Developmental Psychology

© 2019 American Psychological Association 2019, Vol. 55, No. 8, 1768 –1774
0012-1649/19/$12.00 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/dev0000744

BRIEF REPORT

Emotion Regulation and Relations to Well-Being Across the Lifespan

Kalee De France and Tom Hollenstein
Queen’s University

The specific strategies that individuals use to regulate their emotions have shown strong associations with
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various indices of well-being. However, theoretical accounts suggest that strategy use, and the associ-
ations between strategy use and well-being, may change across the life span. Attempts have been made
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to assess whether levels of strategy use, and the association between strategy use and well-being, change
across development; however, studies typically do not take into account potential differences in base rates
of item endorsement across the life span. Therefore, the current study had two objectives. First, we sought
to examine whether relative ER strategy reliance, or the proportional degree to which an individual relies
on various ER strategies, varied across three developmental periods: early adolescence, young adulthood,
and adulthood. Second, we sought to identify whether the associations between relative strategy use and
well-being differed significantly across these developmental periods. Results showed that relative
reliance on distraction, rumination, relaxation, and suppression differed significantly across age groups.
Moreover, results showed that the association between relative use of reappraisal and suppression
interacted with age group to predict relationship quality. Relative strategy use and age did not interact
significantly to predict anxiety and depressive symptoms. Theoretical and practical implications are
discussed.

Keywords: emotion regulation, ER strategies, life span development, relative ER strategy reliance

Emotion regulation (ER) involves the modification of processes
involved in the generation or manifestation of emotion (Campos,
Frankel, & Camras, 2004). The specific strategies that individuals
use to regulate their emotions have strong associations with key
indices of well-being, such as interpersonal relationship quality,
anxiety, and depressive symptoms (e.g., Aldao, Nolen-Hoeksema,
& Schweizer, 2010). However, strategy use, and the associations
between strategy use and well-being, may change across develop-
mental stage (e.g., Carstensen, 1995). Attempts have been made to
assess strategy use across development, yet studies typically do not
take into account potential differences in base rates of item en-
dorsement across the life span. Therefore, it remains largely un-
clear how proportional ER strategy use, and the associations be-
tween proportional ER strategy use and well-being, compare
across the life span. The current study aimed to address this gap in
the literature by assessing how individuals rely on various strate-
gies relative to how much they use all possible strategies to
identify how individual differences in strategy use, and the asso-
ciations between strategy use and well-being, differ across the life
span.
This article was published Online First May 2, 2019.
Kalee De France and Tom Hollenstein, Department of Psychology,
Queen’s University.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Kalee De
France, Department of Psychology, Queen’s University, Humphrey Hall,
62 Arch street, Kingston, Ontario K7L 3N6, Canada. E-mail: kalee.defrance@
queensu.ca
The extent to which individuals implement various ER strate-
gies is consistently associated with well-being (Aldao, Gee, De
Los Reyes, & Seager, 2016). For example, high levels of suppres-
sion use are associated with high levels of depressive symptoms,
whereas high levels of reappraisal use are associated with low
levels of depressive symptoms (Gross & John, 2003). Although the
associations between strategy use and well-being have been quite
well established (e.g., Aldao et al., 2010), scant attention has been
paid to how these associations may manifest differentially at
different stages of development (for exceptions see Zimmermann
& Iwanski, 2014). This omission is problematic as evidence
suggests considerable differences in cognitive ability, social
and emotional goals, and physiological reactivity across the life
span (Scheibe & Carstensen, 2010), which likely influence how
strongly individuals rely on various ER strategies, as well as
how strongly ER strategy use is associated with well-being
(e.g., Carstensen, 1995).
The moderating influence of age on the association between
strategy use and well-being has been explored more thoroughly,
however, in theoretical contexts. For example, the Socioemotional
Selectivity Theory (SST; Carstensen, 1995), the Selection, Opti-
mization, and Compensation with Emotion Regulation framework
(SOC-ER; Urry & Gross, 2010) and the Strength and Vulnerability
Integration model (SAVI; Charles & Luong, 2013; Charles, 2010)
each focus on how developmental changes in emotional experi-
ences, processing, and resources may influence which ER strate-
gies individuals rely on, and the propensity to benefit from utiliz-
ing these strategies. Whereas the SST suggests that a systematic

