AI Article Synopsis

  • Previous research has typically viewed emotion regulation as a factor influencing mental health, but this study investigates how mental health might also affect emotion regulation during the COVID-19 pandemic.
  • The study, involving a diverse group of 704 adults over three months, found that while cognitive reappraisal showed no link to mental health symptoms, emotional suppression was significantly associated with increased levels of depression and anxiety.
  • Analysis revealed a bidirectional relationship: higher symptoms of depression and anxiety led to increased emotional suppression, which in turn predicted greater mental health issues, challenging existing notions and highlighting a need to reevaluate the effectiveness of emotion regulation strategies under stress.

Article Abstract

Previous work has generally conceptualized emotion regulation as contributing to mental health outcomes, and not vice versa. The present study challenges this assumption by using a prospective design to investigate the directionality of underlying relationships between emotion regulation and mental health in the context of a major population-level stressor. We surveyed a large nationally representative sample of adults (18-91 years, = 704) at three 1-month intervals across the acute lockdown phase of the COVID-19 pandemic in Australia, using standardized measures of depression and anxiety symptoms. At each time point, we also measured the use of two emotion regulation strategies-cognitive reappraisal and emotional suppression-previously associated with adaptive and maladaptive mental health outcomes, respectively. We found cognitive reappraisal was unrelated to mental health symptoms. In contrast, greater emotional suppression was robustly associated with higher symptom levels for both depression and anxiety. Longitudinal analyses revealed this association reflected bidirectional relationships. Higher symptoms of depression and anxiety each predicted greater subsequent use of emotional suppression, and greater use of emotional suppression predicted higher subsequent symptoms. This bidirectionality suggests emotional suppression is both symptomatic and predictive of psychological distress. The lack of a relationship for cognitive reappraisal is discussed with respect to the pandemic context and evidence that high stress might reduce people's ability to use this strategy effectively. Given the strong emphasis on reappraisal in clinical practice, there is a critical need to understand for whom, what and when this strategy is helpful. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

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http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/emo0001018DOI Listing

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