The Effects of Ecological Momentary Interventions on Emotion Regulation Strategies of People in Psychological Distress : A Mixed Design Pilot Study

Background: Emotion Regulation (ER) strategies are highly relevant to people’s mental health. Practicing adaptive ER strategies could help to cope with the psychological stressors in one’s daily life. The current study implemented four different Ecological Momentary Interventions (EMIs) with Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), and Positive Psychology (PP) derived exercises to investigate their effects on ER. It aimed to answer a quantitative research question: “How do Ecological Momentary Interventions affect people’s emotion regulation strategies?”, and a qualitative research question: “How do people perceive the effects of Ecological Momentary Interventions on their emotion regulation in real life?”. Methods: The first sample (N = 52, Mage = 22.46) who were experiencing at least mild psychological distress took part in the 16-day EMI period of 32 EMI exercises on their mobile phones, distal pre-post measurements were taken. Using the first sample as the population, a second sample of 16 interviewees took part in semi-structured interviews after the EMIs. Results: The quantitative results indicated that only ER Acceptance significantly increased after the interventions (p = .015), whereas Positive Reappraisal and Rumination did not significantly change as hypothesised. Further, the completed EMI exercises did not significantly correlate to their corresponding ER strategies as hypothesised. The qualitative interviews yielded three themes: i) Gaining more from PP; ii) ACT and CBT’s counterproductivity; and iii) Unsustainable positive changes. Discussion: The quantitative results and qualitative results did not align. Interviewees perceived PP to be more useful than the mainstream ACT or CBT. Alternative common-factor model was considered in explaining the inconsistency. Nevertheless, the current pilot study provided valuable insights into ER changes from both perspectives, the discrepancy between the statistical improvements in ER and their applicability in real-life, and conditions for future research in designing higher-level Just-In-Time-Adaptive-Interventions.