Fear of Emotion and Antecedent Emotion Regulation

Previous research has shown fear of emotion, a sense that emotions are threatening and may result in a loss of control, is associated with experiential and cognitive avoidance. Additionally, it has been hypothesized to contribute to the development and maintenance of different psychopathologies. The current study examined the relationship between fear of emotion and antecedent emotion regulation. The study examined if participants higher in fear of emotion chose to recall and write about less intense angry and sad life events and additionally wrote about these events using a lower percentage of negative emotion words compared to participants lower in fear of emotion. Moreover, the study examined if these predicted relationships were moderated by whether participants wrote about their emotional events in private or were alerted that the research administrator would interview them about their events after they had finished writing. The study involved university students (N = 126). Results revealed, contrary to the hypothesis, participants higher in fear of emotion chose more intense angry events to write about. Additionally, fear of emotion had no relationship with intensity of sad events, and condition did not moderate the relationship between fear of emotion and event intensity for either sad or angry events. Results also showed fear of emotion did not predict percentage of negative emotion words for either sad or angry narratives. However, there was a three-way interaction, such that condition moderated the relationship between fear of emotion and percentage of negative emotion words for angry events in the hypothesized direction only for the assistant administrator’s participants.