Sadness regulation strategies and measurement: A scoping review
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
1-1-2021
Abstract
Backgrounds Accurate measurement and suitable strategies facilitate people regulate their sadness in an effective manner. Regulating or mitigating negative emotions, particularly sadness, is crucial mainly because constant negative emotions may lead to psychological disorders, such as depression and anxiety. This paper presents an overview of sadness regulation strategies and related measurement. Method Upon adhering to five-step scoping review, this study combed through articles that looked into sadness regulation retrieved from eight databases. Results As a result of reviewing 40 selected articles, 110 strategies were identified to regulate emotions, particularly sadness. Some of the most commonly reported strategies include expressive suppression, cognitive reappraisal, distraction, seeking social or emotional support, and rumination. The four types of measures emerged from the review are self-reported, informant report (parents or peers), open-ended questions, and emotion regulation instructions. Notably, most studies had tested psychometric properties using Cronbach's alpha alone, while only a handful had assessed validity (construct and factorial validity) and reliability (Cronbach's alpha or test-retest) based on responses captured from questionnaire survey. Conclusion Several sadness regulation strategies appeared to vary based on gender, age, and use of strategy. Despite the general measurement of emotion regulation, only one measure was developed to measure sadness regulation exclusively for children. Future studies may develop a comprehensive battery of measures to assess sadness regulation using multi-component method.
Keywords
Backgrounds Accurate measurement, Sadness regulation strategies, Measurement, Scoping review
Divisions
Education
Publication Title
PLoS ONE
Volume
16
Issue
8
Publisher
Public Library of Science
Publisher Location
1160 BATTERY STREET, STE 100, SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94111 USA