Emotion

Adult Attachment and Interpersonal Emotion Regulation Motives in Daily

Life
Tabea Springstein, Kyra K. Hamerling-Potts, Isidro Landa, and Tammy English
Online First Publication, September 15, 2022. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/emo0001169

CITATION
Springstein, T., Hamerling-Potts, K. K., Landa, I., & English, T. (2022, September 15). Adult Attachment and Interpersonal
Emotion Regulation Motives in Daily Life. Emotion. Advance online publication. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/emo0001169
 Emotion
© 2022 American Psychological Association
ISSN: 1528-3542 https://doi.org/10.1037/emo0001169

Adult Attachment and Interpersonal Emotion Regulation Motives in

Daily Life

Tabea Springstein, Kyra K. Hamerling-Potts, Isidro Landa, and Tammy English

Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Washington University in St. Louis

Interpersonal goals and adult attachment have implications for how people interact with others as well
as for emotion experience and regulation. Literature on intrapersonal emotional processes has typically
not examined motivations underlying people’s engagement with others’ emotions and its connections to
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.

individual differences related to close relationships such as attachment. This study analyzed the relation-
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.

ships between interpersonal emotion regulation motives, perceived social interaction outcomes, and
attachment. Undergraduates (N = 211) reported their trait attachment. Experience sampling was used to
examine the reasons why they wanted to regulate others’ emotions during daily interactions and per-
ceived changes in their own well-being and relationship quality with the target of regulation.
Attachment anxiety was associated with more self-focused prohedonic motives and impression manage-
ment motives, while attachment avoidance predicted less perceived increases in emotional and relational
well-being after interactions. People who tended to report more (self- and other-focused) prohedonic
and less impression management motives in daily life perceived more positive changes in their emo-
tional well-being and people who tended to report higher emotional similarity motives perceived more
positive changes in their relational well-being after interactions People also perceived more positive
emotional and relational interaction outcomes at times when they held more (self- and other-focused)
prohedonic, impression management, or relationship maintenance motives and less self-focused per-
formance and relationship distancing motives. Overall, these findings suggest that attachment anxiety
may guide why people engage with other people’s emotions and these extrinsic interpersonal emotion
regulation motives may play a role in socioemotional outcomes of daily interactions.

Keywords: emotion regulation, emotion, attachment, relationships, experience sampling

Supplemental materials: https://doi.org/10.1037/emo0001169.supp

In our daily interactions, especially with those close to us, we often
attempt to regulate the emotions of others (Tamminen et al., 2019).
Emotion regulation broadly refers to the process of managing the
expression and experience of emotion. Regulating another person’s
emotions could be as simple as cheering them up or attempting to min-
imize the intensity of their feelings. These attempts are fueled by the
motivation to set and achieve contextually relevant goals. We might
want to minimize the intensity of a person’s emotions because we
would like to avoid feeling stressed ourselves, or we might try to regu-
late their emotions in order to increase closeness in the relationship.
That is, interpersonal emotion regulation has underlying motives, just
like intrapersonal emotion regulation (Nozaki & Mikolajczak, 2020).
Interpersonal emotion regulation encompasses both attempts to
regulate one’s own emotions with the help of others (i.e., intrinsic
interpersonal emotion regulation) and attempts to regulate others’
emotions (i.e., extrinsic interpersonal emotion regulation; Zaki & Wil-
liams, 2013). We focus on motivations underlying extrinsic interper-
sonal emotion regulation to get a better sense of why one regulates
the emotions of another person. Theses motivations can vary between
and within individuals. Between individuals, one possible individual

Preliminary results were presented at 2021 Annual Conference of the

Editor’s Note. Elise K Kalokerinos served as the action editor for this Society for Affective Science and the Washington University in St. Louis
article.—PRP Spring 2021 Undergraduate Research Symposium. The study presented in this
article was designed for Kyra K. Hamerling-Potts’s honors thesis.
Tabea Springstein https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4712-6543 The study’s design and parts of the analyses were preregistered on the
Kyra K. Hamerling-Potts https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0156-1817 Open Science Framework (OSF) and are available at https://osf.io/2nxv9.
Isidro Landa https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3139-6023 Materials and data reported in this article are available on the OSF (https://
Tammy English https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6666-4780 osf.io/2ms9w/).
Kyra K. Hamerling-Potts is now at the Mental Illness Research, Education Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Tammy
and Clinical Centers, James J. Peters Veterans Affairs Medical Center, The English, Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Washington
Bronx, New York, United States. Isidro Landa is now at the Department of University in St. Louis, 1 Brookings Drive, St. Louis, MO 63130, United
Psychology, University of Michigan. States. Email: tenglish@wustl.edu

