Evaluating Individual Differences in Emotion Regulation in Response to Sadness Using Digital Phenotyping

Background: The majority of research on emotion regulation processes has been restricted to controlled laboratory settings that use experimental paradigms to investigate short-term outcomes. A true understanding of emotion regulation requires an unobtrusive, ecologically valid assessment of the construct as it occurs in the environment. Digital phenotyping is a novel method for evaluating human behavior in naturalistic settings. Objective: This study aimed to evaluate whether smartphone-based digital phenotyping data predicts individual differences in emotion regulation in both in-lab and naturalistic settings.Methods: During an in-lab session, unselected university student participants (N = 69) completed self-report questionnaires measuring trait emotion regulation as well as state emotion regulation and state affect following a baseline period, a negative mood induction, and a recovery period. Smartphone-based digital phenotyping data were then collected over the course of a 7-day follow-up. Variation in global positioning system (GPS) distance and mobile power state level were examined as predictors of longitudinal variation in negative affect, emotion regulation, and depression. Results: Results showed that variation in GPS distance was significantly associated with variation in state cognitive reappraisal (b = -0.0004, SE = 0.0002, p = .02) and negative state affect (b = 0. 005, SE = 0.002, p = .01) over time. Variation in power state level was also significantly associated with variation in cognitive reappraisal over time (b = -4.98, SE = 1.72, p = .005) and marginally associated with variation in negative state affect (b = -29.58, SE = 16.73, p = .08) over time. Cluster and classification analyses showed both power state level and GPS distance accurately classified two trait emotion regulation clusters with high sensitivity (.95 and .96 respectively) and specificity (.86 and .97 respectively). Variation in power state level and GPS distance together with trait and state emotion regulation did not predict current depressive symptoms (ps > .05).Conclusions: Overall, the findings provide initial and foundational data on the use of digital phenotyping data in predicting individual differences in state and trait emotion regulation in both in-lab and naturalistic settings. The results suggest that operationalizations of digital phenotyping data and modeling approaches are particularly important factors to consider when implementing digital phenotyping methodology in the study of mental health processes such as emotion regulation.