Why i don't always know what i'm feeling: The role of stress in within-person fluctuations in emotion differentiation

Abstract

Emotion differentiation, the ability to make fine-grained distinctions between emotional states, has mainly been studied as a trait. In this research, we examine within-person fluctuations in emotion differentiation and hypothesize that stress is a central factor in predicting these fluctuations. We predict that experiencing stress will result in lower levels of emotion differentiation. Using data from a 3-wave longitudinal experience sampling study, we examined the within-person fluctuations in the level of emotion differentiation across days and months and tested if these fluctuations related to changes in stress levels. On the day-level, we found that differentiation of negative emotions ..