Effect of Self-Monitoring Through Experience Sampling on Emotion Differentiation in Depression

People can experience a vast range of emotions and oftentimes even feel multiple emotions at the same time. As some of these emotions can be quite similar, it can sometimes be difficult to discriminate between them. The ability to make nuanced distinctions and differentiate between emotions is called emotion differentiation (e.g. Barrett et al., 2001). Emotions can influence cognitive processes, which then help to regulate and shape behaviors (Baumeister et al., 2007). Barrett and colleagues (2001) showed that participants who were better in differentiating their negative emotions more often employed adaptive emotion regulation strategies.

Source: Journal of Affective Disorders - October 6, 2018 Category: Neurology Authors: Raf L.A. Widdershoven, Marieke Wichers, Peter Kuppens, Jessica A. Hartmann, Claudia Menne-Lothmann, Claudia J.P. Simons, Jojanneke A. Bastiaansen Source Type: research