1768
 ER AND WELL-BEING ACROSS THE LIFESPAN
shift in goals across development is responsible for a shift in the
relation between ER strategies and well-being (Carstensen &
Mikels, 2005; Carstensen, Fung, & Charles, 2003; Löckenhoff &
Carstensen, 2004), both the SOC-ER framework and the SAVI
model posit that individuals benefit from ER strategies differen-
tially because of the internal and external resources available to
them (Charles, 2010; Charles & Luong, 2013; Urry & Gross,
2010). As individuals gain or lose regulatory resources in one
domain, such as cognitive control, physiological flexibility, or
social support, they may benefit more from ER strategies that
maximize their available resources. For example, Urry and Gross
(2010) suggest that increases in levels of cognitive control into
adulthood may lead to increases in benefit gained from cognitively
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taxing strategies such as reappraisal. In conclusion, theoretical
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accounts suggest that as individuals move through various stages
of development the benefit gained from ER strategies may vary as
a result of changes in emotion-related goals and internal and
external resources.
Consistent with theoretical suppositions, nascent empirical ev-
idence does suggest that strategy use, as well as the benefit gained
from habitual implementation of various strategies, may change
throughout the life span. First, evidence suggests that strategy use
may differ across the life span; however, specific results have been
conflicting. For example, whereas several studies have found that
heightened reappraisal use was associated with older age (Folk-
man, Lazarus, Pimley, & Novacek, 1987; John & Gross, 2004;
Zimmermann & Iwanski, 2014), others found higher reappraisal
levels in younger participants (Blanchard-Fields, Jahnke, & Camp,
1995). Study results have also conflicted regarding differences in
suppression use across development, as some find that suppression
use decreased with age (John & Gross, 2004), whereas others
found no age differences in suppression use (Folkman et al., 1987).
Second, evidence also suggests that several changes in emo-
tional generation and processing across the life span may lead to
changes in the association between strategy use and well-being. In
line with theoretical accounts, evidence suggests that changes in
emotion-related processes and resources may influence the asso-
ciation between strategy use and well-being. For example, older
adults seem to receive greater benefit from strategies that intervene
early in the emotion generative process as physiological flexibility
decreases with age and increases the difficulty of downregulating
arousal once it occurs (Charles & Carstensen, 2010). This has been
noted repeatedly in studies comparing distraction use and reap-
praisal use. As distraction likely blocks emotional information
earlier in the emotion generative process than reappraisal (Shep-
pes, Brady, & Samson, 2014), a greater reliance on distraction may
assist in reducing the generation of physiological arousal in re-
sponse to emotionaly evocative events (Scheibe, Sheppes, &
Staudinger, 2015). Indeed, several studies have shown that dis-
traction use was more strongly associated with well-being among
older participants (Opitz, Rauch, Terry, & Urry, 2012; Phillips,
Henry, Hosie, & Milne, 2008; Scheibe et al., 2015).
Reported Versus Relative Strategy Use
Although empirical results show trends in line with tenets of the
developmental theories of ER strategy use and well-being, there is
a key limitation to most previous approaches: previous studies
have relied heavily on comparing raw, self-reported levels of each
1769
ER strategy use across individuals in various developmental
stages, and the associations between these reports and well-being
outcomes (e.g., John & Gross, 2004). However, utilizing raw
strategy scores does not take into account individual differences in
overall strategy reporting style (Vitaliano, Maiuro, Russo, &
Becker, 1987). Importantly, while individuals in various develop-
mental stages may differ in the extent to which they report imple-
menting a specific regulatory strategy, they likely also differ in
their overall style of ER reporting. Evidence suggests that levels of
emotional awareness, regulatory effort, and regulatory awareness
may differ across the life span (Scheibe & Carstensen, 2010),
indicating that comparing raw levels of self-report strategy use
across cohorts may fail to account for differences in how strategy
reliance is reported across the life span.
To better understand how ER strategy reliance differs across the
life span, and how strategy reliance is associated with well-being,
