Second-Order Geometry Helps Clarify Relationships between Momentary Emotion Regulation Use and Affect
Year: 2026
Type: preprint
Abstract: Understanding how emotion regulation relates to affective experience in everyday life is a central question in affective science. Findings on momentary emotion regulation use and affect have been mixed, with studies observing a wide range of effects for any given strategy–affect pairing. One possible reason is the assumptions researchers make about the direct (first-order) relationship between momentary emotion regulation and affect when choosing a statistical model. Because many first-order forms are possible (i.e., models relating levels of strategy use to levels of affect), an incorrect choice may misrepresent the true association. We address this by testing regulatory–affect associations through second-order geometry of temporal similarity patterns: correspondences between the similarity structures of momentary strategy use and momentary affect. This novel approach is advantaged in detecting associations because it is agnostic to the underlying first-order form. We apply it within a multiverse framework across two samples: an originally collected EMA sample (N=114) covering five regulatory strategies, and a replication sample (N=843) aggregated from a public database of EMA studies. A simulation study benchmarks the approach and establishes its validity. Across both studies, we find evidence for widely-theorized relationships such as reappraisal and positive affect, and suppression and negative affect. We also find that some emotion regulation strategies with previously mixed or more limited findings such as distraction and situation selection may have non-linear or more complex first-order relationships with negative affect and stress.
Institution: Princeton University
Language: English
Subfield: Experimental and Cognitive Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7212287390