People use a variety of emotion regulation strategies to cope with difficult situations. Although there is research supporting humor as an effective emotion regulation strategy, less is known about what circumstances lead people to use humor and what negative emotions humor seems to be the most helpful in mitigating. The current study aimed to determine to what extent specific negative emotions lead people to choose humor as an emotion regulation strategy. Participants wrote about a neutral situation and then selected from four card decks with different stimuli (funny, pleasant, awe-inspiring, or neutral). Participants were then randomly assigned to a negative emotion condition (sadness, embarrassment, anxiety, or anger) and wrote about a situation in which they have experienced that specific emotion. They then completed the card selection task again. We compared the number of funny cards chosen between the neutral vs negative emotion trials for each emotion. We found that card selection did not change significantly from the neutral-affect trial to the negative emotion trial across any of the negative emotions. Limitations and future directions are discussed.

The COVID-19 pandemic has generated alarming increases in psychological distress and alcohol use behaviors and has caused the greatest increases in depression and anxiety symptoms among college students. Prior studies have examined the impact of COVID-19 broadly on mental health and alcohol use outcomes; however, few studies have examined these impacts in college students. Previous studies have examined individual factors that could moderate the relation between COVID-19 related stressors and mental health and alcohol use outcomes, but knowledge is lacking regarding the role of emotion regulation. The present study aimed to examine the role of emotion regulation in the relation between both COVID-19 stressful experiences and COVID-19 related worry and mental health and alcohol use outcomes, and to explore racial/ethnic differences in their associations. Four hierarchical multiple regression models were conducted to assess main effects of COVID-19 stressors and emotion regulation, as well as moderation of the effect of emotion regulation on depression symptoms, anxiety symptoms, alcohol consumption, and alcohol use disorder (AUD) symptoms during the past year. COVID-19 related worry was associated with greater symptoms of both mental health outcomes, whereas COVID-19 related stressful experiences were associated with both mental health outcomes, more alcohol consumption, and more AUD symptoms. Difficulties in emotion regulation had significant main effects on mental health outcomes and AUD symptoms, but not alcohol consumption. Hispanic/Latinx students reported higher experiences of both COVID-19 related stressors, but consumed less alcohol than did White/European students. This study provides further insight into the nature of COVID-19 related stressors and their subsequent impacts. Implications for prevention and intervention on college campuses are discussed.

Background: Unintentional injury has been the leading cause of death for children and teenagers in the United States for the past 2 decades. Its health outcomes are often studied, but it may also relate to psychological concepts such as emotion dysregulation, which may also result in severe outcomes for individuals, families, and societies. There is no consensus on a conceptual definition of emotion dysregulation, and little prior literature on the specific relation between dysregulation and injury in the transition to adolescence. Methods: The current study aims to identify latent factors of emotion dysregulation using exploratory factor analyses. Subsequently, multilevel regressions illuminate relations between dysregulation and injury at 2 late childhood and early adolescence time points in a large ethnically, socioeconomically, and regionally representative sample of Arizona twins recruited from birth records and ongoing efforts. Results: 6 total factors representing emotion dysregulation at 2 ages were created. Factors were valid when tested against temperament and psychopathology constructs. No significant longitudinal or cross-sectional associations between emotion dysregulation factors and unintentional injury were found. Sex and rurality differences were found in factor scores and dysregulation outcomes. Discussion: The current study highlights new avenues of research and funding. Future research on this topic should reflect a concentrated and nuanced focus on injury. Concordant age 9 and age 11 factors loaded differently, which urges the field to strive toward developing a standardized definition for emotion dysregulation. Covariate differences highlight target populations for interventions in unintentional injury and emotion dysregulation, which remain independent areas of concern.