we can instead assess relative strategy reliance: determining the
extent to which an individual relies on a given strategy in relation
to how much they report implementing ER strategies (Folkman et
al., 1987; Scheibe et al., 2015; Vitaliano et al., 1987). This relative
score is generated by creating a proportional score for each indi-
vidual based only on their own responses, thereby avoiding
sample-specific results. This approach allows for the identification
of whether individuals rely differentially on various strategies,
while reducing the impact of extraneous variables that may inflate
or reduce overall levels of ER strategy reporting. This approach is
in line with typical practices in the coping literature (e.g., Kim,
Neuendorf, Bianco, & Evans, 2016), which examines the propor-
tion that individuals rely on various strategies, rather than their
raw, self-reported agreement with various strategy descriptions, in
an attempt to control for differences in base rates of item endorse-
ment (Connor-Smith, Compas, Wadsworth, Thomsen, & Saltz-
man, 2000). Moreover, this method is also in line with recent
approaches within the ER literature that attempt to place strategy
use within a larger context of overall regulation efforts. For ex-
ample, several recent studies have instead reported the proportion
that individuals endorse each strategy to control for systematic
patterns of responding related to the total number of items that are
endorsed, such as a tendency to overendorse or underreport items
(Connor-Smith et al., 2000; De France & Hollenstein, 2017; Mur-
phy et al., 2017; Vitaliano et al., 1987). However, the authors are
unaware of any study examining ER strategy use across develop-
mental stage that has taken relative strategy use into account.
The current study, therefore, sought to examine developmental
differences in ER strategy reliance, as well as the associations
between ER strategy reliance and well-being, by answering the
following research questions: (a) What is the relative reliance on
various ER strategies across the life span? and (b) to what extent
does the relation between strategy use and well-being differ across
developmental stages? Using a cross-sectional design, the current
study examined six core ER strategies (De France & Hollenstein,
2017) and well-being across three developmental stages: adoles-
cence, young adulthood, and middle adulthood. Well-being was
operationalized using three indices: depressive symptoms, anxiety
symptoms, and relationship quality. These three components of
well-being were chosen as they have been studied extensively
in the ER literature and tend to show consistent associations
with ER strategy use (e.g., see Aldao et al., 2010 for a meta-
analytic review).
 1770 DE FRANCE AND HOLLENSTEIN
Method
Participants
Participants included 306 individuals from three distinct stages
across the life span: adolescents (n ! 99, age range ! 12–15,
mean age ! 13.4 years, SD ! 1.05, 55% female), young adults
(n ! 103, age range ! 20 –25; mean age ! 21.8 years, SD ! 1.5,
85% female), and adults (n ! 104, age range 40 – 60, mean age !
48.1 years, SD ! 5.4, 68% female). Adolescent participants were
recruited from a large database of families within the community
maintained by the developmental psychologists at the university.
Families have been added to the database through a wide range of
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methods, including birth announcements, advertisements, posters,
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community events, and participation in previous studies. Young
adults were recruited via a university studies FaceBook page, which
advertises available research studies at the author’s University which
are currently recruiting participants. The adult sample was recruited
using Prolific, an online research portal that allows researchers to post
links to current studies. All studies were approved by the Queen’s
University Internal Review Board under the project name Emotion
Regulation and Well Being (Study Number GPSYC-817–17).
Procedure
Participants were provided with a link to a secure online survey
site, where they completed questionnaires which took approximately
25–30 min to complete. Surveys were presented in the same order to
each cohort. Seven individuals (three adolescents, four young adults)
were removed from the dataset because they completed less than 75%
of the questionnaires. Both the adolescents and young adults were
compensated with $5 for their participation in the study. The adult
sample was compensated with $4.70.
Measures
Emotion regulation strategies. The Regulation of Emotion
Systems survey (RESS; De France & Hollenstein, 2017) is a
38-item self-report measure assessing the extent to which an
