Profiles of Cognitive Emotion Regulation and their Association with Emotional Traits

Abstract

There is increasing research interest in the relationships between different emotion regulation strategies and symptoms or other emotional traits. This study considers these types of strategies as personal dispositions in relation to other factors, in an effort to identify different cognitive emotion regulation profiles and analyze their predictive capacity for positive and negative affect, emotional traits (anxiety and anger), and depressive symptomatology. Participants were 350 individuals (50% men) with a mean age of 35.69 (SD = 7.5). The data analysis methods employed were cluster, discriminant analyses, and comparison of means. We found idiosyncratic aspects suggesting the existence of diverse cognitive styles of emotional regulation. These styles would be differentiated by greater or lesser frequency in the use of strategies considered in the literature as “more adaptive” or “less adaptive” (the “protector” and “vulnerable” profiles), positive reappraisal being the strategy that best distinguishes between individuals as regards their emotional regulation profile.

Keywords

• Emotion regulation
• Cognitive strategies
• Profiles
• Emotional traits
• Depressive symptomatology