Depressive symptoms and emotion regulation processes: Strategy selection and effectiveness

Area of Science:

• Psychology
• Clinical Psychology
• Cognitive Neuroscience

Background:

• Depressive symptoms often correlate with poorer emotion regulation (ER) in daily life.
• Controlled settings with instructed ER strategies show less impairment, but strategy selection is less understood.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the association between depressive symptoms, ER strategy use, and ER success in a standardized context.
• To determine if individuals with depressive symptoms select and effectively use different ER strategies.

Main Methods:

• An age-diverse community sample (N=124) viewed emotional clips under prohedonic instructions.
• Participants self-selected and rated their use and success of six ER strategies.
• Depressive symptoms, emotion experience, and strategy use were assessed.

Main Results:

• Depressive symptoms were linked to reduced use of savoring and bodily awareness.
• Bodily awareness use predicted lower ER success in those with higher depressive symptoms.
• Savoring and positive reappraisal generally improved ER success; distraction, detached reappraisal, and expressive suppression decreased it.

Conclusions:

• In a controlled setting, depressive symptoms had limited impact on ER strategy selection and effectiveness.
• Exceptions included reduced use and effectiveness of savoring and bodily awareness strategies.
• Findings highlight nuanced effects of depressive symptoms on specific ER strategies.