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Emotion

Is switching how you manage others' feelings bad for you?

Niven K, Macdonald I, Holman D · Frontiers in psychology · 2012

Open access · cc by · source: Europe PMC

People who regulated others' emotions very differently from one relationship to another reported less close relationships, lower mood and more emotional exhaustion.

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Study at a glance

Design
Cross-sectional — One-off online survey; each person rated their interpersonal emotion regulation toward a romantic partner, a friend/relative and a coworker, and variability across these was scored as circular 'spin'.
N
N=1211 · 1211 participants in the final sample; empathy measures came from a random subgroup of 228 and attachment measures from a subgroup of 273; 50 partner-report pairs were used to validate self-reports.
Population
UK-recruited members of the public and university staff/students aged 16-71, mostly women
Outcome
Relationship closeness (Inclusion of Other in the Self), positive mood, emotional exhaustion; empathy and attachment style as predictors of spin

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Key findings

Higher spin was linked to lower relationship closeness (beta = -0.14), lower positive mood (beta = -0.11) and higher emotional exhaustion (beta = 0.11), after controlling for age, gender, number of relationships and overall amount of regulation. People higher in empathic concern and perspective taking had lower spin, and people higher in anxious attachment had higher spin, but avoidant attachment was not related to spin. Across the sample, all strategy types were used most with romantic partners and least at work.

Methodology

Adults completed an online survey rating how often, over the past four weeks, they had tried to make a romantic partner, a friend or relative, and a coworker feel better or worse, using thinking-based or behaviour-based strategies. Each relationship was placed on a two-dimensional map (improve vs worsen, cognitive vs behavioural) and a person's 'spin' was the circular standard deviation of their positions across relationships. Spin was then related to closeness, mood and exhaustion, and random subgroups also completed empathy and attachment questionnaires.

Limitations

All data are self-reported and collected at a single time point, so the study cannot show that spin causes poorer wellbeing; unhappy or exhausted people might simply behave less consistently. The effects are small, the sample was mostly women recruited online, and only three relationship types were sampled. Spin was computed from one retrospective survey rather than repeated daily reports, so variability within a relationship over time is not captured. The partner-report validation used only a small number of pairs.

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