Manifestation of emotion regulation difficulties in intraindividual emotion dynamics

Emotion dynamics, which describe affective patterns over time, may illustrate how specific emotion regulation difficulties manifest in daily life. However, limited research links emotion regulation with emotion dynamics assessed naturalistically. In two samples, 62 and 304 university students completed the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale then completed ecological momentary assessments of positive and negative affect thrice daily for seven and 14 days, respectively, to examine mean positive and negative affect, affective variability, affective instability, and emotional inertia. Self-reported emotion regulation difficulties broadly correlated with elevated mean negative affect and lower positive affect. However, no specific association of an emotion regulation difficulty with affective variability, instability, or inertia replicated across samples. Further research is needed with diverse methodologies to explore how in situ emotion dynamics reflect emotion regulation difficulties.