Components of Emotion Regulation Flexibility: Linking Latent Profiles to Depressive and Anxious Symptoms

Abstract

Emotion regulation flexibility has been conceptualized as a multicomponent construct that consists of context sensitivity, repertoire, and feedback responsiveness. Although individuals with greater abilities in each component show better psychological adjustment, the patterns of these components remain unknown. In two cross-sectional MTurk studies ( Ns = 200 and 802), we identified four or five predominant latent profiles: high-flexibility regulators (HFR), medium-flexibility regulators (MFR), context-insensitive regulators (CIR), feedback-irresponsive regulators (FIR), and low-repertoire regulators (LRR; Study 2 only). Inflexible regulators (CIR, FIR, and LRR) exhibited greater depressive and anxious symptoms than MFR and then HFR. Although inflexible regulators did not differ from each other on depressive symptoms, CIR showed more anxious symptoms than FIR and LRR. These findings support the importance of all three flexibility components with a highlight on context sensitivity and, moreover, suggest one potential way in which future studies can integrate various flexibility components.