Changing Interpretation or Managing Reactions? The Impact of Trait Affect and Executive Functioning on Emotion Regulation Strategies of Cognitive Reappraisal and Expressive Suppression: The Moderating Role of Social Support

Abstract

Emotion regulation is explored as one of the factors that could contribute to a healthier society during the ongoing worldwide mental health crisis. The trait-consistent affect regulation hypothesis (Hemenover & Harbke, 2020; Mathes, 2023) states that individuals strive to attain affective states that match their trait affect. The current study investigated the ways trait affect and executive functioning predict the emotion regulation strategies of cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression. Executive functioning was proposed to mediate the link between trait affect and emotion regulation strategies. Social support was hypothesized to moderate the relationship between executive functioning and cognitive reappraisal as well as executive functioning and expressive suppression. The hypotheses fit into the framework of the broaden-and-build theory (Fredrickson,1998), which states that positive emotions broaden one’s thought-action repertoire which leads to the emergence of (emotional) resources. 215 adult Polish-speaking participants (M=39.5; SD=12.9) took part in an online survey. The results indicated a significant link between trait affect and executive functioning (a=0.261, p<.001), as well as trait affect and cognitive reappraisal (c’=0.242, p<0.001). The relationships between trait affect and expressive suppression (b=0.040, p>0.05), executive functioning and cognitive reappraisal (b=-0.081, p>0.05), executive functioning and expressive suppression (b=0.040, p>0.05) were not statistically significant. The moderation effect was non-significant (-0.005, p>0.05 for cognitive reappraisal and 0.005, p>0.05 for expressive suppression). Standardizing the variables indicated that social support could have a main effect on both emotion regulation strategies. The implications include examining the role of specific executive functions in emotion regulation and more attention paid to social support in clinical settings. Keywords: trait affect, emotion regulation, executive functioning, social support