1
 2 SPRINGSTEIN, HAMERLING-POTTS, LANDA, AND ENGLISH
difference that could explain motivations behind regulatory behaviors
is attachment. Attachment first emerges through interactions with
close others during infancy (Ainsworth & Bowlby, 1991). Attachment
has bearing on our habits when interacting with others and on what
we wish to achieve from our social relationships, so attachment
likely guides the motives that adults use to influence another per-
son’s emotions and subsequent interpersonal emotion regulation
outcomes (e.g., relational, emotional well-being). Although peo-
ple may generally report relying more on certain motives, their
motives can also vary across contexts (i.e., certain situations
may activate a given motive more than others, such as wanting
to make a good impression when meeting someone new). These
intraindividual fluctuations in motives can also impact socioemo-
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
tional outcomes.
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
The present study aims to examine the role of adult attachment
in preferences for interpersonal emotion regulation motives and in
perceived social interaction outcomes with romantic and nonro-
mantic partners during daily life. Perceived changes in relationship
closeness and emotional well-being of the regulator were used as
indicators of interpersonal emotion regulation outcomes because
they are often superordinate goals of interpersonal emotion regula-
tion and influence long-term well-being (Saphire-Bernstein &
Taylor, 2013; Tamir, 2016).
Motivated Interpersonal Emotion Regulation
Emotion regulation is a motivated process, as regulatory behav-
iors occur in the context of pursuing hedonic or instrumental
motives (Gross, 2015; Tamir, 2009). Emotion regulation motives
are defined as the superordinate motives behind the emotions peo-
ple would like to feel when they regulate their emotions (e.g.,
more excited, less sad; Tamir, 2016). People regulate their emo-
tions to reach certain emotional states because of how these emo-
tions make them feel (i.e., hedonic motives), like wanting to feel
happier, or because of what emotions can do for them (i.e., instru-
mental motives), such as wanting to maintain anger to perform
well in a competition (Mauss & Tamir, 2014). While instrumental
motives often reflect goals related to performance (Kalokerinos
et al., 2017), they are also commonly socially-oriented, such as
trying to change a relationship or someone’s opinion of you (Eng-
lish et al., 2017). Individuals differ in the extent to which they
want to influence their own emotions for social reasons, including
for the sake of others’ well-being or to be perceived favorably by
others (Eldesouky & English, 2019).
While individuals generally prefer support that makes them feel
validated over support that helps them problem-solve (Liu et al.,
2021), the motives of interpersonal emotion regulation that are pre-
ferred by targets of regulation depends on the emotional and situa-
tional context (Pauw et al., 2019). In addition, how and why people
regulate the emotions of others (e.g., to improve or worsen another
person’s affect) varies across different relationships (Niven et al.,
2012). As with intrapersonal emotion regulation, there are several
types of interpersonal emotion regulation motives that underlie the
strategies that might be used depending on the relationship or con-
text. We focus on hedonic motives (prohedonic, contrahedonic) and
the most common instrumental motives, social and performance.
Given that social motives are theoretically most relevant for
interpersonal emotion regulation, we examined four subtypes in this
area: impression management, relationship maintenance, relation-
ship distancing, and emotional similarity.
The hedonic motives underlying interpersonal emotion regula-
tion could be about the regulator’s own emotions (self-focused;
i.e., making themselves feel better or worse) or someone else’s
emotions (other-focused; i.e., making someone else feel better or
worse; Niven et al., 2012). Individuals are often motivated to
engage in supporting others based on a desire to influence their
own emotions. For example, people may try to alleviate their per-
sonal distress by assisting a friend going through a difficult event
(Eisenberg et al., 1989). Although less common, people can also
be motivated to increase negative (e.g., anger) or decrease positive
emotion (e.g., happiness) in an interaction partner (contrahedonic;
Netzer et al., 2015). Therefore, both self-related and other-related
prohedonic and contrahedonic motives were included in the pres-
ent study.
As individuals are broadly motivated to preserve close rela-
tionships with others (Walton et al., 2012), the desire to main-
tain positive social bonds should also drive interpersonal emotion
regulation. Existing research on interpersonal support suggests
that motives regarding the relationship with the target of regula-
tion could be particularly relevant as instrumental motives for
interpersonal emotion regulation. Couples that receive more help
from their partners report higher relationship quality (Overall
et al., 2010) and provision of daily interpersonal support has been
associated with increases in relationship closeness (Gleason et al.,
2008). The social reasons underlying intrapersonal emotion regu-
lation have often been delineated into those focused on making a
good impression on others (impression management) or foster
smooth interactions (relationship maintenance; Eldesouky & Eng-
lish, 2019). Using certain types of interpersonal emotion regula-
tion strategies is associated with the formation of new social ties
(Niven et al., 2015), suggesting that interpersonal emotion regula-
tion can increase desire to affiliate with the regulator and that pro-
viding support can make positive impressions on others.
However, other social motives may need to be considered to
gain a deeper understanding of interpersonal emotion regulation.
At times, for example, individuals may be motivated to manage
others’ emotions in order to create distance from them (relation-
ship distancing) or facilitate closeness through shared experience
(emotion similarity; e.g., wanting your friend to feel happy when
you are feeling happy). When individuals feel threatened, they
may engage in self-protective behaviors to actively reduce close-
ness to other people (Ainsworth & Bowlby, 1991). While relation-
ship distancing may be harmful to social connections, promoting
similarity may be beneficial. Romantic partners and friends experi-
ence more cohesion and less conflict when sharing similar emo-
tional states and these dyads frequently engage in coregulation, or
the process of adapting to each other’s emotional state (Anderson
et al., 2003).
To cover interpersonal emotion regulation motives more com-
prehensively, it may also be necessary to consider performance
motives. Previous work has shown that the most frequently
endorsed intrapersonal instrumental emotion regulation motives
center around performance-related concerns (Kalokerinos et al.,
2017). Much like hedonic motives, performance motives can be
held regarding oneself (e.g., how emotions will impact one’s own
ability to complete a task) or the target of regulation (e.g., how
 ATTACHMENT AND INTERPERSONAL REGULATION
someone else’s emotions will impact their own performance (Net-
zer et al., 2015; Niven, 2016). Thus, the present study assessed
self- and other-focused performance motives in addition to the pre-
viously noted hedonic and social motives.
Prior research shows that people endorse various motives when
regulating the emotions of others. However, it is unclear why peo-
ple endorse these interpersonal emotion regulation motives or how
they might be associated with immediate outcomes for the regula-
tor, such as emotional and relational functioning. Attachment is
one promising candidate for helping to illuminate patterns of inter-
personal emotion regulation motives and perceived changes in
social interaction outcomes related to one’s interpersonal emotion
regulation motivation.
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This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
Attachment and Interpersonal Emotion Regulation
Motives
Attachment is inherently an interpersonal process, as its forma-
tion depends on interactions during infancy with a caregiver (Ains-
worth & Bowlby, 1991; Bartholomew, 1990). Attachment
insecurity, in the form of high attachment avoidance and attach-
ment anxiety, develops in response to emotional or physical needs
of an infant not being met. Attachment avoidance forms when the
caregiver is dismissing, leading to tendencies to suppress one’s
needs and being overly independent. Attachment anxiety, results
from inconsistent, unpredictable caretaking, leading to preoccupa-
tion and clinginess in relationships.
Attachment develops beyond infancy and remains relatively sta-
ble across adulthood (Bowlby, 1978). In adulthood, attachment
avoidance and attachment anxiety are associated with the quality
of romantic relationships, with attachment security prospectively
predicting the quality of romantic relationships even after control-
ling for baseline levels of interpersonal functioning in the relation-
ship (Holland & Roisman, 2010). In addition, adult attachment is
associated with the quality of friendships in young adults (Safe-
rstein et al., 2005). Specific behaviors that individuals engage in in
their close relationships, like how they resolve conflicts with close
others, are also associated with their attachment style (Domingue
& Mollen, 2009).
Adult attachment is predictive of individuals’ own emotion reg-
ulation (Mikulincer & Shaver, 2007). Attachment dimensions are
linked to the motivations that drive intrapersonal emotion regula-
tion, namely the deactivation and hyperactivation of one’s emo-
tional state. Attachment avoidance has been associated with
deactivation, which includes wanting to inhibit closeness, negative
affect, and vulnerable emotional states. Attachment anxiety, on the
other hand, is associated with hyperactivation, which includes
desiring closeness, reassurance, and emotions that may elicit care
from their attachment figures (Girme et al., 2021; Özen et al.,
2011). This work on attachment and intrapersonal emotion regula-
tion begins to suggest that interpersonal motives could also depend
on their attachment styles.
Attachment has been linked to interpersonal emotion regulation in
ways that indirectly suggest links with both hedonic and instrumental
motives. Higher levels of attachment avoidance or anxiety may moti-
vate one to regulate others for one’s own sake. For example, one
may influence another person’s emotions with the primary aim of
protecting oneself from threats associated with other’s negative emo-
tions (Mikulincer & Shaver, 2009). Additionally, individuals higher
3
in attachment anxiety have been shown to vary in the use of affect-
worsening strategies across relationships, while people higher in
attachment avoidance showed higher variability in affect-improving
strategies across relationships (Niven et al., 2012). Affect-worsening
and affect-improving strategies have underlying other-focused
hedonic motives, as they involve behaviors or engagement with the
target that are “intended to” worsen or improve the target’s emotional
state (Niven et al., 2012). Interpersonal emotion regulation motives
may be self-focused and include desires to maintain one’s own posi-
tive emotional states and negative emotional states (i.e., prohedonic
and contrahedonic motives). Avoidant individuals tend to avoid
experiences of negative emotion and seek to enhance positive affect
(Fraley & Shaver, 1997; Altan-Atalay, 2019). Individuals higher on
attachment anxiety, on the other hand, are more likely to have
learned to exaggerate threats and negative emotions to receive atten-
