Emotion and Emotion Preferences in Daily Life: The Role of Anxiety

Abstract

People vary in their emotion preferences (i.e., desired emotional states). No study, however, has examined the nature of emotion preferences in anxiety. In the current study, we used a 14-day ecological momentary assessment paradigm to investigate the daily dynamics of emotion preferences and state emotion as they relate to individual differences in trait anxiety and anxiety symptom severity. Individuals with higher levels of trait anxiety and with more severe anxiety symptoms reported greater preferences for state anxiety compared with their low-anxiety counterparts. Relations between anxiety preferences and subsequent anxiety vary as a function of trait anxiety and symptom severity, and different associations are observed between the two measures of anxiety. The current findings suggest that aberrant emotion preferences may contribute to emotion dysfunction in anxiety and highlight emotion preferences as a novel treatment target for interventions that aim to improve emotion functioning among people with elevated levels of anxiety.