Negative emotion and nonacceptance of emotion in daily life.

Nonacceptance of emotion is consistently linked with increased levels of psychopathology and diminished well-being. Research has found that negative emotion and nonacceptance of emotion are positively associated cross-sectionally but has yet to directly investigate temporal associations between these constructs. Given that negative emotions are frequently the target of negative thoughts and other emotions, and that acceptance of emotion is associated with prospective decreases in negative emotion, we hypothesized that the temporal relation between negative emotion and nonacceptance of emotion is bidirectional. The present study examined the association between these variables during people's daily lives using an experience sampling methodology. Multilevel modeling was used for all analyses, including hierarchical generalized linear modeling and log-normal hurdle modeling. A total of 187 women from the United States and Australia reported negative emotion and nonacceptance of emotion 14 times a day for 5 days. Negative emotion and nonacceptance of emotion were positively associated contemporaneously. Across time, nonacceptance of emotion was prospectively and positively associated with the intensity of negative emotion independent of immediately prior negative emotion, and negative emotion intensity was prospectively and positively associated with nonacceptance of emotion independent of immediately prior nonacceptance. Results support a bidirectional model of negative emotion and nonacceptance of emotion wherein each variable predicts increases in the other across time. Our findings elucidate how individuals fall into maladaptive emotional patterns that are difficult to break and could possibly pave the way to the development and maintenance of psychopathology. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Neuroticism may not reflect emotional variability.

Neuroticism is one of the major traits describing human personality, and a predictor of mental and physical disorders with profound public health significance. Individual differences in emotional variability are thought to reflect the core of neuroticism. However, the empirical relation between emotional variability and neuroticism may be partially the result of a measurement artifact reflecting neuroticism's relation with higher mean levels-rather than greater variability-of negative emotion. When emotional intensity is measured using bounded scales, there is a dependency between variability and mean levels: at low (or high) intensity, it is impossible to demonstrate high variability. As neuroticism is positively associated with mean levels of negative emotion, this may account for the relation between neuroticism and emotional variability. In a metaanalysis of 11 studies (N = 1,205 participants; 83,411 observations), we tested whether the association between neuroticism and negative emotional variability was clouded by a dependency between variability and the mean. We found a medium-sized positive association between neuroticism and negative emotional variability, but, when using a relative variability index to correct for mean negative emotion, this association disappeared. This indicated that neuroticism was associated with experiencing more intense, but not more variable, negative emotions. Our findings call into question theory, measurement scales, and data suggesting that emotional variability is central to neuroticism. In doing so, they provide a revisionary perspective for understanding how this individual difference may predispose to mental and physical disorders.

How does it feel to be treated like an object? Direct and indirect effects of exposure to sexual objectification on women's emotions in daily life.

Exposure to sexual objectification is an everyday experience for many women, yet little is known about its emotional consequences. Fredrickson and Roberts' (1997) objectification theory proposed a within-person process, wherein exposure to sexual objectification causes women to adopt a third-person perspective on their bodies, labeled self-objectification, which has harmful downstream consequences for their emotional well-being. However, previous studies have only tested this model at the between-person level, making them unreliable sources of inference about the proposed intraindividual psychological consequences of objectification. Here, we report the results of Bayesian multilevel structural equation models that simultaneously tested Fredrickson and Roberts' (1997) predictions both within and between persons, using data from 3 ecological momentary assessment (EMA) studies of women's (N = 268) experiences of sexual objectification in daily life. Our findings support the predicted within-person indirect effect of exposure to sexual objectification on increases in negative and self-conscious emotions via self-objectification. However, lagged analyses suggest that the within-person indirect emotional consequences of exposure to sexual objectification may be relatively fleeting. Our findings advance research on sexual objectification by providing the first comprehensive test of the within-person process proposed by Fredrickson and Roberts' (1997) objectification theory. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Meta-emotions in daily life: Associations with emotional awareness and depression.

Meta-emotions are emotions that occur in response to other emotions (e.g., guilt about anger). Although emotion theories often discuss them, much about meta-emotions remains unknown. In the present study, we aim to assess the frequency of meta-emotions in everyday life, determine whether increased attention to and clarity of emotions are associated with a greater likelihood of meta-emotions, and examine whether negative emotions about negative emotions (negative-negative meta-emotional experiences) are associated with depressive severity. We recruited a diverse adult community sample (n = 79) to complete 7 days of experience sampling and a self-report measure of depressive severity. At each survey, they indicated current attention to emotion, clarity of emotion, and whether and what kind of meta-emotional experience they were having. Meta-emotional experiences were categorized as negative-negative (NN), negative-positive (NP), positive-negative (PN) or positive-positive (PP). Approximately 53% of participants reported at least 1 meta-emotional experience. Meta-emotional experiences were reported about twice a week; negative-negative experiences were most frequent. Using multilevel modeling, we found that although attention to and clarity of emotion each individually positively predicted the likelihood of meta-emotional experiences, only attention to emotion explained unique variance. Higher depressive severity was associated with higher likelihood of meta-emotional experiences and specifically negative-negative experiences. Most adults experienced meta-emotions, especially during moments of high attention to emotion, and negative-negative experiences were positively associated with depressive severity. These findings are an important step forward in understanding individual and within-person differences in reactions to emotional experience. Implications for theories of emotion generation and regulation are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).