Interindividual Differences and Intraindividual Variability in Emotional Well-being: an Examination of Gender, Time Perspective and Emotion Regulation

This study examined Taiwanese undergraduates’ trajectories of emotional well-being, positive affect, and negative affect over a 16-week period within one semester. The effect of their differences in gender and time perspective profiles on intraindividual variability of weekly affect and associations between time trends of affects and use of two emotional regulation strategies, i.e., reappraisal and suppression, were also investigated. Longitudinal data from 96 undergraduates were analyzed by hierarchical linear modeling (HLM). With time passing, the habitual use of reappraisal was related to the increase of emotional well-being and positive affect and related to the decline of negative affect. By contrast, habitually using suppression was related to an increase of negative affect over time. The main findings also indicated that individuals with balanced time perspective had higher levels of emotional well-being compared to those without balanced time perspective at the baseline of the study. Gender and time perspective profiles were also demonstrated as moderators in the relationship between changes in using emotional regulation strategies on emotional well-being.