Browsing by Subject "emotion regulation"

Now showing 1 - 4 of 4
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Examining the Nature, Origins, and Health Consequences of Attachment-Related Individual Differences in the Emotion Regulation Process
    (2014-07) Fillo, Jennifer
    Individuals vary in their tendency to habitually adopt different emotion-regulation strategies, such as cognitive reappraisal and suppression (Gross & John, 2003). These strategies have implications for individuals' subjective, expressive, and physiological reactions to emotions, with certain emotional profiles being considered "healthier" than others (John & Gross, 2004). A key direction for research in this area is the identification of individual differences that can explain how and why individuals develop these tendencies. This information could help researchers and clinicians better predict and potentially curtail the negative consequences associated with some emotion-regulation tendencies. The present research examines individual differences in attachment orientations as one such explanation. According to attachment theory, individuals' histories of interactions with caregivers throughout life shape their relational orientations, as well as their motivations and abilities for coping with stressful events (Bowlby, 1969). Study 1 examined relations between attachment orientations and self-reported emotion-regulation tendencies, as well as experimentally tested attachment-based individual differences in the emotion regulation process by examining subjective, expressive, and physiological emotional responses to an emotion-eliciting film clip. Attachment avoidance and anxiety were associated with a number of similar emotion-regulation difficulties, but specific approaches to regulating emotions. In the experimental portion, the nature and effectiveness of specific emotion-regulation strategies varied across levels of avoidance and anxiety. Additionally, avoidant individuals showed some evidence of spontaneous emotion-regulation attempts, even when they were given no specific emotion-regulation instructions. Study 2 replicates and extends Study 1 by examining the developmental antecedents and long-term health consequences of these individual differences in emotion regulation, using data collected as part of the Minnesota Longitudinal Study of Risk and Adaptation. It examined the potential mediating role of emotion-regulation difficulties in the link between attachment representations and later substance use (i.e., alcohol consumption, tobacco use). There was an indirect effect of attachment representations on later alcohol consumption through impulse control difficulties and limited access to emotion-regulation strategies. Attachment representations directly predicted tobacco use, but this relation was not mediated by difficulties with emotion regulation. As a whole, this research reveals important information about the nature, origins, and health consequences of attachment-based individual differences in emotion regulation.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Helping insecurely attached people regulate negative emotions: Moderating role of support on the effect of attachment on emotion regulation and eating
    (2024-08) Nakamura, Monique
    Insecurely attached people (both anxious and avoidant) have difficulties regulating their emotions and are less likely to use adaptive emotion regulation strategies, such as cognitive reappraisal. Instead, they may rely on eating to regulate their emotions. However, romantic partners can play a pivotal role in helping insecurely attached people reappraise situations. Furthermore, anxiously and avoidantly attached people need different types of support to help them regulate their negative emotions, specifically interdependence and independence support, respectively. Interdependence support focuses more on the relationship and the benefits from the intimacy between the two partners, while independence support focuses more on the person’s autonomy and ability to tackle issues on their own. Prior research has looked at types of support that are more effective for anxiously and avoidantly attached people, but less work has related attachment orientations and emotion regulation patterns to eating behavior. To address this gap in the literature, I conducted two studies. Study 1 was an experimental manipulation of support messages provided to anxiously and avoidantly attached individuals from their romantic partners after participants have been induced to feel negative emotions, and then given an opportunity to eat. Study 2 was a daily diary study across 14 days examining these associations more naturalistically to determine: (a) the degree to which anxiously and avoidantly attached people perceived specific types of support from their romantic partner as more effective in regulating their daily negative emotions, and (b) how these perceptions are associated with their daily eating behavior. For both studies, I hypothesized that anxiously attached individuals who received interdependence support from their partners are more likely to reappraise a negative event and, consequently, less likely to eat compared to those who received independence support. For avoidantly attached individuals, those who received independence support from their