Interpersonal emotion regulation in daily life: a comparison of individuals with and without depressive disorders

Emotion dysregulation is strongly linked to depressive disorders, yet distinctions between interpersonal and intrapersonal forms remain underexplored in daily life. This study examines emotion dysregulation in depression during close interpersonal interactions, comparing individuals with depression and healthy controls (HC), and exploring associations with alexithymia and childhood maltreatment.

Participants (18 HC, 17 with depression) reported three emotion regulation (ER) strategies (cognitive reappraisal, social sharing, suppression) during interpersonal interactions over 2 weeks (3 prompts/day). Group (depression vs. HC) was the independent variable, and ER strategies the dependent variables. Alexithymia, childhood maltreatment, and depressive symptoms were assessed at baseline. Data were analyzed using two-level hierarchical linear modeling.

No group differences in ER strategy use were observed, and depressive symptom severity was not associated with strategy intensity. Post-hoc analyses showed that alexithymia was positively associated with depressive severity across the full sample and negatively associated with social sharing within the depressed group. Cognitive reappraisal showed heterogeneous associations with childhood maltreatment subdomains.

Interpersonal emotion dysregulation did not differentiate depressed from healthy individuals. Given the small sample size, these null findings should be interpreted cautiously. Nevertheless, alexithymia and childhood maltreatment appear relevant for ER in close relationships, highlighting their importance in depression research.