An investigation of the relationship between positive affect regulation and depression
Highlights
► Depressive symptoms are associated with difficulties in adaptively regulating positive emotion. ► Anhedonia is uniquely related to reduced attempts to amplify positive emotion. ► Unlike non-depressed individuals, depressed individuals dampen positive emotion. ► Targeting positive emotion and anhedonia may improve treatment for depression.
Section snippets
Study 1
Study 1 examined the relationship between scores on the MASQ-S measure and the strategies used to regulate positive emotion in a sample of undergraduate students. We hypothesised that all three MASQ-S factors (i.e., general distress, anhedonic depression and anxious arousal) would be associated with apprehension towards experiencing intense emotion and in particular, positive affect. Second, we expected that attempts to dampen the intensity of positive emotion would be related to these symptom
Participants
One-hundred and twelve undergraduate students from The University of New South Wales participated in this study in return for course credit.
Materials and measures
Mood and Anxiety Symptom Questionnaire – Short Form (MASQ-S; Watson & Clark, 1991). The MASQ-S is a 62-item self-report questionnaire that assesses symptoms of anxiety and depressive disorders. The MASQ-S is divided into three dimensions: general distress (common to anxiety and depression; maximum score = 110), anxious arousal (specific to anxiety; maximum
Sample characteristics
The mean of age of participants was 19.14 (SD = 2.17), and the sample was comprised of 69 females (i.e., 62%). Descriptive information is presented in Table 1. There was a broad range of mood and anxiety symptoms, and these symptom levels were comparable to those reported in previous studies (e.g., Dunn et al., 2010), indicating that range restriction is unlikely to confound our analyses.
Mood/anxiety symptoms and apprehension
To investigate the relationship between symptoms and apprehension about the experience of intense emotion, a
Discussion
Supporting our first hypothesis, all three subscales of the MASQ were related to apprehension about intense emotion experience in general, and positive emotion experience specifically. Consistent with our second prediction, all of the MASQ subscales were positively associated with reported attempts to dampen positive affect, while anxious arousal and general distress were unrelated to the self-focus and emotion-focus strategies that amplify positive affect. Partially supporting our third
Study 2
The aim of Study 2 was to compare the relationship between apprehension towards and responses to PA in a recovered depressed and never-depressed sample, using a between-groups design. Informed by evidence that individuals with a history of depression have a tendency to use maladaptive emotion regulation strategies even in remission (Ehring et al., 2008, 2010), we predicted that the positive emotion regulation deficits found in relation to dysphoric symptoms in Study 1 would also be observed in
Participants
Participants were 151 undergraduate students at The University of New South Wales who participated in the study in return for course credit. To determine depression status and history, participants were administered the Mood Module of the Structured Clinical Interview for the DSM-IV Axis I Disorders (First, Spitzer, Gibbons, & Williams, 1996). Any participant who endorsed the mania screening question was not invited to take part in the study, thereby ruling out individuals with bipolar spectrum
Sample characteristics
Descriptive information is presented in Table 3. There were no differences between the recovered depressed and never-depressed group according to gender, age, ethnicity or depressive symptoms (all ps > .05).
Group analyses
A series of analyses of variance (ANOVAs) were conducted to compare the groups on the ACS and the RPA. The formerly depressed group scored more highly than did never-depressed individuals on the ACS for general apprehension about experiencing intense emotion, F (1, 121) = 12.40, p < .01, η2
Discussion
The primary goal of Study 2 was to examine whether having a history of depression is related to apprehension about experiencing intense and positive emotion, as well as the regulation of PA. Individuals who had recovered from depression were more apprehensive about experiencing intense emotion, but not specifically positive feelings, than their never-depressed counterparts, and also reported a greater propensity to dampen positive emotional experience. There were no group differences on the two
Study 3
The goal of Study 3 was to replicate and extend Studies 1 and 2 by examining positive emotion regulation in a community sample of depressed, recovered depressed and never-depressed individuals. We hypothesised that the recovered depressed group would report greater attempts to dampen positive emotion than never-depressed individuals, and that the currently depressed group would report greater attempts to dampen PA than both of the other two groups. Reflecting our logic in Study 1, based on
Participants
Participants were 50 community volunteers recruited from the MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Participant Panel in Cambridge, UK. To determine depression status and history, participants were administered the Mood Module of the SCID-IV to screen for the presence of past and current MDE (First et al., 1996).
