Correlates of interpersonal emotion regulation problems in Loss of Control eating (LOC) in youth: study protocol of the combined online and App based questionnaire, laboratory and randomized controlled online intervention i-BEAT trial

Background Binge Eating Disorder (BED) represents a common eating disorder associated with marked health impairments. A subclinical variant, loss of control eating (LOC) is prevalent in youth. LOC is associated with similar mental distress as full-blown BED, increases the risk to develop a BED and promotes continuous weight gain. The etiology of LOC is not yet fully understood and specialized treatment for youth is scarce. Methods The i-BEAT study includes a cross-sectional and longitudinal online questionnaire study (N = 600), an App based daily-life approach and a laboratory virtual reality study in N = 60 youths (14–24 years) with and without LOC as well as a controlled randomized online treatment trial to investigate the feasibility, acceptance and efficacy of a CBT and an interpersonal emotion regulation module for youth (N = 120). The primary outcomes include self-reported as well as measured (heart rate variability, gaze behavior, reaction times in stop signal task) associations between emotion regulation problems (such as dealing with RS), psychological impairment and binge eating in a healthy control group and youth with LOC. Secondary outcomes encompass general eating disorder pathology, social anxiety, body mass index, hyperscanning behavior and therapists’ rating of patients’ condition pre and post treatment. Epigenetic correlates of RS are assessed in healthy controls and youth with LOC and explored before and after treatment. Discussion The expected findings will specify the role of interpersonal emotion regulation problems such as coping with the experience of social exclusion and rejection sensitivity (RS) in LOC and clarify, whether including a training to cope with RS adds to the efficacy of a cognitive behavioral treatment (CBT). Trial registration: German Clinical Trial Register: DRKS00023706. Registered 27 November 2020, https://www.drks.de/drks_web/navigate.do?navigationId=trial.HTML&TRIAL_ID=DRKS00023706

Cheering My Friends Up: The Unique Role of Interpersonal Emotion Regulation Strategies in Social Competence

A systematic investigation has been lacking regarding children’s deliberate regulation of others’ emotions which is labeled interpersonal emotion regulation (ER). Based on a theoretically derived model of Interpersonal Affect Classification, we examined children’s interpersonal ER strategy use in the peer group. Participants were 398 fourth and fifth grade children from the Midwestern United States. Children rated themselves regarding their use of intrapersonal and interpersonal ER strategies as well as attention to friends’ emotions. Teacher-report and peer nominations were used to assess social competence regarding prosocial behavior and emotion sharing. Awareness of and attention to friends’ emotions were positively and more strongly associated with interpersonal ER than intrapersonal ER. Children reported affective engagement most strongly followed by humor, cognitive engagement, and attention to improve friends’ feelings. Among the four interpersonal ER strategies, only affective engagement was uniquely associated with social competence; intrapersonal ER was not associated with social competence. The findings support the significance of broadening the focus of ER to the interpersonal domain to promote the development of children’s ER and social competence.

Exploring the Moderating Effect of Interpersonal Emotion Regulation Between the Integration of Opportunity and Resource and Entrepreneurial Performance

This study explains how start-ups obtain a high accumulated performance by aligning and employing an integration between opportunities and resources (IOR) in a dynamic environment and whether these potential benefits are associated with interpersonal emotion regulation. Using 274 enterprise samples, the findings confirm that an IOR has a significant positive effect on entrepreneurial performance. In addition, positive emotion and interpersonal relationship regulation positively moderate the relationship between IOR and entrepreneurial performance. This paper proposes a new concept of the IOR and measures it for the first time. Then, the relationship was explored between the IOR, interpersonal emotion regulation, and entrepreneurial performance. This research not only systematically integrates opportunities and resources and avoids their separation but also helps to reveal the context of entrepreneurship research, enrich entrepreneurship theory, and expand the boundaries.

I Wanna Hold Your Hand: Handholding is Subjectively Preferred to Stroking in Everyday Situations

Social touch is an important form of interpersonal emotion regulation. Two types of touch, C-touch (Slow stroking of skin with C-tactile afferents, such as the forearm) and handholding, have been extensively studied in the context of comforting touch. C-touch has been found to activate unique neural pathways associated with reward signaling, which suggests that it may be a preferable emotion regulation strategy. Notwithstanding, handholding is widely utilized in people’s everyday lives when seeking to regulate another person’s emotions. Here we sought to directly compare participants’ subjective preferences of touch type, in three studies. The studies involved participants imagining themselves in various positive and negative, physical and emotional situations and rating which type of touch (handholding, stroking, no touch) they would prefer. Study 1 (N=99) examined preferred type of touch to receive; Study 2 (N=101) examined touch reception and provision; and Study 3 (N=51) examined touch reception during injections (e.g., vaccine provision) in participants with blood\injection phobia. In all studies, participants preferred handholding over stroking, especially in intense situations. We propose that this preference, despite the unique neural pathways activated by slow stroking, might be due to handholding’s cultural ubiquity, due to it activating top-down regulation processes, or due to it inducing interpersonal synchrony.