Habitual suppression of emotions has been linked to adverse consequences such as avoidant attachment, lower social support, and reduced relationship closeness (e.g. John & Gross, 2004). However, accumulating evidence that expression and suppression can be both adaptive and maladaptive in different contexts suggests the importance of flexibility in emotional regulation. The present study examined the mechanisms underlying the only laboratory measure of emotional flexibility: the Expressive Flexibility (EF) task (Bonanno, Papa, Lalande, Westphal, & Coifman, 2004). This measure has been linked to adjustment over a one-year period, especially in the context of social threat, and among people who have experienced higher levels of life stress (Westphal, Seivert & Bonanno, 2010). We sought to test whether EF is related to physiological recovery from stress in the immediate term. Participants completed questionnaire measures, the EF Task and a stressful public speaking task. In the EF task, participants were filmed suppressing, exaggerating, and not altering facial reactions to negative and positive pictures. A “balanced EF” score was calculated reflecting their ability to suppress and exaggerate with equal success. Regression analyses used EF scores as predictors for psychophysiological indices of stress (SCR and HR) during and after the public-speaking task. The interaction of EF and social safeness (SSPS) was predictive of the magnitude of SCR recovery, such that for people with lower EF, higher SSPS is predictive of greater SCR recovery. These results converge with previous findings on the suggestion that EF is related to resilience, especially in the context of adversity.

College students with ADHD tend to struggle with their academic performance and are less likely to graduate college than their neurotypical peers. Emotion dysregulation, a common symptom of ADHD, can cause significant functional impairment throughout life. Acute exercise improves ADHD symptom severity, yet medication is the first line of treatment. Less is understood about the effectiveness of habitual exercise or ADHD medication on emotion dysregulation and quality of life (QoL). Therefore, the purpose of this mixed-methods study was to examine the relationship between habitual exercise, emotion regulation, and QoL in college students with ADHD, and the possible moderating effects of ADHD medication. A sample of 53 participants completed a Qualtrics survey that included items on recent exercise, emotion regulation strategies, medication status, and QoL. A subset of participants (n=6) also completed a semi-structured interview. A moderated mediation model of linear regression was used to examine the relationships between habitual exercise, emotion regulation, and QoL, and explore the moderating effects of ADHD medication. A 6-step thematic analysis was used to analyze the interview data. Results found a positive main effect of habitual exercise on expression suppression, (p=0.007). Greater use of cognitive reappraisal was associated with greater QoL (p=0.02). There was a stronger association between habitual exercise and cognitive reappraisal in participants taking ADHD medication (p=0.006), than those who were not taking ADHD medication (p=0.942). Medication status did not show a moderating effect. Qualitative analysis identified primary themes of both ADHD-related exercise benefits (increased focus, reduced hyperactivity, improved emotion regulation), and non-ADHD related exercise benefits (feelings of accomplishment, elevated mood, coping mechanism, improved health and fitness). Although further research is necessary, habitual exercise in conjunction with ADHD medication may be an effective treatment for emotion dysregulation associated with ADHD.

The intent of this thesis is to explore the perceived discrepancies between individual scores of psychopathy, particularly the division of primary and secondary psychopathy, and how such scores may moderate the relationship of one's emotional experiences with the corresponding emotional expression. There is evidence to consider that a person's working memory ability and/or volitional suppression of expression may also moderate this relationship and result in constricted emotional expression, a trait often found in primary psychopathy. Undergraduate participants completed the study online, and after exclusions, a final sample size of 126 participants (62.7% women) was used in analyses. An initial linear regression found that primary psychopathy severity showed a negative relationship with performance on a visuo-spatial n-back test of working memory. While age did not relate to expression, women reported a greater strength of expression for both negative and positive emotions than men. Using hierarchical linear regressions, a significant four-way interaction was found between primary psychopathy severity, working memory performance, degree of volitional expression suppression, and internal emotional experience, in predicting the strength of expressing negative emotions. Analysis of simple effects revealed that, for participants scoring higher in primary psychopathy (n = 63), there was a significant three-way interaction for experience of negative emotions, the use of emotional suppression, and working memory performance in predicting the strength of expressing negative emotions. Simple effects of this interaction showed that for a subgroup who were higher in primary psychopathy and volitional suppression of emotional expression (n = 25), there was significant negative relationship between the frequency of experiencing negative emotions and the strength of expressing those emotions. There were no significant interactions involving secondary psychopathy severity or variables relating to positive emotions in any regression. The findings of this study could be useful for future research on psychopathy as it relates to understanding the characteristics and functioning of individuals with psychopathy.