A Network Approach to Affect Regulation Dynamics and Personality Trait–Induced Variations: Extraversion and Neuroticism Moderate Reciprocal Influences between Affect and Affect Regulation Strategies

Abstract

The objectives of the present study were twofold. First, we tested a new approach to affect regulation dynamics, conceptualized as a network made up of the reciprocal influences that affect and affect regulation strategies constantly exert on each other. Second, we attempted to gain a better understanding of these dynamics by examining how they vary according to broad personality traits. To this end, we adopted an experience sampling method, involving five daily assessments over a 2‐week period. In each assessment, participants indicated their current affective experience and the way they had implemented five well‐known affect regulation strategies (i.e. appreciation, positive reappraisal, distraction, expressive suppression, and rumination) since the previous assessment. At the sample level, the network of affect regulation dynamics was characterized by positive feedback loops between positive affect and so‐called broad‐minded strategies, and between negative affect and narrow‐minded strategies. The form of this network varied according to levels of extraversion and neuroticism. Our findings are discussed in light of current knowledge about personality and affect regulation. Copyright © 2017 European Association of Personality Psychology

Toward an Integrative Psychometric Model of Emotions

“…Furthermore, these approaches were entirely theoretical and could therefore not be applied as psychometric models of emotions. Finally, emotions were assessed as part of networks in psychopathology research (e.g., Bringmann et al, 2016;Pe et al, 2015;Van de Leemput et al, 2014), attitudes (Dalege et al, 2016(Dalege et al, , 2017, aesthetics (Hosoya et al, 2017), and personality (e.g., Pavani, Le Vigouroux, Kop, Congard, & Dauvier, 2017), and mixed emotions were investigated with the help of co-occurrence networks of emotions (e.g., Moeller, Ivcevic, Brackett, & White, 2018). However, in these studies, emotions were treated as single variables and not conceptualized via the causal interaction of multiple emotion components as we propose.…”

Emotion Regulation in Everyday Life: Mapping Global Self-Reports to Daily Processes

“…In contrast, reappraisal may be less uniformly triggered by negative emotions (cf. Pavani et al, 2017) and its affective consequences may be more context-dependent (Ford & Troy, 2019;Haines et al, 2016), making it more difficult for people to accurately report how much they habitually use reappraisal on global self-report measures.…”

“…In contrast, when people are asked to summarize their emotional experiences over long periods or to describe how they feel in general, they instead rely on abstract beliefs about the self (i.e., semantic knowledge; Robinson & Clore, 2002; see also Conner & Barrett, 2012). Given that daily emotion regulation attempts are closely tied to fluctuations in momentary feelings (see Brans et al, 2013;Pavani et al, 2017), people's global and momentary reports of emotion regulation may also be based on different sources of information. From this perspective, we would predict little correspondence between global and momentary self-reports of emotion regulation, which draw on decontextualized knowledge about the self versus context-specific representations of momentary experience, respectively.…”

“…Another part of the emotion regulation process that may be measured by global selfreport measures is the emotional consequences of using regulation strategies, which occur during the implementation stage of emotion regulation (Gross, 2015). A number of studies have found substantial individual differences in the affective outcomes of daily emotion regulation (e.g., Pavani et al, 2017;Troy et al, 2019;Pe et al, 2013), and previous research also suggests that global self-report measures may, at least partly, capture how effectively people implement regulation strategies (e.g., Ford et al, 2017;Kanske, Schönfelder, Forneck, & Wessa, 2015;McRae, Jacobs, Ray, John & Gross, 2012). To the extent that global selfreports capture beliefs about emotion regulation, they may be shaped by the effectiveness with which emotion regulation strategies are implemented (cf.…”

Affective Well‐Being, Rumination, and Positive Reappraisal among People Living with HIV: A Measurement‐Burst Diary Study

“…Therefore, the lack of this flexibility could be reflected in a diminishing beneficial effect of adaptive strategies and an increasing debilitating effect of maladaptive strategies. The former was noted in our study; however, how it translates into escalation of symptomology requires observation of trajectories within longer periods of time (Kuppens et al, 2012;Pavani et al, 2017).…”