Emotion regulation in daily life

Both of the articles today come from Emotion and each deals with emotion regulation. First,  Ho, Joormann, Kober & Gadassi-Polack (2025) published “Social Reorientation of Emotion Regulation: Changing roles of family and peers during adolescence” in Emotion. The edited abstract follows:

The emotional climate of the family and peer group is theorized to play a central role in the development of emotion regulation (ER) in children and adolescents, such that warmer, more supportive environments promote more effective ER. However, most studies demonstrating associations between social interactions and ER use have focused on individual differences in the regulation of negative affect. This study is the first to investigate whether social interactions with family versus peers are differentially associated with ER, of both negative and positive affect, using a unique multi-timescale approach in which daily assessments were nested within a longitudinal design. Our sample included 112 youths, ages 8–15 at baseline and racially/ethnically representative of our northeast American recruitment area, who completed two waves of daily diaries (21 and 28 days) approximately 1 year apart. Every evening, participants reported the number and valence of interactions they had with family members and friends and their use of ER strategies, producing a total of 5,074 diary entries. We found evidence that (a) experiencing more positive interpersonal events was associated with greater use of effective ER strategies, whereas experiencing more negative interpersonal events was associated with greater use of counterproductive ER strategies, and (b) family events were more strongly associated with ER changes in younger youths, while friend events were more strongly associated with ER changes in older youths. Altogether, our results provide novel evidence for a social reorientation effect in ER development, highlighting the lasting influence of close relationships during the transition to adolescence. 

This is not surprising but the data are helpful in illustrating the differential power of both positive and negative interpersonal events. It’s also not surprising that family plays a greater role in emotional regulation of younger kids while friends play a greater role in adolescence. Although the sample is small, the data are robust and representative. Close relationships and, especially, positive interpersonal events in those relationships matter. The next study turns to adults. Hossain, Kyron, DeMarree & Naragon-Gainey (2025) published “Emotion Regulation in Daily Life: Testing bidirectional temporal associations with positive and negative affect” in Emotion. Here’s the edited abstract:

Emotion regulation and affect are closely linked, but little is known about the directionality of their associations in daily life contexts. There is a particular lack of studies that include positive affect and its upregulation, and numerous methodological limitations constrain conclusions that can be drawn. We tested bidirectional associations of four emotion regulation strategies (distraction, reappraisal, rumination, savoring) with positive and negative affect, using ecological momentary assessment. Adult community participants (N = 345) oversampled for treatment-seeking completed up to six reports per day for 7 days. Residual dynamic structural equation modeling showed that savoring and rumination were bidirectionally associated with positive and negative affect, indicating “virtuous” and “vicious” feedback loops, respectively. Distraction and reappraisal were both predicted by heightened negative affect, and reappraisal also had reciprocal associations with positive affect. Exploratory analyses indicated that clinical status generally did not influence associations between affect and emotion regulation. Results suggest affective cycles associated with repetitive thinking (e.g., rumination and savoring) that may inhibit or support well-being, whereas associations with distraction and reappraisal may depend upon contextual factors. 

Once again, we have daily reports, this time from a larger sample. Savoring is a strategy of repetitive thinking focused on positive affect (hence the virtuous feedback loop) while rumination is associated with the negative (vicious) affect feedback loop. It’s not surprising that heightened negative affect predicts distraction and reappraisal as strategies, with only reappraisal having reciprocal associations with both positive and negative affect. This is helpful even though the findings are nuanced regarding distraction and reappraisal. Taken together, these studies illustrate the power of interpersonal relationships and emotion regulation strategies.