Emotion beliefs and emotion regulation strategy use

Abstract

Emotion regulation is essential for mental health, and it is thus important to understand the factors influencing emotion regulation. One such factor is thought to be beliefs about emotions; however, there is presently limited data testing this. The aim of this study was therefore to comprehensively examine the links between beliefs about emotions (specifically, the controllability and usefulness of emotions) and people's usage of a wide range of emotion regulation strategies. Participants (N = 579, M_age = 22.69 years, 75.10 % female) completed psychometric self-report measures of emotion beliefs and emotion regulation strategy use. Correlation analyses revealed stronger beliefs about emotions being uncontrollable or useless were significantly associated with lesser use of adaptive emotion regulation strategies, and greater use of some maladaptive emotion regulation strategies. Latent profile analysis revealed seven profiles, each varying in their levels of maladaptive emotion beliefs and emotion regulation strategy use. Profiles with more maladaptive beliefs were generally associated with lower use of adaptive and higher use of maladaptive emotion regulation strategies. Overall, our findings suggest associations between maladaptive emotion beliefs and maladaptive patterns in emotion regulation. This highlights the potential importance of considering emotion beliefs in the conceptualisation and treatment of emotion regulation problems and emotional disorders.