What Emotion Dysregulation Looks Like

Recent conceptualizations of emotion dysregulation define it as a process that unfolds over multiple time scales and that leads to short- or long-term impairments. This chapter discusses the advantages of observational methods for measuring emotion dysregulation as a process, focusing on three patterns and associated evidence of them from observational studies. First, the chapter discusses context-inappropriate emotion, the absence of an expected emotional reaction or an atypical reaction for the situational context. Second, it discusses atypical emotion dynamics, specifically emotional expressions that change abruptly, including but not limited to emotional lability. Third, it discusses ways in which emotions endure and are difficult to modify, pointing to ineffective strategy use as a mechanism. It concludes by discussing new directions for observational research, including creative study design and analytic methods that can capture emotion dysregulation.