individual relies on six core emotion regulation strategies to down-
regulate negative emotions in general (Distraction, Rumination,
Reappraisal, Relaxation, Engagement, Suppression). Items are
rated on a 5-point Likert scale from 1 (never) to 5 (always). Scores
for each strategy are generated by taking the mean of items
belonging to that subscale, with higher scores indicating higher
levels of use of that strategy to down-regulate negative emotions.
Subscales showed high internal consistency (on all subscales and
across cohorts, Cronbach’s alpha ! .83 to .95).
Depression. The Beck Depression Inventory, second edition
(BDI-II; Beck, Steer, & Brown, 1996) is a 21-item self-report
questionnaire assessing the extent to which someone has experi-
enced depressive symptoms in the past two weeks. Participants are
asked to choose one of four statements that best reflect the extent
to which they have experienced various symptoms of depression in
the last two weeks (e.g., 0 ! I do not feel sad; 1 ! I feel sad much
of the time; 2 ! I am sad all of the time; and 3 ! I am so sad or
unhappy that I cannot stand it). One item regarding suicidal
thoughts was excluded at the request of the institutional ethics
review board. In the current study, Depression was calculated as
the mean across all items and demonstrated high internal consis-
tency across samples (Cronbach’s alpha ! .91 to .94).
Anxiety. The Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI; Beck, Epstein,
Brown, & Steer, 1988) is a 21-item self-report inventory designed
to measure the severity of anxiety symptoms. Respondents indi-
cated on a 4-point scale (0 ! not at all; 3 ! severely) the severity
of anxiety symptoms they have experienced recently (e.g., heart
pounding, unable to relax, nervousness). Anxiety was calculated as
the mean across all items and demonstrated strong internal reli-
ability across samples (Cronbach’s alpha ! .90 to .95).
Relationship quality. The Inventory of Parent and Peer At-
tachment (IPPA; Armsden & Greenberg, 1987) is a 53-item self-
report measure assessing specific elements of an individual’s re-
lationships to index the strength of relationships with parents and
peers. Items are scored on a 5-point Likert Scale from one (almost
never or never true) to five (almost always or always true). In the
current sample, only the Peer Relationship Quality was used,
which was calculated as the mean across peer items, and demon-
strated high internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha ! .84 to .95).
Results
All variables were assessed for missing values, normality of
distributions, and outliers. No variables presented any systematic
missing data, all variables were within normal ranges of skewness
and kurtosis, and no individual scores were identified as outliers.
Table 1 shows the intercorrelations among all variables, their raw
means with confidence intervals, SDs, and minimum and maxi-
mum values.
Relative Strategy Reliance
To answer our first research question, what are the differences
in relative reliance on various ER strategies across developmental
cohorts, a new variable was generated for each participant: average
strategy use. This variable was calculated as the mean of all RESS
items and reflected the average amount that an individual reported
using ER strategies in general. An ANOVA was run comparing
average strategy use scores across the three cohorts to assess
whether the cohorts differed in overall strategy reporting. Results
indicated that cohorts differed significantly on how much they
implemented ER strategies in general, F(2) ! 28.98, p " .001.
Strategy use seemed to increase across the life span, as the Adult
cohort (M ! 16.51) and the Young Adult cohort (M ! 15.63)
reported significantly higher ER strategy use than the youngest
cohort (M ! 13.30), and the Adult cohort reported significantly
higher use than the Young Adults.
To control for these significant differences in overall ER strat-
egy reporting, we then created six new scores for each participant,
one for each strategy, reflecting how much their reliance on each
ER strategy deviated from their own personal mean reporting of all
six ER strategies. These new scores were calculated by subtracting
each subscale score from the new average strategy use variable. As
a result, the proportional scores were calculated within individual,
and were therefore not influenced by reporting trends in the cohort
or larger sample. Higher relative use scores reflected a higher
reliance, whereas lower scores reflected a lower reliance, on that
strategy in comparison with the individual’s own strategy use
reporting. Relative use scores were checked for normality of
 ER AND WELL-BEING ACROSS THE LIFESPAN 1771

