Emotion Regulation Strategy Use and Success During Adolescence: Assessing the Role of Context

This study evaluated the role of situational factors in emotion regulation (ER) strategy choice and perceived ER success within a sample of adolescents (n = 178, Mage  = 13.93, 42.2% female). Experience-sampling results showed that emotion type and intensity, but not situational control, were associated with strategy use. Instances of anxiety and situational control were associated with higher levels of ER success, while intensity was associated with lower levels of ER success. Finally, situational factors moderated the reappraisal-success and engagement-success associations. These results provide the first assessment of multiple contextual factors on strategy selection and regulatory success during naturalistic emotional evocations and suggest that context is influential for strategy selection, regulatory success, as well as associations between these two highly researched elements of ER.