partners are more likely to reappraise and, consequently, less likely to eat compared to those who received interdependence support. In Study 1, these hypotheses were not supported. In Study 2, l found that people who reported higher levels of attachment anxiety were more likely to report less use of reappraisal than did those who had lower levels of attachment anxiety. Attachment avoidance was not associated with reappraisal. However, both attachment anxiety and avoidance were positively associated with negative affect. The use of reappraisal was negatively associated with negative affect. In other words, on days when reappraisal was high, negative affect was more likely to be low, compared to days when reappraisal was low. Also, on days when general support received was high, reappraisal and positive mood after receiving support were also high, compared to days when general support received was low. The moderating effect of interdependence support received on the link between attachment avoidance and reappraisal was found to be marginal. Also, there was no association between worse mood after support received and eating. In the general discussion, I review the findings and limitations of both studies.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Less is More: Emotion Regulation Deficits in Military Fathers Magnify their Benefit from a Parenting Program
    (2018-05) Zhang, Jingchen
    Combat deployment and exposure to traumatic events may cause deficits in emotion regulation, thus impairing military parents’ capacities to respond effectively to children’s emotions. This is a particularly salient issue for fathers – who comprise the majority of service members – following deployment to war. Evidence-based parenting programs have been developed to improve parenting practices in military families, however, little is known about the role of parents’ emotion regulation on the effectiveness of the parenting program. Using data from a randomized controlled trial, this study examines the effects of the After Deployment, Adaptive Parenting Tools (ADAPT) program, on observed emotion socialization related parenting behaviors (ESRBs), and whether self-reported emotion regulation of service member fathers affects program outcomes. This study used a subset of data from the ADAPT study, which included 181 fathers (M age = 37.76, SD = 6.42) in 2­parent families who had been deployed to recent conflicts and who had at least one 4-12-year-old child living in the home. Structural equation modeling was used to examine the intent-to-treat effect of the ADAPT program on observed effective parenting 1 year post-baseline, the moderating effect of self-reported emotion dysregulation at baseline, and the mediating role of emotion dysregulation at baseline at 1-year post-baseline. Results showed that the intervention did not directly improve fathers’ observed ESRBs relative to the control group. However, the intervention did significantly reduce observed reactivity/coercion and distress avoidance among fathers with .5 SD above average self-reported difficulties in emotion regulation at baseline. Moreover, fathers’ emotion regulation difficulties at 1 year were found to mediate the intervention effect on observed reactivity/coercion, which was strengthened by higher levels of baseline emotion regulation difficulties. Implications for personalized parenting interventions are described.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Understanding Emotion Regulation in Eating Disorder Recovery
    (2017-09) Durkin, Nora
    Deficits in emotion regulation and heightened negative affect have been observed across eating disorder diagnoses and are hypothesized to contribute to the maintenance of eating psychopathology. However, the extent to which emotion regulation deficits and elevated negative affect continue to persist after the cessation of eating psychopathology remains unclear despite the emergence of several novel treatments that have been designed to target emotion regulation deficits and negative affect in eating disorder populations. The purpose of this study was to determine whether individuals in recovery from eating disorders experience emotion regulation deficits and heightened negative affect compared to those with active eating disorders and those without current or past eating disorders. Participants included 269 individuals with active eating disorders (AED), 58 participants in recovery from eating disorders (RED), and 143 participants without past or present eating disorders (COMP) who completed several online questionnaires. Results indicated that the AED group reported significantly more emotion regulation difficulties and greater negative affect compared to the RED and COMP groups, who did not differ form one another with regard to emotion regulation difficulties and negative affect. These findings support emotion regulation models of eating psychopathology and suggest that emotion regulation deficits and negative affect may improve with recovery from eating disorder psychopathology. Future research should examine facets of emotion regulation and negative affect using longitudinal designs to determine the temporal relationship between improvements in eating disorder psychopathology, emotion regulation, and negative affect in order to inform treatment interventions.