Refining Emotion Regulation Variability: Comparative Predictive Validity of Absolute, Relative, and Sequential Indices for Negative Affect

We examined emotion regulation (ER) variability's impact on negative affect (NA) using four EMA datasets from Germany, Belgium, and China (N = 70-202). Indices like Coefficient of Variation and Bray-Curtis dissimilarity predicted lower NA, highlighting the importance of relative and temporal ER variability in emotional well-being.