tion from their attachment figure, and therefore may endorse higher
self-focused contrahedonic motives.
Attachment is also associated with broader social-oriented
motives in terms of how much closeness individuals desire and how
much closeness versus distance individuals would like in close rela-
tionships. In addition to wanting more intimacy in their relation-
ships, individuals high in attachment anxiety are also less likely to
perceive intimacy, as compared with their less anxious peers. Con-
versely, people high in attachment avoidance not only want less inti-
macy, but they are also more likely to perceive a relationship as
close, as compared with their less avoidant peers (Hudson & Fraley,
2017). Based on these perceptual differences, more avoidant and
more anxious people also differ from securely attached people in the
goals they pursue in close relationships, including during interperso-
nal emotion regulation. Avoidant attachment is associated with
motives to avoid and not to approach closeness and submission.
Anxious attachment is associated with focusing more on avoiding
distance in relationships (Locke, 2008).
Regarding emotional similarity, studies have investigated
attachment and emotional coregulation, defined as the emotional
synchronicity between partners. The hypersensitivity of attach-
ment anxiety predicts greater covariance in emotion, inferred to be
due to emotion regulation between partners (Butner et al., 2007).
Covariance in emotion may result from emotional similarity
motives, that is, wanting to make emotions be similar between two
people. Simply wanting to be on the same page as another person,
regardless of whether those emotions are positive or negative, is a
novel interpersonal emotion regulation motive that has not been
explored in prior literature. Emotional similarity motives may
relate negatively to the emotionally distant nature of attachment
avoidance and relate positively to the bonding and closeness seek-
ing of attachment anxiety. Relationship type will be examined to
test whether the associations between attachment and interpersonal
emotion regulation motives are stronger for romantic than nonro-
mantic targets. In adulthood, romantic partners tend to be the pri-
mary attachment figures for individuals (Doherty & Feeney,
2004), so we expected that attachment related processes should be
particularly salient in interactions with romantic partners.
Interpersonal Emotion Regulation Motives and
Well-Being
Successful implementation of intrapersonal emotion regulation
strategies is indicated by individuals attaining their emotion goals
 4 SPRINGSTEIN, HAMERLING-POTTS, LANDA, AND ENGLISH
(e.g., feeling less negative emotions; Gross, 2015). When individ-
uals hold instrumental emotion regulation motives, they do not
regulate in order to feel more pleasurable immediately but in order
to achieve a goal that has long-term benefits (Tamir, 2016). For
example, regulating your emotions so you can focus on studying
for a test may not immediately result in feeling good, but it can
lead to positive feelings later as you are progressing toward your
goal of studying. It has been suggested that affect serves as infor-
mation to the individual about progress toward meaningful goals.
If progress toward a goal is too slow then negative affect is output,
whereas if progress toward the goal is fast then positive affect is
the output (Carver & Scheier, 1990). When applied to emotion
regulation, this suggests that feeling more positive and less nega-
tive emotions could indicate progress toward a motive.
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In interpersonal regulation contexts, successful implementation
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of interpersonal emotion regulation could be through observing
changes in momentary emotional and relational well-being. It is
unclear however whether the specific underlying motivations guid-
ing interpersonal emotion regulation may be differentially associ-
ated with better perceived social interaction outcomes. On one
hand, given that helping others can be intrinsically rewarding (Ina-
gaki & Orehek, 2017) and promote social bonding (Aknin et al.,
2013), regulators may report improvements in their own emotional
well-being and their relationship with the target of their regulatory
efforts regardless of their interpersonal emotion regulation
motives. It has also been shown that positive relationship interac-
tions can lead to more positive affect (Ramsey & Gentzler, 2015)
so it is possible that a person regulating someone’s emotions for
instrumental motives might ultimately reap hedonic benefits even
if their emotion regulation in the moment does not maximize
hedonic benefits. However, on the other hand, holding certain
interpersonal emotion regulation motives may be associated with
better outcomes. For example, regulators may feel better after
interactions in which they strive to help their partner feel more
positively or to promote a closer relationship with them, whereas
they might feel worse after interactions where they strive to make
their partner feel worse or create distance from them. One study
found that individuals who assisted others in regulating their emo-
tions generally showed increases in their own well-being (Doré
et al., 2017), but the role of interpersonal emotion regulation
motives has not yet been explored. Associations between interper-
sonal emotion regulation motives and interaction outcomes could
appear both on the level of differences between people (e.g., some
people might be more likely to hold prohedonic motives and to
also experience more positive changes in their interactions) and at
the level of situations (e.g., regardless of how much people gener-
ally hold prohedonic motives, at times when they hold more pro-
hedonic motives than usual they are more likely to experience
positive changes in their interactions). Study designs that incorpo-
rate multiple assessments per person enable us to distinguish
between these two types of effects while exploring the role of
interpersonal emotion regulation in daily interactions.
Attachment and Changes in Emotional and Relational
Well-Being
Attachment is expected to predict how individuals perceive social
interactions to have impacted their emotional and relational well-
being. Attachment avoidance and attachment anxiety are associated
with lower emotional well-being and relationship satisfaction (Niven
et al., 2012; Özen et al., 2011). In addition, attachment anxiety and
avoidance have been linked to poorer emotion regulation skills
(Mikulincer & Shaver, 2019) and therefore individuals higher on
these dimensions of attachment may also be worse at managing the
emotions of others. Accordingly, people higher in attachment avoid-
ance or attachment anxiety might be less likely to perceive positive
outcomes from social interactions because these individuals are not
as good at implementing interpersonal emotion regulation in a way
that will help satisfy their motives. We also test if there is a stronger
association between attachment and interaction outcomes when the
target of interpersonal emotion regulation is a romantic partner, who
may more strongly activating one’s attachment system (Doherty &
Feeney, 2004).
Present Study
This project aims to understand the role of attachment in predict-
ing why people manage the emotions of others and the impact inter-
personal emotion regulation has on well-being. We examine
hedonic (prohedonic, contrahedonic) and instrumental (performance,
impression management, relationship maintenance, relationship dis-
tancing, and emotional similarity) motivations behind interpersonal
emotion regulation, considering self- and other-focused motives, as
well as regulator-perceived outcomes of the social interactions
(changes in emotional well-being and relationship closeness). Ex-
ploratory aims of this study are to examine the associations between
interpersonal emotion regulation motives and regulator-perceived
social interaction outcomes as well as examine whether attachment
impacts the relationship between interpersonal emotion regulation
motives and perceived social interaction outcomes.
We preregistered hypotheses regarding links of attachment to
interpersonal emotion regulation motives and social interaction out-
comes.1 Attachment anxiety predicts rumination, fear of rejection,
and seeking continuous reassurance and closeness in relationships
(Girme et al., 2021; Özen et al., 2011), therefore, we predict that
attachment anxiety will be associated with greater self-focused con-
trahedonic, impression management, and relationship maintenance
motives, and conversely less relationship distancing motives (Hy-
pothesis 1). Attachment avoidance is associated with tendencies to
avoid negative affect and minimize one’s emotional and attachment
needs (Girme et al., 2021; Özen et al., 2011). Avoidant individuals
may further place emphasis on nonattachment motives and avoid
emotional distractions. We therefore hypothesize that attachment
avoidance will be associated with greater self-focused prohedonic,
self-focused performance, and relationship distancing motives, as
well as less relationship maintenance and emotional similarity
motives (Hypothesis 2). We expect attachment anxiety (Hypothesis
3) and avoidance (Hypothesis 4) to be associated with lower emo-
tional and relational interaction outcomes. The hypothesized rela-
tionships between attachment and interpersonal emotion regulation
(motives and social outcomes) are expected to be more pronounced
in romantic relationships (Hypothesis 5).
We also explore two nonpreregistered research questions (RQs).
First, we assess the links between interpersonal emotion regulation
1
In the preregistration, the social interaction outcomes were labeled as
efficacy indicators, however we have changed this framing based on
helpful peer review comments.
 ATTACHMENT AND INTERPERSONAL REGULATION
motives and social interaction outcomes to gather initial evidence
about whether how one is motivated to regulate others’ emotions
relates to the perceived outcomes (exploratory RQ1). Second, we
assess whether attachment moderates the association between
motives and interaction outcomes to get insight into potential
attachment-related differences in interpersonal emotion regulation
motive adaptiveness (exploratory RQ2).
Experience sampling is used in the present study to assess inter-
personal emotion regulation in daily social interactions. This
approach increases reliability of the participants’ ratings of interper-
sonal emotion regulation and momentary well-being, as reporting
close to the time of the event should limit memory biases (Riediger,
2010). It also allows for the assessment of multiple contexts within-
person, such as interactions with different partners. Previous work
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
has shown that individuals vary in how they regulate the emotions
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
of different relationship partners (Niven et al., 2012) and that inter-
personal emotion regulation is situationally dependent (Liu et al.,
2021; Pauw et al., 2019). Therefore, assessing interpersonal emotion
regulation motives and perceived changes in social interaction out-
comes repeatedly can provide more ecologically valid insight into
interpersonal emotion regulation processes in daily life.
Method
Participants
Participants (N = 211) at a midsized Midwestern university in
the United States (M age in years = 19.77, SD = 1.25) were
recruited via Sona, from an online Psychology subject pool of
undergraduates. Students who did not have a smartphone or were
traveling through different time zones for the duration of the study
were ineligible to participate because a change in time zones
would prevent participants from gaining access to their daily sur-
veys. On average, participants completed 77% of surveys (SD =
