Emotion Differentiation in Adolescents: Short-term Trade-offs with Regulation Variability and Emotion Intensity

Emotion differentiation—distinctively labeling emotions—is theorized to guide adolescents in regulating emotions amid changing daily-life situations. Momentary fluctuations in emotion differentiation are expected to introduce variability in using emotion regulation strategies, leading to sequential emotion intensity changes. Using five experience sampling datasets (N = 750, aged 11–25, 59.17% female, 25,834 observations) that repeatedly assess emotion differentiation and emotion regulation variability, we examined their interaction and impact on emotion intensity. Surprisingly, moments of heightened emotion differentiation were followed by more stable use of regulation strategies (lower variability), while moments of higher emotion regulation variability were followed by less emotion differentiation. Both heightened differentiation and regulation variability preceded contra-hedonic outcomes, such as increased negative emotions and decreased positive emotions. These findings were robust across different types of emotion regulation variability (intensity or switching) and valences of emotions (positive or negative). In the short term, emotion differentiation predicts reduced regulation variability and may bring unpleasant changes in emotion intensity.