Emotion Regulation and Negative Affect: Laboratory and Field Investigations
Abstract
Deficits in emotion regulation abilities have been associated with psychopathology, including addiction. Such deficits may provoke drug use by increasing the intensity and lability of negative affect. The primary goal of this study was to investigate the relationship between difficulties in emotion regulation ability and negative affect both in the laboratory and the field. The study was a secondary data analysis. The parent study (Ruscio, 2013) was a parallel group randomized controlled trial of a brief mindfulness meditation (Brief-MM) intervention delivered to smokers on a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) in the field. Adult community smokers (N = 44) were randomly assigned to a Brief-MM (n = 24) or Control (sham meditation training; n = 20) group. All participants carried a PDA for two weeks and were instructed to initiate 20 minutes of meditation (or control) training on the PDA once per day and to complete an assessment of negative affect using a 10-item version of the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS). Additionally, they were prompted to complete the same assessments at random times up to four times per day. Thirty-seven participants contributed EMA data and completed in total 1874 assessments. At each of three laboratory visits, participants completed the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS) and the PANAS. DERS scores were fairly stable across assessments (ICC = .73). Participants with higher DERS scores reported more negative affect at lab visits. In addition, when a participant reported a higher DERS score than their average, they reported higher negative affect. Participants with high DERS scores at baseline reported higher negative affect in the field, and also more labile negative affect. The maximum level of negative affect of participants with higher DERS scores was higher than those with lower DERS scores. Overall, the findings suggest the presence of state- and trait-like aspects of emotion regulation and that emotion
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Apr 02, 2015
- Accession Number
- AD1127888
Entities
People
- Jessica M. Macintyre
Organizations
- Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences