Emotion Crafting and Daily Psychological Functioning: A 7-Day Diary Study

Abstract Although emotion regulation (ER) is a well-researched topic, the proactive regulation of positive emotions (conceptualized as emotion crafting—EC) grants further investigation. Recent research has shown that EC related to higher levels of life satisfaction, vitality, wellbeing, and a lower level of internalizing symptoms through positive affect. Building on this previous cross-sectional study, this research aimed to examine how changes in (planned) EC related to changes in psychological functioning. A 7-day diary study was conducted among 121 Norwegian participants (61.2% women; M age = 29.41 years, SD = 11.80; range 18–62), where they indicated their planned EC and positive emotion goals in the morning, and reported their actual EC and psychological functioning in the evening. Data were analysed through two-level multilevel path analyses. Results showed that planned EC related positively to actual EC, while actual EC related positively to wellbeing and negatively to illbeing through positive and negative affect, both at the between-person and within-person levels. These findings were overall maintained after controlling for other ER measures and when examining lagged effects (but not when controlling for same-day outcomes). In conclusion, proactively engaging in behaviours aimed at maintaining or strengthening positive emotions is beneficial for individuals’ daily psychological functioning. Future research is needed to determine the causality of the effects of EC, and whether the effects of EC can be generalised across more diverse samples.