2 - (IOP 40) Examining the Relationship Between Emotion Regulation Variability and Affective Stability in Daily Life

Examining the Relationship between Emotion Regulation Variability and Affective Stability in Daily Life

Background: Emotion regulation (ER) variability and affective stability are two key constructs in understanding emotional dynamics. Past theoretical framework and empirical research often suggest ER variability as adaptive, promoting ER flexibility and resilience, and affective stability is generally associated with less psychopathology. However, the relationship between ER variability and affective stability remains unexplored. The present study fills this gap by examining the association between ER variability and emotional stability in daily life.

Method: 158 US participants between the ages of 18 to 72 (Mage = 35.97, SD = 12.45) recruited from social media platforms were enrolled in an Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) study. Participants reported momentary total distress at each EMA time point through the Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale (DASS), with perceived stress, anxious mood and depressed mood assessed each using two items on a scale of 1 to 5. Affective stability was operationalized using Mean Successive Squared Differences (MSSD) for total distress on a state level (within-day) and the person level after scaling. Momentary ER strategy use for 11 ER strategies was rated at each EMA. Between-strategy ER variability was then computed using the Bray-Curtis Dissimilarity (BC-D) across all strategy use on the within-person (within-day) and the between-person level. A subsequent linear regression was employed to assess the between-person relationship between ER variability (independent variable) and emotional stability (dependent variable), and multilevel models assessed within-person associations between the variables.

Results: Results revealed a negative association between ER variability and affective stability at both between-person (β = 0.94, p = 0.04) and within-person (β = 0.20, p < 0.001) levels, suggesting that greater variability in ER strategy use is linked to greater fluctuations in distress. The results remained significant after controlling for total distress at the previous time point and in the previous day.

Conclusion: The findings suggest that higher ER variability is associated with higher affective instability on both between-person and within-person levels in an EMA study. One possible explanation is that ER variability reduces the persistence of distress but increases short-term fluctuations in affect, making it adaptive in some contexts (e.g., anhedonic depression) but destabilizing in others. Additionally, frequent shifts in ER strategies may indicate ineffective initial regulation attempts, contributing to greater emotional fluctuations. Notably, MSSD does not distinguish whether emotional instability results from distress recovery or increased distress, suggesting the need for more nuanced interpretations. These findings highlight the complex role of ER variability in emotional stability and suggest that variability may serve as both a protective and risk factor, depending on context and regulatory effectiveness.