.22). No missing data was imputed as estimation in multilevel
models account for differing amounts of data per person.
Most participants self-identified as female (73%), followed by
male (26%), nonbinary (.5%), and other (.5%). The sample was
stratified in terms of class year (23% first year, 30% second year,
27% third year, 20% fourth year). Most participants identified as
White (54%), followed by Asian (33%), African American (11%),
Latinx (11%), Middle Eastern (3%), and Native American (1%).
Participants were compensated with one course credit for an
hour of participation in the study. The present study was approved
by the Institutional Review Board at Washington University in St.
Louis. Sensitivity analyses for our main hypotheses are provided
in Table S1 in the online supplemental material.
Procedure
Following informed consent, participants were asked to download
the application Expiwell (2021) to their smartphone. Participants then
completed a 5-min background survey while on the phone, which
contained demographic questions, an attachment measure, and a per-
sonality trait measure and received an Ecological Momentary Assess-
ment (EMA) tutorial. The following day, participants began receiving
randomized two-minute surveys within four-hour intervals, three
times a day, for seven days (within a 12-hr daily window of their
choice). Each survey asked about the participant’s last interaction,
5
their motives behind engaging in interpersonal emotion regulation
during the interaction (if any), and the perceived emotional and rela-
tional outcomes of this interaction. Social interactions were
defined as being able to occur both in-person or virtually, if commu-
nication was reciprocated (e.g., texts were sent back and forth), and
there was no minimum length to be considered social interactions.
There was a reminder sent five minutes after the initial notification,
and the survey expired 15 min after the reminder. Participants were
asked to try to complete as many of the surveys as possible.
Material
Attachment Measures
Adult attachment was assessed with the Experiences in Close
Relationships–Revised (ECR-R), which is a questionnaire consisting
of 36 attachment-relevant statements that apply to general
(platonic and/or romantic) relationship tendencies, with 18 anxiety-
related items (e.g., “I’m afraid that I will lose others’ love”; a = .91)
and 18 avoidance-related items (e.g., “I prefer not to show others
how I feel deep down”; a = .93). For each attachment item, partici-
pants selected from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree).
Daily Measures
Interpersonal Emotion Regulation Motives. To capture the
motivations behind engaging in interpersonal emotion regulation,
participants reported on various motives they had for regulating
their partners’ emotions during their most recent interaction (“To
what extent did you have any of following goals to manage your
partner’s emotions during your most recent interaction, whether
you acted on them or not?”). We focused on assessing hedonic
motives, performance, and social motives because they are the
most commonly studied and reported reasons for managing emotion
(English et al., 2017; Kalokerinos et al., 2017). Hedonic and per-
formance items2 were assessed in terms of both the regulator’s out-
comes (self-focused) and the target’s outcomes (other-focused),
whereas social motives were asked about in the context of the rela-
tionship between regulator and target and therefore not separated
into self and other related components. Motives included the follow-
ing: prohedonic (self-focused/other-focused), contrahedonic (self-
focused/other-focused), performance (self-focused/other-focused),
impression management, relationship maintenance, relationship dis-
tancing, and emotional similarity. Participants rated their agreement
with each motive item on a Likert scale ranging from 1 (not at all) to
7 (extremely). Prohedonic, contrahedonic, self-focused performance,
and emotional similarity motives were assessed with single items,
while impression management, other-focused performance, relation-
ship maintenance, and relationship distancing motives were each
assessed with two items.3 For example, prohedonic interpersonal emo-
tion regulation motives were assessed with the items, “I wanted to
2
Other-focused performance motives were not initially examined due to
our focus on socioemotional components in this study, but they were added
during the review process for a more comprehensive assessment of
interpersonal emotion regulation motives.
3
Due to time constraints and participant burden, not all motives could
be assessed with two items. The decision about how many items to include
per construct was made based on breadth of the construct (with more
straightforward, narrow motives, like the hedonic ones, being assessed with
a single item).
 6 SPRINGSTEIN, HAMERLING-POTTS, LANDA, AND ENGLISH
feel better or maintain my own positive feelings” (self-focused) and “I
wanted to make them feel better or maintain their good feelings”
(other-focused). These items were adapted from the Emotion Regula-
tion Goal Scale (Eldesouky & English, 2019). As preregistered, for
motives that had more than one item, scores were averaged when the
between and within-person omega were .6 or higher. See Table S2 in
the online supplemental material for all items.
Perceived Changes in Social Interaction Outcomes. To cap-
ture perceived changes in social interaction outcomes, participants
were asked about the perceived change in their emotional well-
being (positive emotion and negative emotion) and relationship
well-being (relationship closeness and relationship satisfaction) in
their most recent interaction. Participants indicated the extent to
which there was change in well-being on a 7-point Likert scale,
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ranging from 1 (much less positive emotion than before) to 7
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(much more positive emotion than before) for each of these four
items. As preregistered, because the between-person and within-
person omegas for emotional well-being (xs = .85 and .80, respec-
tively) and relationship well-being (xs = .84 and .73, respectively)
suggested strong correlations between the perceived changes in
social interaction outcomes subscale items, scores were combined
into emotional well-being and relationship well-being composites.
Relationship Type. When asked about their most recent inter-
action, participants responded by labeling the primary category of
their relationship with the interaction partner from the following
options: romantic partner, college friend, home friend, family
member, acquaintance, professor, stranger, or other. Participants
were asked to label the primary person with whom they interacted.
Analysis Plan
Given the data are nested (i.e., multiple daily measures for each
person), this study utilized multilevel models using R (R Core
Team, 2021), with the lme4 package (Bates et al., 2015). As prereg-
istered, the hypotheses (H1 through H4) were tested by constructing
a series of models where interpersonal emotion regulation motives
and perceived changes in social interaction outcomes (Level 1 varia-
bles) were simultaneously predicted by attachment anxiety and
attachment avoidance (Level 2 variables), with participant gender
included as a Level 2 covariate (coded as 1 = female and 0 = male).
Given the presence of time trends in the data (see Table S3 in the
online supplemental material), we also included time (centered on
the first prompt for each participant) as a Level 1 covariate.
To test H5, separate models were run in which relationship type
(coded as 1 = romantic partner and 0 = nonromantic interaction part-
ner) and interaction terms between relationship type and each
dimension of attachment (i.e., Type 3 Anxiety and Type 3 Avoid-
ance) were included as addition predictors of each interpersonal
emotion regulation motive and social interaction outcome. The fre-
quency of interacting with romantic partners was relatively low
(11% of prompts), so relationship type moderation analyses are
reported in the online supplemental materials.
For exploratory RQ1, which focuses on the link between interper-
sonal emotion regulation motives and social interaction outcomes,
we constructed separate multilevel models with within-person and
between-person scores of all motives simultaneously predicting the
two types of outcomes. Within-person and between-person level
variables were separated by person-mean centering motive variables
as recommended by Bolger and Laurenceau (2013). Between-person
variables were grand mean-centered. Random slopes for within-
person effects were included unless convergence issues occurred.
For exploratory RQ2, which focuses on attachment as a moderator
of the motive-outcome links, we added attachment anxiety and
avoidance as additional predictors along with consecutively test-
ing interactions between these dimensions of attachment and the
within- person components of motives (controlling for other motives).
As preregistered, we performed two types of analyses building
on the initial models. The first models added the interaction
between attachment anxiety and attachment avoidance. The sec-
ond models tested robustness of the hypothesized effects by add-
ing as covariates the Big Five personality traits previously linked
with attachment (i.e., extraversion, agreeableness, neuroticism,
and contentiousness; Noftle & Shaver, 2006). Results are provided
in Tables S4 through S6 in the online supplemental material.
Results
Preanalyses
About 77% of the reported social interactions were within one
hour of the prompt (42% occurred at the time of the prompt), mini-
mizing memory biases. The largest proportion of social interactions
occurred between friends (53% college friends and 6% home
friends), followed by family members (17%) and romantic partners
(11%). On average, interactions were with others whom participants
considered close (Mcloseness = 5.26 on a 7-point Likert scale). Attach-
ment avoidance was associated with less interaction with college
friends and more interaction with family, romantic partners, and pro-
fessors. Attachment anxiety was associated with less interaction with
college friends and romantic partners, and more interaction with fam-
ily and acquaintances (see Table S7 in the online supplemental mate-
rial for correlations and descriptive statistics).
To assess how much variance in motives could be explained by
individual differences (e.g., attachment) we assessed between-person
and within-person variance in motives. Slightly more of the variance
was at the within-person level for all motives (intraclass correlations
[ICCs] = .38–.48), except for impression management (.53) and
other-focused performance (.51). However, there was much more
within-person variance than between-person variance for perceived
changes in social interaction outcomes (emotional well-being = .14;
relationship well-being = .16). This suggests that why people regulate
someone’s emotions and how they perceive the interaction depends
more on effects of the situation than on ways in which individuals
differ or what people are like on average. In terms of frequency of
endorsing interpersonal emotion regulation motives, individuals most
strongly endorsed regulating others’ emotions to maintain the rela-
tionship with them (M = 4.61), followed by prohedonic motives
related to the target’s emotions (M = 4.09) and to one’s own emo-
tions (M = 3.82). See Table 1 for and descriptive statistics.
Preregistered Hypotheses: Does Attachment Predict
Interpersonal Emotion Regulation Motives and
Perceived Social Interaction Outcomes?
See Table 1 for bivariate correlations between attachment and
predicted interpersonal emotion regulation outcomes. See Table 2
for unstandardized estimates of fixed effects of attachment on
 ATTACHMENT AND INTERPERSONAL REGULATION 7

