Patterns of Ongoing Thought Are Associated With Emotion Regulation and Negative Affect in Daily Life

Humans have thousands of thoughts every day-often shaped by personal memories, goals, and environmental cues-that are deeply intertwined with emotional functioning. Yet, it remains unclear how these naturally occurring thoughts relate to people's ability to dynamically regulate their emotions and their emotional well-being in daily life. To address this question, the present study explored whether and when common patterns of ongoing thought are associated with differences in emotion regulation (ER) variability-the degree of moment-to-moment change in the use of different regulatory strategies-across individuals and settings, as well as negative affect in everyday life. Over seven days, 120 participants completed 3,286 experience sampling surveys assessing ongoing thoughts, ER variability, and negative affect in real-world contexts (data collected in 2023-2024). Principal components analysis identified common "thought patterns," which were then used to predict participants' ER variability and negative affect. One thought pattern-characterized by negative, intrusive, and distractive content-was associated with lower ER variability and heightened negative affect, as captured by higher levels of anxiety, stress, and loneliness. Importantly, the link between this thought pattern and negative affect was moderated by momentary ER variability. Social activities, such as texting or engaging in conversations, similarly buffered the adverse relationship between this thought pattern and negative affect in daily life. These findings demonstrate how common, recurring patterns of ongoing thought relate to both ER variability and emotional well-being, underscoring the potential protective role of social interactions and variable use of diverse regulatory strategies from our ER repertoire.

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s42761-026-00355-y.