Table 1
Correlations, Mean Values, Confidence Intervals, SDs, and Minimum and Maximum Values for All Study Variables

Variable 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

1. Anxiety 1.00
2. Depression .53!! 1.00
3. Relationship quality .50!! .30!! 1.00
4. Distraction .15!! .08 .05 1.00
5. Reappraisal .13! #.04 .17!! .42!! 1.00
6. Rumination .45!! .38!! .27!! .11! .22!! 1.00
7. Relaxation .23!! .07 .00 .38!! .38!! .15!! 1.00
8. Suppression .16!! .25!! .17!! .39!! .21!! .31!! .23!! 1.00
9. Engagement .29!! .07 .16!! .07 .18!! .25!! .13! #.35 1.00
Mean .65 .59 2.53 2.65 2.30 3.12 2.07 2.71 2.38
Standard deviation .61 .52 .83 .96 .93 1.01 .96 .99 .85
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Minimum score .00 .00 1.12 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00
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Maximum score 3.00 2.40 4.52 5.00 5.00 5.00 4.75 5.00 5.00
95% CI Upper .72 .65 2.62 2.76 2.41 3.24 2.19 2.81 2.47
Lower .59 .53 2.44 2.53 2.19 3.01 1.96 2.60 2.28
Note. CI ! confidence interval.
!
p " .05. !! p " .01.

distributions. Each score was normally distributed with acceptable
levels of skewness and kurtosis. Figure 1 shows the average
relative reliance of each ER strategy, broken down by cohort.
Six univariate ANOVAs were run to compare the levels of
relative strategy reliance across cohorts. Each ANOVA was fol-
lowed by a Simple contrast, comparing the youngest cohort to the
middle and oldest cohorts separately. Significant differences were
found between cohorts for relative reliance on Distraction, Rumi-
nation, Relaxation, and Suppression (see Table 2). Contrast results
showed that Adolescents reported significantly higher relative
reliance on Distraction and Relaxation, and significantly lower
relative reliance on Rumination, compared with Young Adults.
Compared with Adults, Adolescents reported significantly higher
relative reliance on Relaxation and Suppression, and significantly
less relative reliance on Rumination.
Associations With Well-Being
To test our second research question, whether the association
between strategy use and well-being varied across developmental
stage, we ran a series of MANCOVAs. Each MANCOVA was run
with two predictors: relative reliance on one ER strategy and cohort.
Depression, Anxiety, and Relationship Quality were included as de-
pendent variables. This analytical approach allows for the testing of
interactions between cohort and strategy use to predict indices of
well-being. As we were not interested in examining the linear com-
bination of these well-being indices, only the univariate effects were
interpreted. To control for family wise error levels, only findings with
p values smaller than .01 were interpreted. Significant interactions
between cohort and ER strategy were followed by a Pearson’s cor-
relation between the well-being measure and relative ER strategy use
separately for each cohort, to illustrate how the association between
well-being and strategy use differed across cohort. See Table 3 and
Figure 2 for a summary of results.
Significant interactions between cohort and strategy use were
found only for Reappraisal and Suppression, and only in the
prediction of Relationship Quality. Although relative Reappraisal
use was positively associated with Relationship Quality for adults,
the association was nonsignificant for early adolescents and young

0.25

0.2
Porportional Reliance

0.15

0.1

0.05

0
Early Adolescent Young Adult Adult
Distraction Reappraisal Rumination Relaxation Suppression Engagement

Figure 1. Relative strategy reliance scores for each strategy across three age groups. Relative strategy reliance
was calculated as the average strategy score divided by the sum of all strategy scores.
 1772 DE FRANCE AND HOLLENSTEIN