interpersonal emotion regulation motives and perceived change in

.06**

.10**
.16**
.29**

.10**
.25**
.14**
.17**
.25**

dicted outcome variable using residual and subject variance. ICCs represent between-person variability for each variable. Between-person correlations are below the diagonal. Within-person associa-
Note. Means and standard deviations were calculated averaging within-person mean scores and standard deviations across participants. Intraclass correlations (ICCs) were calculated for each pre-

tions for interpersonal emotion regulation measures are above the diagonal. WB = well-being. Items 3 and 4 refer to the indicators of perceived change in interaction outcomes while items 5 through
.01
14 social interaction outcomes. Attachment anxiety predicted more
self-focused prohedonic motives (c ¼ 0:22; p ¼ :020; R2b ¼ :02Þ,
and more impression management motives (c ¼ 0:32; p ¼ :001;
.15**
.06**

.39**
.16**

.09**
.34**
.10**
.07**

.73**
.00

.01
13

R2b ¼ :05Þ as hypothesized (H1). None of the hypothesized associa-

tions between attachment anxiety and contrahedonic motives, rela-
.33**
.29**
.30**
.07**

.39**
.49**
.14**
.20**

.19**
.47**
tionship maintenance motives, impression management motives, or
.04*
12

relationship distancing motives emerged. Attachment avoidance did

not significantly predict any of the hypothesized interpersonal emo-
tion regulation motives (H2).
.10**
.11**
.22**
.11**

.21**
.18**

.57**
.51**
.67**
.02

.03
11

Attachment anxiety did not predict perceived change in emo-

tional well-being (c ¼ 0:02; p ¼ :519; R2b ¼ :00) or relation-
ship well-being (c ¼ 0:00; p ¼ :914; R2b ¼ :00), contrary to
.32**
.26**

.21**
.36**
.05**
.15**

.61**
.31**
.79**
.80**
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.

.01
10
Between-Person and Within-Person Correlations for Attachment, Interaction Outcomes, and Interpersonal Emotion Regulation Motives

our predictions (H3). In contrast, attachment avoidance predicted

This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.

both aspects of perceived social interaction outcomes (H4).

.32**
.28**
.32**
.06**
.05**
.38**

.20**
.44**
.81**

.35**

Attachment avoidance predicted worse social interaction out-

.08
9

comes both in terms of perceived change in emotional well-being

(c ¼ 0:12; p , :000; R2b ¼ :01) and in relationship well-being
(c ¼ 0:05; p ¼ :025; R2b ¼ :01Þ.
.21**
.25**
.29**

.07**

.76**
.38**
.51**
.83**
.29**
.55**
8

.02

Analyses pertaining to preregistered Hypothesis 5 (effect of

interacting with romantic relationship partner on associations
.20**
.14**
.07**
.14**

.50**
.37**
.74**
.61**
.47**
.50**
.82**

between attachment and motives) did not reveal any significant

7

associations. That is, there was no evidence that attachment was

more predictive of interpersonal emotion regulation motives or
.14**
.06**

.54**
.29**

.77**
.55**
.23**
.93**
.73**

perceived outcomes in interactions with romantic partners com-

.01

.12
6

pared with other types of social interactions. Detailed results are

provided in Table S8 in the online supplemental material.
.23**
.19**

.28**
.56**
.77**
.73**
.42**
.61**
.84**
.24**
.53**

In follow-up models, there was only a significant Attachment

5

Anxiety 3 Attachment Avoidance interaction for emotional simi-

larity (see Table S4 in the online supplemental material), such that
.59**

.40**

.27**
.40**
.41**

.37**
.44**

.25**
.14*
4

.13

.09

avoidance was only related to lower emotion similarity motives

when attachment anxiety was high. The hypothesized results were
.60**
.32**
.21**

.24**
.37**
.22**

.39**
.26**

largely robust to controlling for Big Five personality traits (see

.06

.06

.07
3

Table S6 in the online supplemental material).

