Predicting short-term positive affect in individuals with social anxiety disorder: The role of selected personality traits and emotion regulation strategies

• Tested personality trait and emotion regulation predictors of state positive affect.
• Difficulty redirecting oneself when upset significantly predicted positive affect.
• Need further research on the dynamics of positive affect in highly socially anxious.

Recently, research has provided support for a moderate, inverse relationship between social anxiety and dispositional positive affect. However, the dynamics of this relationship remain poorly understood. The present study evaluates whether certain personality traits and emotion regulation variables predict short-term positive affect for individuals with social anxiety disorder and healthy controls. Positive affect as measured by two self-report instruments was assessed before and after two tasks in which the participant conversed with either a friend or a romantic partner. Tests of models examining the hypothesized prospective predictors revealed that the paths did not differ significantly across diagnostic group and both groups showed the hypothesized patterns of endorsement for the emotion regulation variables. Further, a variable reflecting difficulty redirecting oneself when distressed prospectively predicted one measure of positive affect. Additional research is needed to explore further the role of emotion regulation strategies on positive emotions for individuals higher in social anxiety.