The Effects of Teaching Emotion Words on Emotional Granularity, Emotion Regulation/Dysregulation, and Satisfaction with Life

Emotional granularity (EG) has been associated with adaptive emotion regulation, psychological well-being, and reduced psychopathology. The present study examined whether teaching highly specific emotion words would increase EG and improve emotion regulation, emotional dysregulation, and well-being outcomes. A total of 95 adults were randomly assigned to either a 14-day emotion word training condition (n = 48) or a matched control word training condition (n = 47). Before and after training, participants completed assessments of word knowledge, self-reported and behavioral estimates of EG, emotion regulation, emotional dysregulation, and satisfaction with life. Mediation analyses evaluated whether changes in EG explained the relationship between increases in word knowledge variables and positive psychological outcomes. Participants in both emotion and control word conditions showed improvements in word knowledge variables after training, but only those in the emotion word group showed that increased emotion word usage was associated with higher EG (using the Range and Differentiation of Emotion Expression Scale, RDEES) and lower emotional dysregulation and reduced suppression. Those in the control group showed mixed effects for self-reported EG and outcomes. For neither group, however, were any of the effects mediated by either EG measurement. Furthermore, behavioral and self-report measures of EG were not significantly correlated, suggesting that they may capture distinct aspects of emotional functioning. These findings provide preliminary support for emotion vocabulary training as a low-cost intervention that may enhance emotional functioning and suggest that self-perceived EG may be more closely linked to adaptive outcomes.