Changes in emotion regulation strategies during the pandemic: prospective pathways to adolescent depressive symptoms

Background: Emotion regulation (ER) is considered central in adolescent psychopathology, and ER strategies may change during challenging times, such as a global pandemic. Despite this, there remains a limited understanding of individual differences in ER mechanisms and their associations with psychopathology. This study examined whether and how cognitive reappraisal, expressive suppression, and self-compassion changed over COVID-19 and how these changes uniquely predicted adolescents' depressive symptoms.

Methods: A total of 2,411 adolescents (58.6% females; M_age = 18.51, SD = 0.80) completed the Emotional Regulation Questionnaire, the Self-compassion Scale, and the Symptom Checklist-90 before COVID-19 (in 2019) and during COVID-19 (in 2020). The predictive associations between each ER strategy and depressive symptoms were tested with latent change score models.

Results: Adolescents' use of expressive suppression and self-compassion strategies both increased during COVID-19. More increases in expressive suppression predicted more depressive symptoms, whereas more increases in self-compassion predicted fewer depressive symptoms. Although, on average, cognitive reappraisal did not change, it did show significant variations within the sample - increases (vs. decreases) in cognitive appraisal predicted fewer depressive symptoms.

Conclusions: The study indicates how adolescents' ER strategies changed during the unprecedented global pandemic. It underscores protective roles of increased cognitive reappraisal and self-compassion, as well as the adverse consequence of heightened expressive suppression on adolescents' depressive symptoms. Findings offer insights for targeted interventions aimed at addressing specific ER strategies.