Emotion Differentiation in Adolescents: Short-term Trade-offs with Regulation Variability and Emotion Intensity

Abstract

Emotion differentiation—distinctively labeling emotions—is theorized to guide adolescents in regulating emotions amid changing daily life situations. Momentary fluctuations in emotion differentiation are expected to introduce variability in using emotion regulation strategies, leading to sequential emotion intensity changes. Using five experience sampling datasets (N = 750, aged 11–25, 59.17% female, 25,834 observations) that repeatedly assess emotion differentiation and emotion regulation variability, we examined their interaction and impact on emotion intensity. Surprisingly, moments of heightened emotion differentiation were followed by more stable use of regulation strategies (lower vari..