Table 2
Differences in Relative Reliance on ER Strategies Across Cohort

Contrast mean differences

Strategy 1. Adolescence 2. Young adult 3. Adult F 1 versus 2 1 versus 3

Distraction .18 .17 .17 2.93! .02! .01

Reappraisal .14 .15 .15 2.03 #.01 #.01
Rumination .19 .22 .21 7.95!!! #.03!! #.03!!
Relaxation .15 .13 .13 5.78!! .02!! .02!!
Suppression .19 .18 .17 4.12! .01 .02!!
Engagement .16 .15 .17 1.84 .01 #.01
Note. 1 ! adolescence, 2 ! young adult, 3 ! adult.
!
p " .05. !! p " .01. !!! p " .001.
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adults. Moreover, relative Suppression use was positively associ-
ated with Relationship Quality for the early adolescent and young
adult groups, but negatively associated for the adult group.
Discussion
The current study had two main objectives. First, we aimed to
assess differences across developmental stage in ER strategy reli-
ance. Results indicated that, compared with young adults, adoles-
cents relied less heavily on rumination, and more heavily on
distraction and relaxation, to regulate their emotions. Compared
with adults, adolescents relied less heavily on rumination, and
more heavily on relaxation and suppression. The results of the
current study are consistent with previous studies that found that
suppression use decreased across the life span (John & Gross,
2004). However, the current results also present some conflicting
results. For example, Sütterlin, Paap, Babic, Kübler, and Vögele
(2012) found no significant differences in rumination use across
individuals who were between 15 and 60 years old. Moreover,
John and Gross (2004) and Folkman et al. (1987) found that
reappraisal increased across the life span, while the current study
found no significant differences in relative reappraisal use across
developmental stage. These discrepancies could stem from several
study design differences, such as the assessment of relative reli-
ance on ER strategies rather than raw ER strategy scores, the use
of differing ER strategy conceptualizations and measurement
tools, and the sampling of different age ranges.
The second aim of the current study was to identify whether the
association between ER strategy use and well-being was moder-
ated by developmental stage. Results showed that developmental
stage and strategy use interacted to predict well-being, however,
only in the case of relative reappraisal and suppression use pre-
dicting relationship quality. Relative reappraisal use was positively
associated with relationship quality, but only in the oldest cohort.
There are two possible explanations for this finding. First, engag-
ing in reappraisal to regulate emotions is a cognitively taxing
process, and individuals with higher levels of executive function-
ing tend to show higher rates of reappraisal use (Lantrip, Isquith,
Koven, Welsh, & Roth, 2016). Because executive functioning
tends to improve into adulthood (Zelazo, Craik, & Booth, 2004), it
is possible that the adults in our study were able to implement

Table 3
Univariate Results of Relative ER Strategy Use, Cohort, and Their Interaction to Predict Well-Being