.24**

Exploratory Research Questions: Do Interpersonal

.16*
.03
.02
.04
.03
.05
.05
.12
.07
.02
.02
2

Emotion Regulation Motives Predict Perceived Social

Interaction Outcomes?
.26**

.21**
.12
.04
.13
.07
.08

.07
.13
.10
.06
.03
.08

We assessed both within-person and between-person effects of

1

interpersonal emotion regulation motives predicting perceived

social interaction outcomes (exploratory RQ1). Within-person out-
ICC

14 refer to interpersonal emotion regulation motives.

.14
.16
.43
.39
.39
.53
.48
.44
.47
.38
.46
.51

comes here show how holding more or less of a motive (compared

with how much one endorses the respective motive on average)
1.01
1.08
1.02
0.62
1.32
0.82
1.32
1.19
1.12
0.89
1.18
1.43
0.69
0.87
SD

relates to perceived social interaction outcomes. Between-person

effects here show how individuals differ in their perceived social
3.58
3.33
4.56
4.38
3.82
1.76
2.74
3.71
4.61
2.04
2.75
4.09
1.68
2.33

interaction outcomes based on how much they endorse certain inter-

M

personal emotion regulation motives on average. Within-person and

between-person effects are reported in Table 3.
9. Relationship maintenance
8. Impression management

10. Relationship distancing

In terms of within-person effects, self- and other-focused prohe-

2. Attachment avoidance

13. Contrahedonic: Other

11. Emotional similarity

* p , .05. ** p , .01.
6. Contrahedonic: Self

14. Performance: Other

1. Attachment anxiety

donic motives were positively associated with emotional and rela-

12. Prohedonic: Other
7. Performance: Self
4. Relationship WB
5. Prohedonic: Self

tionship well-being; indicating that on occasions when people held

Variable

3. Emotional WB

prohedonic motives, they also reported more positive changes in

well-being due to the interaction. Similarly, when people held
Table 1

impression management and relationship maintenance motives, they

also reported more positive changes in their emotional and relation-
ship well-being. On the other hand, people reported lower emotional
 8 SPRINGSTEIN, HAMERLING-POTTS, LANDA, AND ENGLISH

Table 2
Unstandardized Estimates and Semipartial Effect Sizes for Attachment Predicting Interpersonal Emotion Regulation Motives and
Interaction Outcomes
Attachment anxiety Attachment avoidance
Dependent variable Intercept c (SE) R2b 95% CI c (SE) R2b 95% CI
Motives
Prohedonic: Self 3.84 .22 (.09)* .02 [.04, .40] .17 (.09) .01 [.34, .00]
Contrahedonic: Self 1.89 .04 (.06) .00 [.08, .16] .03 (.06) .00 [.14, .08]
Performance: Self 2.91 .08 (.09) .00 [.09, .05] .06 (.08) .00 [.10, .22]
Impression management 3.62 .32 (.10)** .05 [.13, .52] .04 (.09) .00 [.23, .14]
Relationship distancing 2.11 .08 (.07) .01 [.05, .22] .05 (.06) .00 [.08, .17]
Relationship maintenance 4.80 .12 (.09) .01 [.05, .29] .07 (.08) .00 [.24, .08]
Emotional similarity 3.03 .17 (.09) .01 [.01, .35] .14 (.09) .01 [.31, .03]
Prohedonic: Other 4.13 .11 (.09) .01 [.06, .29] .11 (.09) .01 [.28, .06]
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Contrahedonic: Other 1.85 .03 (.06) .00 [.10, .15] .00 (.06) .00 [.12, .11]
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Performance: Other 2.43 .10 (.07) .00 [.04, .24] .01 (.07) .00 [.14, .12]
Interaction outcomes
Change in emotional well-being 4.68 .02 (.03) .00 [.09, .05] .12 (.03)** .01 [.18, .05]
Change in relationship well-being 4.44 .00 (.02) .00 [.05, .04] .05 (.02)* .01 [.10, .01]
Note. Values in square brackets indicate the 95% confidence interval for each estimate. Gender and time were included as covariates in each model.
Both attachment dimensions were grand-mean centered and included together as predictors of each motive and perceived change in interaction outcome.
Random intercepts were included.
* p , .05. ** p , .01.

well-being when they more strongly held contrahedonic and relation-
ship distancing motives, as well as lower relationship well-being
when they held relationship distancing motives. As a reminder, these
effects were shown controlling for other relevant interpersonal emo-
tion regulation motives and time, and they were present above and
beyond the between-person effects of motives, or the tendency to set
interpersonal emotion regulation motives more generally.
In terms of between-person effects, people that held more self-
and other-focused prohedonic motives on average perceived more
positive changes in emotional well-being. People that held more
impression management motives on average perceived fewer posi-
tive changes in emotional well-being, but no other between-person
effects on relational well-being emerged.
We also explored whether the relationship between interperso-
nal emotion regulation motives and perceived social interaction
outcomes was dependent on attachment (exploratory RQ2). How-
ever, no significant interaction effects emerged (see Table S9 in
the online supplemental materials).
Discussion
The present study aimed to examine whether attachment pre-
dicts why people regulate the emotions of others and how effec-
tive they perceive this regulation to be for their relationship with
the regulation target and for their own emotional well-being. A
secondary, exploratory aim of the study was to examine the asso-
ciations between interpersonal emotion regulation motives and
perceived social interaction outcomes. Emotion regulation is
closely tied to attachment, as attachment can manifest through
emotion regulation habits that develop as a result of a relation-
ship (or lack thereof) with a caregiver (Ainsworth & Bowlby,
1991; Bartholomew, 1990). However, prior work on attachment
primarily has focused on intrapersonal emotion regulation or cor-
egulation (Butler & Randall, 2013; Butner et al., 2007; Cassidy,
1994; Girme et al., 2021). The current work extends these find-
ings by examining the role of attachment in the context of
interpersonal, motivated processes of ER, where one aims to reg-
ulate another person’s emotions.
Attachment anxiety was predictive of differences in interperso-
nal emotion regulation motives in the context of social interac-
tions, with effect sizes generally indicating small associations, but
attachment avoidance was not. Consistent with our preregistered
hypotheses, attachment anxiety predicted more impression man-
agement motives. Although attachment avoidance was not associ-
ated with differences in interpersonal emotion regulation motives
in general, there was an interaction between attachment avoidance
and attachment anxiety in predicting emotion similarity. For indi-
viduals high in attachment anxiety, attachment avoidance was
associated with less motivation to regulate their partners emotions
in order to feel similar emotional states. Further, attachment avoid-
ance predicted worse social interaction outcomes, as expected,
both in terms of perceived change in emotional well-being and
relationship well-being. Attachment anxiety, however, was not
predictive of social interaction outcomes.
There was some initial evidence that interpersonal emotion regula-
tion motives are differentially related to perceived social interaction
outcomes. Evidence emerged both on the level of individual differen-
ces (e.g., if someone reports prohedonic motives more frequently, are
they also more likely to report more positive changes in their interac-
tion outcomes?) and at the situational level (e.g., regardless of the
motives a person typically holds, do they report more positive
changes in their interactions when they endorse more prohedonic
motives?). People who tended to report more prohedonic, impression
management, or relationship maintenance motives and less contrahe-
donic and relationship distancing motives in daily life also perceived
more positive changes in their emotional and relational well-being af-
ter social interactions. People also perceived more positive emotional
and relational interaction outcomes at times when they held more
prohedonic, impression management or relationship maintenance
motives and less self-focused performance and relationship distanc-
ing motives.
 ATTACHMENT AND INTERPERSONAL REGULATION 9

