A Data-Driven Typology of Emotion Regulation Profiles

Typologies organize knowledge and advance theory for many scientific disciplines, including more recently in psychological science. However, no typology exists to categorize use of emotion regulation strategies. This is surprising given emotion regulation skills are used daily and are robustly linked with mental health symptoms. We attempted to identify and validate a working typology of emotion regulation across six samples (Total N = 1492, from multiple populations) by using several computational techniques. We uncovered evidence for three types of regulators: an infrequently regulating type (Lo), a frequently regulating type (Hi), and a third type (Mix) that selectively titrates strategy usage. Individuals in the Mix type exhibited the most adaptive mental health symptoms. These differences were stable over time and across different samples. These results are important for basic understanding of emotion regulation and for informing future interventions aimed at improving mental health.