Anxiety Depression Relationship quality

2 2
Strategy Predictors F $ F $ F $2

Distraction Distraction 4.95 .02 .62 ".01 6.38!! .02

Cohort 17.13!!! .10 1.57 .01 10.73!!! .07
Distraction % Cohort 3.46 .02 1.75 .01 1.21 ".01
Reappraisal Reappraisal 12.96!!! .04 19.26!!! .06 .02 ".01
Cohort 13.04!!! .08 1.81 .01 1.13 ".01
Reappraisal % Cohort 1.14 .01 .35 ".01 5.01!! .03
Rumination Rumination 12.64!!! .04 18.20!!! .06 9.56!! .03
Cohort 2.56 .02 .41 ".01 19.99!!! .12
Rumination % Cohort .81 ".01 .01 ".01 3.44 .02
Relaxation Relaxation 7.31!! .02 .01 ".01 3.33 .03
Cohort 5.00!! .03 1.77 .01 7.79!!! .05
Relaxation % Cohort 3.47 .02 .65 ".01 .70 .01
Suppression Suppression .10 ".01 6.61!! .02 6.80!! .02
Cohort 16.21!!! .10 2.59 .02 34.61!!! .19
Suppression % Cohort 2.21 .02 .62 ".01 8.04!!! .05
Engagement Engagement .78 ".01 4.24 .01 .44 ".01
Cohort 4.64!! .03 1.24 .01 2.36 .02
Engagement % Cohort 1.89 .01 .05 ".01 3.75 .03
!!
p " .01. !!!
p " .001.
 ER AND WELL-BEING ACROSS THE LIFESPAN
0.4
* *
0.3
0.2
Correlation Value
0.1
0
-0.1
-0.2
-0.3
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Reappraisal & Relationship Quality Suppression & Relationship Quality
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
Early Adolescent Young Adult
Figure 2. Zero-order correlation values assessing the relation between
relative strategy use and well-being indices. ! Significant correlation, p "
.05.
reappraisal with greater effectiveness when managing interper-
sonal conflict than the younger cohorts. Second, reappraisal is less
effective and more difficult to implement when used on high
intensity emotions (Sheppes, Catran, & Meiran, 2009). Older
individuals report experiencing lower levels of intense emotions,
particularly in interpersonal conflict (Birditt, Fingerman, & Almeida,
2005). Therefore, it is possible that older individuals are able to
implement reappraisal with more ease when managing interpersonal
problems, and thereby can more easily utilize practices indicative of
reappraisal, such as seeing other perspectives, when experiencing
interpersonal conflict.
Suppression use, alternatively, was positively associated with
relationship quality in the adolescent and young adult cohorts, and
was negatively associated in the adult cohort. The differential
association may be a result of the types of relationships that typify
these developmental cohorts. Older adults tend to report more
consistent relationships and a more discerning relationship style,
whereas social network size and social contact both shrink with
age (Berscheid & Regan, 2016; Wright & Patterson, 2006). There-
fore, the style and nature of friendships across early adolescents to
adults may be distinct. Moreover, although suppression use is
typically associated with disrupting communication and reducing
interpretations of authenticity (Butler et al., 2003), many of the
studies asserting that suppression use has negative implications on
relationship quality have used unacquainted pairs of individuals
(e.g., Butler et al., 2003; Gross & John, 2003). When studies ask
individuals to report on their relationship quality with preexisting
peers, findings are more in line with the current study. For exam-
ple, De France and Hollenstein (2017) found that late adolescents
and young adults with high reliance on suppression showed height-
ened levels of self-reported relationship quality when compared
with individuals with average levels of ER strategy use. While
suppression use may make it difficult to develop rapport and form
new relationships (Butler et al., 2003), suppressing negative emo-
tions among preexisting peers may function as an adaptive way to
prioritize goals of affiliation, as individuals choose to not express
their negative emotions to maintain positive relationship quality
(Butler & Gross, 2004).
1773
Limitations and Future Directions
*
The current study was not without limitations. First, for the
middle and oldest cohorts, recruitment and data collection took
place purely online, which limited the type of sample that could
access the study. Second, common method bias is a concern as the
study relied solely on self-report measures. Future studies would
benefit from utilizing alternative assessment techniques, such as
semistructured interviews or multiinformant methods, to assess
ER, depression, anxiety, and relationship quality. Third, the cur-
rent study relied solely on a community sample, and therefore did
not assess associations between ER and clinical levels of depres-
sion, anxiety, or relationship problems. Fourth, the current study
*
used a cross-sectional design, selecting representative cohorts
across the life span. Studies implementing a more continuous
Adult
sampling across the life span, or ideally a longitudinal methodol-
ogy, will be better able to answer the questions posed by the
current study in a more detailed manner. Finally, the current study
did not assess the impacts of strategy reliance in relation to the
specific emotion being regulated. Because the association between
strategy use and well-being may depend on the specific emotion
being regulated (Zimmermann & Iwanski, 2014), future studies
should focus on how the results of the current study extend when
examining emotion-specific regulation.
Conclusion
Overall, the current study showed that levels of reliance on
various ER strategies do tend to differ across the life span, and that
specific strategies, such as reappraisal and suppression, may have
differential effects on well-being depending on the developmental
stage of the individual employing them. These findings are impor-
tant for researchers and clinicians alike, as they provide evidence
against the uniform efficacy of ER strategy use and should inform
our assumptions regarding the perceived benefits or harm of var-
ious ER strategies. These results also contribute to mounting
evidence suggesting that strategy use should be placed in a larger
context of individual strategy reporting by assessing relative,
rather than raw, strategy reliance. Moreover, these results empha-
size the considerable benefits that could be gained by shifting
attention toward individual factors that may account for variations
in the associations between ER strategy use and well-being.
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Received November 2, 2018
Revision received February 16, 2019
Accepted March 20, 2019 !