Emotion Regulation Predicts Everyday Emotion Experience and Social Function in Schizophrenia

While recent evidence has pointed to disturbances in emotion regulation strategy use in schizophrenia, few studies have examined how these regulation strategies relate to emotionality and social behavior in daily life. Using ecological momentary assessment (EMA), we investigated the relationship between emotion regulation, emotional experience, and social interaction in the daily lives of individuals with schizophrenia. Participants (N = 30) used mobile phones to complete online questionnaires reporting their daily emotional experience and social interaction. Participants also completed self-report measures of habitual emotion regulation. Hierarchical linear modeling revealed that self-reported use of cognitive reappraisal and savoring of emotional experiences were related to greater positive emotion in daily life. In contrast, self-reported suppression was related to greater negative emotion, reduced positive emotion, and reduced social interaction in daily life. These findings suggest that individual differences in habitual emotion regulation strategy usage have important relationships to everyday emotional and social experiences in schizophrenia.