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

Recent theory has highlighted emotion dysregulation in depressive disorders. Specifically, research suggests that depression is associated with increases in negative affect and decreases in positive affect. In addition, studies indicate that depression is marked by affective flattening in response to differentially valenced stimuli. Although the exact form of emotion dysregulation in depression remains unclear, research has implicated ineffective attempts at emotional suppression in depressive disorders. This study attempted to extend findings demonstrating the maladaptive effects of suppression and the utility of acceptance found with other clinical samples to a sample with depressive disorders. Sixty participants with a diagnosis of major depressive disorder or dysthymia participated in the study, which consisted of completion of a questionnaire packet and participation in an experiment. The experiment consisted of two conditions, which utilized sad mood inductions. Condition 1 explored correlates of the spontaneous use of emotion regulation strategies. Condition 2 used an experimental manipulation to compare the effects of acceptance and suppression on the duration and intensity of emotional experience. Results demonstrated that emotional suppression, as compared to emotional acceptance, produced short-term reductions in sadness in response to the mood induction. Despite increased sadness during the mood induction, the acceptance group evidenced a steeper decline in sadness during the recovery period and ended with similar levels of sadness as the suppression group. Findings also demonstrated that fear of depressed mood moderated the relationship between experimental group and sadness intensity. More specifically, at lower levels of fear of depressed mood, suppression was effective. At mean and higher levels of fear of depressed mood, suppression failed to produce relative decreases in sadness. Overall, study findings suggest that emotional suppression may be an effective emotion regulation strategy for use in the short-term regulation of sadness for depressed individuals with lower levels of fear of depressed mood. Findings also emphasize the importance of assessing fear of depressed mood in the treatment of depressive disorders. Additionally, results suggest that emotional acceptance may be an adaptive emotion regulation strategy through its function to counteract affective flattening and facilitate the natural experience of and recovery from sadness in depressed individuals.