Ten Emotion Regulation Tactics and Two Internalizing Symptoms in Adolescents: A Meta-Analytic Review

We report five meta-analyses that each examined the relationships between two within-strategy emotion regulation tactics and symptoms of depression and anxiety in adolescents. The examined tactics were emotional and situational acceptance, behavioral and cognitive distraction, non-judging and non-reactive mindfulness, behavioral and cognitive problem solving, and positive and relativizing reappraisal. The main question of our endeavor was whether the magnitudes of effect sizes differ between sibling tactics albeit being subtypes of the same emotion regulation strategy. We analyzed a total of 91 articles (92 studies) with 343 effect sizes and found differences in effect size magnitudes across all tactic siblings. Post-hoc analyses revealed, however, that many effect size differences between sibling tactics depend on the particular emotion regulation questionnaire involved. Overall, the results imply the potential clinical importance for a context-dependent selection of emotion regulation tactics above and beyond strategies, and the need for a general tactic flexibility. Experimental and longitudinal studies should be conducted in the future to provide a more encompassing and causally grounded perspective on these links. Further studies should also investigate effect size magnitudes of other emotion regulation tactics, include other symptoms, and adult populations. It is furthermore of great importance to develop questionnaires that more specifically consider ER tactics in the future.