The unconscious pursuit of emotion regulation: implications for psychological health

Abstract

Because of the central involvement of emotion regulation in psychological health and the role that implicit (largely unconscious) processes appear to play in emotion regulation, implicit emotion-regulatory processes should play a vital role in psychological health. We hypothesised that implicitly valuing emotion regulation translates into better psychological health in individuals who use adaptive emotion-regulation strategies. A community sample of 222 individuals (56% women) who had recently experienced a stressful life event completed an implicit measure of emotion regulation valuing (ER-IAT) and reported on their habitual use of an important adaptive emotion-regulation strategy: cognitive reappraisal. We measured three domains of psychological health: well-being, depressive symptoms, and social adjustment. As hypothesised, individuals who implicitly valued emotion regulation exhibited greater levels of psychological health, but only when they were high in cognitive reappraisal use. These findings suggest that salutary effects of unconscious emotion-regulation processes depend on its interplay with conscious emotion-regulation processes.

Figure 1

Interaction of implicit valuing of emotion regulation (ER-IAT) and trait reappraisal for well-being (possible scores from 1 to 7). Regression lines are drawn at ±1 standard deviation from the means of implicit valuing of emotion regulation and trait-reappraisal. Error bars represent standard errors from the mean of ±1 standard deviation of trait-reappraisal.

Figure 2

Interaction of implicit valuing of emotion regulation (ER-IAT) and trait reappraisal for depressive symptoms (possible scores from 0 to 60). Regression lines are drawn at ±1 standard deviation from the means of implicit valuing of emotion regulation and trait-reappraisal. Error bars represent standard errors from the mean of ±1 standard deviation of trait-reappraisal.

Figure 3

Interaction of implicit valuing of emotion regulation (ER-IAT) and trait reappraisal for social adjustment (possible scores from 1 to 4). Regression lines are drawn at ±1 standard deviation from the means of implicit valuing of emotion regulation and trait-reappraisal. Error bars represent standard errors from the mean of ±1 standard deviation of trait-reappraisal.