Importance of Affective Emotional Regulation for Life Satisfaction

Abstract

Introduction: Affective style is an interindividual difference in sensitivity to emotions and their regulation. Three styles have been identified. The concealing style has a tendency to conceal and avoid emotions. The adjusting style reflects adaptability to situational requirements. The toleration style reflects comfort and necessity in response to emotions and to perceived emotions without any effort to combat those feelings. Life satisfaction refers to the cognitive process of judgment. It consists of having resources, satisfaction of needs and desires, participation in self-realization activities, and comparison with others and past experiences.  Some affective styles effectively regulate the experience and expression of emotions, while other strategies have obviously unintended, counterproductive effects.

 Aim: To examine the association among affective styles and their predictive value for life satisfaction.

 Materials and Methods: A battery of tests with socio-demographic questions, a life satisfaction scale, and a scale for measuring affective styles were used. The battery of tests was distributed online.

 Results: Statistically significant correlations between the dimensions of adjustment and tolerance with life satisfaction were obtained.  It was also found that the adjustment dimension is a significant positive predictor, and the masking dimension is a significant negative predictor of life satisfaction.

 Conclusion: The obtained statistically significant results suggest that emotional regulation, and especially styles of its regulation, play a significant role in the correlation and prediction of life satisfaction. The relationship between these variables is explained through the theory of the three-dimensional model of affective styles. The results of this study contribute to a better understanding of the poorly researched theoretical explanation of the role of affective styles in emotional regulation and the way emotional regulation relates to life satisfaction.