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Updated: May 6, 2026
07:57
A New Method for Inducing a Depression-Like Behavior in Rats
Published on: February 22, 2018
21.6K
Depressed individuals want to feel more unpleasant emotions in daily life, but try harder to decrease them.
Shir Mizrahi Lakan1, Danfei Hu1, Yael Millgram1
1Department of Psychology, Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Emotion (Washington, D.C.)
|March 5, 2026
Summary
Depressed individuals desire more sadness and anxiety, and less happiness in daily life. This emotion dysregulation may stem from a mismatch between desired feelings and emotion regulation attempts.
Area of Science:
- Psychology
- Clinical Psychology
- Affective Science
Background:
- Prior research indicates depressed individuals desire different emotional intensities compared to non-depressed individuals.
- These desires in daily life and their relation to emotion regulation remain underexplored.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate desired emotional states and emotion regulation strategies in daily life for depressed versus non-depressed individuals.
- To examine four discrete emotions: sadness, anxiety, happiness, and calmness.
Main Methods:
- Ecological Momentary Assessments (EMA) were used to collect data from depressed (n=58) and non-depressed (n=62) participants.
- Participants reported desired emotions and emotion regulation attempts over 2021-2022.
Main Results:
- Depressed individuals desired more sadness and anxiety, and less happiness than non-depressed individuals.
- Both groups aimed to minimize unpleasant emotions, but depressed individuals more actively tried to decrease sadness and anxiety.
Conclusions:
- Emotion dysregulation in depression may involve a misalignment between desired emotional experiences and emotion regulation efforts.
- Findings are limited to a student sample and warrant further investigation.
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