Self-complexity and socio-emotional adjustment to a romantic event in early adulthood

Abstract

Self-complexity, the extent that people experience themselves as having a number of distinct and meaningful social roles, may have implications for young adults’ socio-emotional adjustment to romantic life events. Based on prior research, we hypothesized that participants who reported lower self-complexity would have worse adjustment to a negative event (not having a date on Valentine’s Day) but better adjustment to a positive event (having a date). Participants ( N = 325) completed measures of self-complexity and depression symptom severity at study entry. Approximately a month later, at the end of the day on Valentine’s Day, they completed a measure of emotion-regulation strategies and a reassessment of depression symptom severity. The hypothesized interaction was statistically significant; self-complexity was associated with better emotion-regulation ( R 2 = .15, p < .001) and depression outcomes ( R 2 = .05, p = .001) for non-daters, but worse outcomes for daters. Our findings suggest that self-complexity is related to self-regulation and has implications for adjustment to a range of life events.