Negligible associations between cognitive control of negative information and daily emotion regulation in borderline personality disorder and major depression

Cognitive control is assumed to be a fundamental component of successful emotion regulation, yet it remains largely unclear whether individual differences in specific facets of cognitive control predict the frequency and effectiveness of specific emotion regulation strategies in daily life. This study investigated how two facets of cognitive control, i.e. discarding irrelevant negative information from working memory, and controlling interference from negative stimuli, relate to reappraisal, rumination, and suppression in daily life. We examined these associations in female participants with borderline personality disorder (BPD; n = 52), major depressive disorder (MDD; n = 55), and healthy controls (HC; n = 55). All individuals participated in four experimental paradigms, and a 7-day experience sampling protocol measuring the frequency and effectiveness of reappraisal, rumination, and suppression in daily life. In line with previous studies, results of the experimental tasks showed heightened interference from negative stimuli and slower discarding of irrelevant negative information in individuals with BPD compared to healthy controls. Evidence for impairments in MDD was less clear. Notably, cognitive control measures provided negligible value for predicting daily life emotion regulation after accounting for diagnostic group. The frequency and effectiveness of reappraisal, rumination, and suppression were determined primarily by diagnostic group rather than cognitive control. This highlights limits of cognitive control measures regarding their ecological relevance and raises questions for interventions targeting cognitive control to enhance emotion regulation.