When and Where Do People Regulate Their Emotions? Patterns of Emotion Regulation in Unselected and Socially Anxious Young Adults

Abstract

Introduction: The current studies examined how smartphone-assessed contextual features (i.e., location, time-of-day, social situation, and affect) contribute to the relative likelihood of emotion regulation strategy endorsement in daily life. Methods: Emotion regulation strategy endorsement and concurrent contextual features were assessed either passively (e.g., via GPS coordinates) or via self-report among unselected (Study 1: N = 112; duration = 2 weeks) and socially anxious (Study 2: N = 106; duration = 5 weeks) young adults. Results: An analysis of 2,891 (Study 1) and 12,289 (Study 2) mobile phone survey responses indicated small differences in rates of emotion regulation strategy endorsement across location (e.g., home vs. work/education settings), time-of-day (e.g., afternoon vs. evening), time-of-week (i.e., weekdays vs. weekends) and social context (e.g., with others vs. alone). However, emotion regulation patterns differed markedly depending on the set of emotion regulation strategies examined, which likely partly explains some inconsistent results across the studies. Also, many observed effects were no longer significant after accounting for state affect in the models. Discussion: Results demonstrate how contextual information collected with relatively low (or no) participant burden can add to our understanding of emotion regulation in daily life, yet it is important to consider state affect alongside other contextual features when drawing conclusions about how people regulate their emotions.