Integrating personality, daily life events and emotion: Role of anxiety and positive affect in emotion regulation dynamics

We investigated the roles of anxiety and positive affect in emotion regulation, looking simultaneously at personality, daily life events, and affects. We hypothesized that individual differences in the temporal dynamics of affective experience related to trait anxiety would manifest themselves both in affective responsiveness to life events and in homeostatic regulatory forces. Data were collected from 49 adults, who rated their affective state three times a day over a 40-day period. Data were analyzed using a dynamical system model and graphical representations in the form of vector fields. Results showed that anxiety chiefly interacted with home base (attractor) positions as a function of life events. It also influenced the shape of positive affectivity trajectories in response to negative events.

► Anxiety, positive and negative affects and life events are studied within a dynamic model.
► Trait anxiety and life events interact at the individual mean level of affect.
► Trait anxiety influences the intensity of the coupling effect between PA and NA.
► Positive affects seem to curb increase of negative affect after a negative event especially for low anxiety subjects.