Table 3
Unstandardized Within- and Between-Person Effects of Interpersonal Emotion Regulation Motives on Interaction Outcomes
Emotional well-being Relationship well-being
Predictor variable c (SE) R2b 95% CI RE (SD) c (SE) R2b 95% CI RE (SD)
Intercept 4.69 (.06) 4.43 (.04)
Within-person
Prohedonic: Self .10 (.01)** .01 [.07, .12] .01 (09) .04 (.01)** .01 [.03, .07] .00 (.07)
Contrahedonic: Self .06 (.02)** .00 [.11, .02] .02 (.14) .00 (.01) .00 [.03, .01] /
Performance: Self .07 (.01)** .01 [.10, .05] .00 (.06) .03 (.01)** .01 /
Impression management .04 (.01)** .01 [.01, .07] .07 (.01)** .01 [.06, .09] /
Relationship distancing .22 (.02)** .04 [.26, .18] .12 (.02)** .03 [.18, .13] .03 (.17)
Relationship maintenance .09 (.02)** .01 [.07, .13] .06 (.01)** .01 [.07, .11] /
Emotional similarity .01 (.01) .00 [.01, .04] .01 (.01)* .00 [.00, .04] /
Prohedonic: Other .11 (.01)** .02 [.01, .04] .05 (.01)* .01 [.03, .07] /
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Contrahedonic: Other .02 (.02) .00 [.01, .04] .02 (.02) .00 [.01, .06] .01 (.11)
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.

Performance: Other .02 (.02) .00 [.01, .04] .01 (.01) .00 [.03, .02] /
Between-person
Prohedonic: Self .10 (.04)* .01 [.02, .19] .02 (.03) .00 [.03, .09]
Contrahedonic: Self .01 (.10) .00 [.20, .19] .02 (.07) .00 [.10, .15]
Performance: Self .09 (.05) .00 [.18, .01] .02 (.03) .00 [.10, .15]
Impression management .08 (.04)* .00 [.16, .00] .00 (.03) .00 [.01, .09]
Relationship distancing .10 (.07) .00 [.23, .03] .08 (.05) .00 [.16, .01]
Relationship maintenance .05 (.04) .00 [.03, .14] .01 (.03) .00 [.01, .10]
Emotional similarity .02 (.03) .00 [.09, .04] .06 (.02)* .01 [.01, .11]
Prohedonic: Other .15 (.06)** .01 [.05, .26] .07 (.04) .00 [.00, .13]
Contrahedonic: Other .13 (.11) .00 [.34, .08] .01 (.07) .00 [.15, .13]
Performance: Other 13 (.07) .00 [.01, .26] .01 (.05) .00 [.08, .10]
Note. Values in brackets indicate the 95% confidence interval for each estimate. Random slopes were included unless models showed convergence
issues. Gender and time were added as covariates in each model. Between-person effects were grand-mean centered. RE = random effect.
* p , .05. ** p , .01.

