Comparing Emotion Regulation Success in the Lab and Daily Life Contexts in a Cognitively Diverse Sample

Laboratory experiments and daily life approaches for examining emotion regulation (ER) success each have their advantages. The former allows researchers to isolate causal mechanisms and the latter provides an externally valid way to understand how effective people are at managing emotions. However, these methodologies sometimes find different patterns. We theorize that the degree to which perceived ER success in the laboratory and in daily life are related depends on features of the regulation context (e.g., in situations where individuals hold greater pro-hedonic motives) and characteristics of the regulator (e.g., age). In the present study, 211 adults (n = 66 younger adults; n = 87 cognitively normal [CN] older adults; n = 58 older adults with mild cognitive impairment [MCI]) completed a lab-based paradigm of ER and experience sampling of ER in daily contexts (7 × for 9 days). Overall, ER success in the laboratory had minimal associations with ER success in daily life. The associations between ER success in the laboratory and in daily life did not vary based on daily pro-hedonic motive or group membership. Pro-hedonic ER motivation was linked to less daily ER success. There were age-related advantages in daily ER success, even among older adults with MCI. Altogether, our findings suggest that laboratory assessments may capture distinct aspects of ER ability compared to daily life assessments. More work is needed to test the robustness of this effect and consider other factors that may strengthen or weaken the connection between findings in the laboratory and in daily life.

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s42761-025-00313-0.