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Emotional Inertia and Psychological Maladjustment

Emotional Inertia and Psychological Maladjustment In this article, we examine the concept of emotional inertia as a fundamental property of the emotion dynamics that characterize psychological maladjustment. Emotional inertia refers to the degree to which emotional states are resistant to change. Because psychological maladjustment has been associated with both emotional underreactivity and ineffective emotion-regulation skills, we hypothesized that its overall emotion dynamics would be characterized by high levels of inertia. We provide evidence from two naturalistic studies that, using different methods, showed that the emotional fluctuations of individuals who exhibited low self-esteem (Study 1) and depression (Study 2) were characterized by higher levels of inertia in both positive and negative emotions than the emotional fluctuations of people who did not exhibit low self-esteem and depression. We also discuss the usefulness of the concept of emotional inertia as a hallmark of maladaptive emotion dynamics. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Psychological Science SAGE

Emotional Inertia and Psychological Maladjustment

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References (41)

Publisher
SAGE
Copyright
© The Author(s) 2010
ISSN
0956-7976
eISSN
1467-9280
DOI
10.1177/0956797610372634
pmid
20501521
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

In this article, we examine the concept of emotional inertia as a fundamental property of the emotion dynamics that characterize psychological maladjustment. Emotional inertia refers to the degree to which emotional states are resistant to change. Because psychological maladjustment has been associated with both emotional underreactivity and ineffective emotion-regulation skills, we hypothesized that its overall emotion dynamics would be characterized by high levels of inertia. We provide evidence from two naturalistic studies that, using different methods, showed that the emotional fluctuations of individuals who exhibited low self-esteem (Study 1) and depression (Study 2) were characterized by higher levels of inertia in both positive and negative emotions than the emotional fluctuations of people who did not exhibit low self-esteem and depression. We also discuss the usefulness of the concept of emotional inertia as a hallmark of maladaptive emotion dynamics.

Journal

Psychological ScienceSAGE

Published: Jul 1, 2010

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