Evaluating the Construct of Emotion Differentiation: Methodological Considerations and Extension of Current Theory
Year: 2020
Type: dissertation
Abstract: Emotion differentiation is a multifaceted construct, referring to the ability to make fine-grained distinctions between emotional experiences as well as the ability to describe individual emotional experiences with a high degree of nuance and specificity. Studies to date have demonstrated that emotion differentiation is associated with indices of psychological well-being, such that greater emotion differentiation performance is presumed to be adaptive. Theory posits that emotion differentiation functions as a precursor to more successful emotion regulation by providing the experiencer with more precise information to contextualize their emotional experience and respond to it more optimally, but this relationship needs further empirical support. Several other issues persist with the construct as currently operationalized, including: (1) it is unknown how the underlying construct empirically relates to similar constructs in the literature, and if it uniquely relates to psychological well-being incrementally beyond these other constructs; (2) it is unknown if emotion differentiation can be measured via self-report and do such measures correlate with performance-based approaches; and (3) emotion differentiation lacks measures in the context of individual emotional experiences, suggesting the full theoretical construct is not being captured. This research was therefore undertaken with the goal of systematically addressing each of these lingering issues. Results of Study 1 suggested that emotion differentiation is best conceptualized as an aspect of emotional complexity, separate from emotional awareness, and that it does not uniquely relate to psychological well-being after accounting for empirical overlap with awareness. Study 2 results indicated that a coding-based measure of differentiation within individual emotional experiences related to indices of psychopathology but did not relate to emotion differentiation between emotional experiences. All associations between indices of emotion differentiation and psychopathology were accounted for by mean affect intensity. In Study 3, those who were instructed to appraise their emotions with less nuance reported more emotion regulation success following one negative emotion-inducing video, and those from this group who reported high trait emotional awareness reported the greatest emotion regulation success following the other negative video. Collectively these results highlight continuing concerns with emotion differentiation theory and measurement.
Source: TSpace (University of Toronto)
Author: Gregory E. Williams
Language: English
Subfield: Social Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W3173774997