Emotion Regulation Convoys: Individual and Age Differences in the Hierarchical Configuration of Emotion Regulation Behaviors in Everyday Life

Abstract

AbstractA key limitation of studying emotion regulation behavior is that there is currently no way to describe individual differences in use across a range of tactics, which could lead to investigations of intraindividual changes over time or interindividual differences as a function of personality, age, culture, or psychopathology diagnosis. We, therefore, introduce emotion regulation convoys. This research tool provides a snapshot of the hierarchy of emotion regulation tactics an individual favors across everyday life situations and how effective they are at regulating moods. We present data from a 3-month measurement burst study of emotion regulation behavior in everyday life in a sample (N = 236) of younger (18–39), middle-aged (40–59), and older adults (60–87), focusing on how individuals’ convoys may vary in how much they include tactics that involve upregulating-positivity, downregulating-negativity, upregulating-negativity, as well as acceptance, and how these may be differentially effective. Among the most frequently used tactics (top tactics), older adults used a lower proportion of negativity-downregulating tactics than younger adults (p < .001), and younger adults’ mood was more negatively affected by these tactics than middle-aged and older adults. Overall, using positivity-upregulating as a top tactic also predicted better mood post-regulation. Older adults’ emotion regulation convoys may be made up of more effective tactics; in general, they reported more positive mood post-regulation than the other age groups. Convoys help us see emotion regulation as a hierarchical configuration of potentially effective behaviors, allowing us to test for between-group differences and within-person changes more precisely.