Materials and measures
Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV – Mood Module (SCID-IV; First et al., 1996). The SCID-IV was used exactly as described in Study 2. Participants were included in the current MDE group
Sample characteristics
Demographic and descriptive information is presented in Table 5. Analyses indicated that groups were comparable in terms of age, gender and ethnicity (all ps > .05). As expected, group differences emerged on both depression measures (i.e., the BDI-II and MASQ-S). For depressive symptoms (as measured by the BDI-II) there was an overall effect of group, F (2, 47) = 53.05, p < .001, η2 = .40, and post-hoc comparisons indicated that depressed individuals reported more depressive symptoms than
Discussion
Study 3 explored positive emotion regulation strategies in currently depressed, formerly depressed, and never-depressed individuals. Consistent with findings of Study 2, the groups did not differ in their attempts to intensify their experience of PA. In line with hypotheses, depressed individuals reported greater attempts to dampen PA than never-depressed individuals. Contrary to predictions and the findings of Study 2, the recovered depressed group did not differ statistically from either the
General discussion
The aim of this series of studies was to investigate the relationship between depression and the use of regulatory tendencies in response to positive emotion. Our findings extend the existing literature in this area in some important ways. First, in order to examine PA more broadly than had been done previously, we assessed apprehension about experiencing intense emotion and PA, in addition to attempts to dampen or amplify positive emotion. Second, we explored whether the relationships observed
Acknowledgements
This study was supported by an Australian Postgraduate Award to Aliza Werner-Seidler, and also received some support from an Australian Research Council Discovery Grant (DP0984791) awarded to Michelle Moulds. Michelle Moulds is supported by an Australian Research Fellowship from the Australian ARC Council. Barnaby Dunn's involvement was supported by the UK Medical Research Council (U1055.02.002.00001.01). The idea for this study came from a working visit of Barnaby Dunn to Sydney, Australia,
References (41)
- et al.
Emotion-regulation strategies across psychopahtology: a meta-analytic review
Clinical Psychology Review
(2010) - et al.
Effects of suppression and acceptance on emotional responses of individuals with anxiety and mood disorders
Behaviour Research and Therapy
(2006) - et al.
A reduction in positive self-judgement bias is uniquely related to the anhedonic symptoms of depression
Behaviour Research and Therapy
(2009) - et al.
Can you feel the beat? Interoceptive awareness is an interactive function of anxiety- and depression-specific symptom dimensions
Behaviour Research and Therapy
(2010) - et al.
Characteristics of emotion regulation in recovered depressed versus never depressed individuals
Personality and Individual Differences
(2008) - et al.
Relationships between cognitive emotion regulation strategies and depressive symptoms: a comparative study of five specific samples
Personality and Individual Differences
(2006) - et al.
Psychological flexibility as a fundamental aspect of health
Clinical Psychological Review
(2010) - et al.
How does mindfulness-based cognitive therapy work?
Behaviour Research and Therapy
(2010) - et al.
Emotion regulation in unipolar depression: the effects of acceptance and suppression of subjective emotional experience on the intensity and duration of sadness and negative affect
Behaviour Research and Therapy
(2008) - et al.
Reconsidering anhedonia in depression: lessons from translational neuroscience
Neuroscience and Biobehavioural Reviews
(2011)
Are emotions frightening? An extension of the fear of fear construct
Behaviour Research and Therapy
The absence of positive psychological (eudemonic) well-being as a risk factor for depression: a ten year cohort study
Journal of Affective Disorders
Positive clinical psychology: a new vision for integrated research and practice
Clinical Psychology Review
Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders
Cognitive therapy of depression
Manual for the Beck Depression Inventory-II
Tripartite model of anxiety and depression: psychometric evidence and taxonomic implications
Journal of Abnormal Psychology
Temperament, personality, and the mood and anxiety disorders
Journal of Abnormal Psychology
Helping depressed clients reconnect to positive emotion experience: current insights and future directions
Clinical Psychology & Psychotherapy
Emotion regulation and vulnerability to depression: spontaneous versus instructed use of emotion suppression and reappraisal
Emotion
Cited by (157)
Aberrant positive affect dynamics in individuals with subthreshold depression: Evidence from laboratory and real-world assessments
2024, International Journal of Clinical and Health PsychologyMomentary impulsivity interferes with emotion regulation strategy prioritization in everyday life in remitted depression
2024, Behaviour Research and TherapyFear of happiness and its predictive effect on depressive symptoms in depressed inpatients versus healthy controls
2023, Journal of Affective Disorders ReportsArt-based emotion regulation in major depression: Framework for intervention
2023, Arts in Psychotherapy