Attachment and Interpersonal Emotion Regulation
Although we expected attachment avoidance to predict more pro-
hedonic motives and attachment anxiety to predict more contrahe-
donic motives, attachment anxiety was associated with more
prohedonic motives while attachment avoidance was unrelated to ei-
ther type of hedonic motive. That is, increased attachment anxiety
was associated with the tendency to want to maintain a positive
emotional state in interpersonal emotion regulation interactions.
Rather than consciously engaging in ruminative tendencies, perhaps
those high in attachment anxiety focus on self-comfort and soothing
through interactions with others. Because anxiously attached indi-
viduals fear abandonment in relationships (Brennan et al., 1998), it
is plausible that they would try to regulate close others with the goal
of relieving some of their own relationship-focused apprehension. In
addition, more anxiously attached individuals have been shown to
react to pain in others with greater personal distress (Britton &
Fuendeling, 2005; Monin et al., 2010). This suggests that when deal-
ing with others’ emotions more anxiously attached individuals are
more emotionally reactive and experience a greater need to regulate
their own emotions.
In terms of instrumental motives, our finding that attachment
anxiety is related to impression management in the context of
interpersonal emotion regulation is consistent with prior literature
showing anxiously attached individuals desire approval from
others to reduce the threat of abandonment (Brennan et al., 1998).
Hypervigilance to threat means that anxious individuals are self-
focused in processing issues and will seek soothing and reassur-
ance, particularly about the relationship (Girme et al., 2021; Özen
et al., 2011). Preoccupation, fear of abandonment, and fear of
rejection associated with hyperactivation of the attachment system
are characteristic of attachment anxiety and lead individuals to
seek validation and avoid rejection.
Attachment was unrelated to relationship maintenance and rela-
tionship distancing interpersonal emotion regulation motives.
However, attachment avoidance and attachment anxiety interacted
to predict emotional similarity motives, a largely unexplored rea-
son people may engage in interpersonal emotion regulation. We
expected attachment avoidance to predict decreased emotional
similarity motives, but avoidance was only linked to lower similar-
ity motives among those who were also high in attachment anxiety
(also known as “fearful attachment”). Avoidant attachment is char-
acterized by the tendency to preclude states of vulnerability. Avoi-
dant tendencies, when coupled with the intense fear of rejection
characteristic of anxiety, produces a deep distrust of social rela-
tionships that may lead to avoiding emotional linkage with another
person (Bartholomew, 1990). Future research should examine
whether intrapersonal emotional similarity motives (i.e., wanting
to regulate your own emotion so you will feel the way your partner
feels) also are linked to attachment.
Our findings were mixed regarding perceived social interaction
outcomes. Both forms of insecure attachment were expected to pre-
dict worse perceived social interaction outcomes, as attachment
avoidance and attachment anxiety have been previously linked to
lower emotional well-being and relationship satisfaction (Niven
et al., 2012; Özen et al., 2011) as well as worse emotion regulation
skills (Mikulincer & Shaver, 2019). However, only attachment avoid-
ance was significantly associated with perceived social interaction
 10 SPRINGSTEIN, HAMERLING-POTTS, LANDA, AND ENGLISH
outcomes in this context. The fact that attachment anxiety was linked
to interpersonal emotion regulation motives but not perceived inter-
action outcomes, whereas attachment avoidance was linked to per-
ceived outcomes but not motives, suggests that maladaptive motives
may not be the cause of attachment-related interpersonal emotion
regulation difficulties. More broadly, these findings highlight the
value of examining multiples aspects of the emotion regulation pro-
cess, such as when, why, and how individuals try to manage partners’
emotions, as well as whether they monitor the regulation process for
indications of success or failure and switch strategies when needed
(Gross, 2015).
Apart from the findings discussed above, attachment did not
predict interpersonal emotion regulation motives and outcomes to
the extent that we predicted. Although null effects should be inter-
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This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
preted cautiously, there are two potential reasons for the lack of
support for our hypotheses. First, interpersonal emotion regulation
motives showed more within- than between-person variance, as
has been found for intrapersonal emotion regulation motives
(Kalokerinos et al., 2017), suggesting motives may depend on con-
textual factors more so than on dispositional traits, such as attach-
ment. Second, we derived our hypotheses on interpersonal
emotion regulation and attachment based on the literature on intra-
personal emotion regulation and intrinsic interpersonal emotion
regulation due to the sparsity of research on attachment as it
relates to regulating the emotions of others. However, it is possible
that attachment related processes that concern one’s own emotions
do not operate in a similar way regarding others’ emotions. For
example, individuals higher in attachment avoidance might deacti-
vate their attachment system regarding their own emotions (e.g.,
be less motivated to reach out for intrinsic interpersonal emotion
regulation in order to increase closeness with someone else) but
not apply this approach to how they engage with others’ emotions.
They may be equally motivated to regulate someone else’s emo-
tions in order to increase closeness as they do not have to be con-
cerned about their own support needs not being met when they are
the regulator.
Interpersonal Emotion Regulation Motives and
Perceived Social Interaction Outcomes
Most interpersonal emotion regulation motives in the present
study predicted perceived social interaction outcomes. The pattern
of findings in the present study might suggest that, on average,
people report achieving the goals of their interpersonal emotion
regulation. Specifically, people reported more improvements in
emotional and relational well-being following social interactions
where they held more self- or other-focused prohedonic, relation-
ship maintenance, or impression management motives, (and less
self-focused performance motives and relationship distancing
motives), above and beyond the general tendency to set these
interpersonal emotion regulation motives. Each of these motives
were uniquely associated with well-being given that their effects
were simultaneously assessed. While previous work has shown
that individuals that support others (Inagaki & Orehek, 2017) and
help others regulate their emotions (Doré et al., 2017) generally
showed increases in their own well-being, our findings show that
these effects depend on the motives that people hold for engaging
in interpersonal emotion regulation.
In contrast, fewer effects of motives emerged on the between-
person level, indicating that how much people held motives in the
moment was more relevant to their well-being than why they typi-
cally regulate the emotions of others. The effects that did emerge
suggest people who are more motivated to regulate the emotions
of others for prohedonic reasons (related to oneself or other per-
son) and less motivated motived by the desire to make a good
impression showed higher perceived changes in their emotional
well-being. In addition, people who were generally more moti-
vated to regulate others’ emotions to feel more similar showed
more positive changes in relational well-being after interactions,
aligning with research documenting the benefits of shared emo-
tional states for relationship satisfaction (Anderson et al., 2003).
Attachment did not influence associations between motives and
social interaction outcomes, suggesting the adaptiveness of interper-
sonal emotion regulation motives might hold regardless of one’s
attachment. Together, the findings regarding motive-outcome links
illustrate the importance of utilizing methods that measure interper-
sonal emotion regulation motives in the moment (i.e., ESM, experi-
ments) and disentangling within- versus between-person effects.
Limitations and Future Directions
One limitation of the present study is that it relied on self-
reports from the regulator. While emotion regulation strategies can
involve observable behaviors, motivations behind emotion regula-
tion involve internal mental processes that may be more difficult
to articulate. Moreover, perceived social interaction outcomes were
assessed from only one party and it is possible that although one
may perceive their relationship to be improved, their partner could
have a different experience. For example, although individuals
higher in attachment anxiety who engaged in interpersonal emo-
tion regulation did not report lower relationship well-being, their
interaction partner might have reported more displeasure in the
relationship. Future research should collect data from dyads to test
if well-being consequences converge between both parties. This
type of design could provide insight into how one’s interpersonal
emotion regulation efforts may influence the well-being of another
person and allow an examination of both the target’s perception of
their own well-being and of the regulator’s well-being.
Second, the measures of interpersonal emotion regulation
motives and social interaction outcomes used in this study are
somewhat limited. To reduce participant burden and fatigue, some
motives were assessed using only one item which might have
increased measurement error. Future research is needed with mul-
tiple, validated items for each interpersonal emotion regulation
motive. Further, although we captured a wide range of motives
that theoretically should be most relevant to interpersonal emotion
regulation, there may be other motives worth exploring (Tamir,
2016). In addition, individuals were able to endorse multiple
motives and while hedonic and instrumental motives are theoreti-
cally distinct (i.e., individuals are thought to at times regulate emo-
tions based purely on their hedonic pleasure or purely based on
their instrumental function), our hedonic and instrumental items
covaried in a way that indicates these motives often co-occurred.
Future work should try to assess regulation in a way that can
clearly capture instances of purely hedonic motivation.
Further, our outcome measures were relatively broad in focus
and did not differentiate between specific aspects of emotional and
 ATTACHMENT AND INTERPERSONAL REGULATION
relational well-being. We did not include items that could capture
proximal interpersonal emotion regulation outcomes for certain
motives, such as performance (e.g., perceived ability to focus on a
task). In addition, our measures showed that participants often did
not perceive large amounts of changes in well-being related to the
interactions they reported on, which might have limited our ability
to find effects. Event contingent or lab-based assessment could be
used to assess moment by moment changes in perceived social
and emotional functioning in order to not require individuals to
possess metaknowledge or insight into how their emotional and
relational well-being changed over time.
As the attachment system is activated in emotionally intense sit-
uations (Mikulincer & Shaver, 2019), future research focusing on
emotionally evocative events might be able to paint a clearer pic-
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.
ture of the role of attachment in interpersonal emotion regulation
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.
motivation. While the attachment system is most likely activated
in close, romantic relationships, our sample included only a minor-
ity of participants (N = 67) that were currently in a relationship
and frequency of interacting with a romantic partner was generally
low, which may have interfered with our ability to detect effects
pertaining to romantic relationships. Future studies focusing on
specific close relationships or employing dyadic designs could
overcome this limitation.
Also, as in previous research (e.g., English et al., 2017) contra-
hedonic regulation was reported infrequently. Conflict interactions
with a close other (e.g., in laboratory settings or assessed through
event-contingent experience sampling) that pose a threat to the
relationship might provide a promising context for examining con-
trahedonic regulation of one’s own and someone else’s emotions,
particularly with regard to more anxiously attached individuals
who are more likely to perceive the upregulation of negative emo-
tions as congruent with their goals to maintain closeness with their
partner in a threatening situation (Mikulincer & Shaver, 2019).
As posited in the emotion regulation process model (Gross,
2015), the activation of an emotion regulation motive or goal (e.g.,
wanting to regulate someone’s emotions so the relationship
becomes closer) does not mean that individuals necessarily select
a regulation strategy or successfully implement this strategy. Our
research focused on the question to which extent people held cer-
tain motives and participants were explicitly instructed to report
on their motives whether they acted on them or not. Thus far there
has not been much research attention directed toward whether peo-
ple act on their motives, which is an important aspect of intra- and
interpersonal emotion regulation or dysregulation. Future research
will be necessary to assess why and how failure to act on one’s
motives occurs and whether this is due to characteristics of the
regulator (e.g., lack of knowledge about strategies or inhibition) or
the regulation context (e.g., the conversation lacking opportunity
to actively engage in regulation).
Conclusion
This study demonstrated that attachment predicts individual dif-
ferences in certain interpersonal emotion regulation motives as
well as the perceived emotional and relational impact of interper-
sonal emotion regulation. It also provided preliminary evidence of
links between interpersonal emotion regulation motives and per-
ceived social interaction outcomes in daily social interactions.
Individuals higher in attachment anxiety may be more motived to
11
regulate others’ emotions in order to minimize their own negative
affect. Consistent with prior literature on the thought patterns of
anxious attachment, those higher in attachment anxiety also
engaged in interpersonal emotion regulation with the goal of
improving others’ opinions of them (Brennan et al., 1998). Attach-
ment avoidance, on the other hand, was linked to social interaction
outcomes with individuals higher in attachment avoidance
reported lower perceived emotional and relationship well-being af-
ter interpersonal interactions. Future work can build on these ini-
tial findings about implications of attachment for interpersonal
emotion regulation and the role of motive setting in interpersonal
regulation. Doing so can shed light on the nature of psychological
well-being in relational contexts and offer ways to improve inter-
personal functioning.
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Received October 9, 2021
Revision received July 5, 2022
Accepted July 27, 2022 n