Interpersonal and intrapersonal emotion regulation strategies: how do they interact and influence fear of negative evaluation?

Abstract

Although emotion regulation (ER) covers both intrapersonal and interpersonal emotion regulation (IER) strategies that individuals employ to adjust their different emotional experiences, studies have mainly focused on intrapersonal aspects of ER. However, recent studies have focused on interpersonal aspects of ER and have given cue about the importance of implications of such interactions. This study sought to explore the impact of the interaction of maladaptive intrapersonal ER strategies with interpersonal ER strategies on the fear of negative evaluation. With this aim, a community sample of 299 (236 females, M = 27.02, SD = 11.97) Turkish individuals completed an online survey composed of scales assessing IER, maladaptive cognitive ER, and fear of negative evaluation. The moderation analysis showed the interactive effect of soothing and maladaptive cognitive ER on fear of negative evaluation. Specifically, utilization of soothing habitually as an IER strategy is associated with greater fear of being negatively evaluated for individuals who seldom engage in maladaptive cognitive ER strategies (e.g., rumination). The findings point out the maladaptive function of soothing as an ER strategy for the sensitivity to negative social evaluations.