using a combination of computational techniques, psychometric models, and growth curve modeling. We uncovered evidence for three types of regulators: a type (Lo) that infrequently uses emotion regulation strategies, a type (Hi) that uses them frequently but indiscriminately, and a third type (Mix) that selectively uses some (cognitive reappraisal and situation selection), but not other (expressive suppression), emotion regulation strategies frequently. Results showed that membership in the Hi and Mix types is associated with better mental health, with the Mix type being the most adaptive of the three. These differences were stable over time and across different samples. These results carry important implications for both our basic understanding of emotion regulation behavior and for informing future interventions aimed at improving mental health.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document