Habitual and Daily Emotion Regulation Goals and Strategies among Individuals with Low Distress Tolerance

Background: Goals determine the selected strategy in the emotion regulation process. In addition, the habitual use of some strategies is predicted by distress tolerance (DT). Here, the relationship between DT with emotion regulation goals and strategies `is assessed in two separate studies.

Design: Cross-sectional correlational (first study) and experience sampling (second study)

Method: In order to conduct the study, the students in University of Tehran (n=251) voluntarily responded to a set of global self-reports related to DT and emotion regulation goals and strategies. During the second study, the students with low DT (n=61) recorded their daily emotion regulation including goals and strategies for two weeks.

Results: A negative correlation was observed between DT with impression management (IM) and pro-social (PS) goals, as well as experiential avoidance (EA), expressive suppression (ES), and rumination (RU) strategies in global measurement. However, a significant relationship was reported between goals and strategies in the first and second studies. IM goals were related to greater use of EA, ES, and RU. In addition, pro-hedonic (PH) goals were related to greater cognitive reappraisal (CR) and less ES.

Conclusion: The DT capacity plays a critical role in people's emotion regulation goals and strategies. In addition, different strategies are predicted by different goals at the habitual and daily levels.