The longitudinal relationships between neuroticism, emotion regulation strategies, and affective symptomatology

The gap

Evidence profile

Sourced from the future-work section and recommendations and limitations of the source papers, classified as general, drawn from work published between 2025 and 2026, spanning 5 journals. Those papers have been cited 4 times in total.

Supporting evidence — 5 representative gaps

• Emotional regulation ability and depressive symptoms among Chinese junior high school students: a cross-sectional analysis of the role of stress coping styles (2026) · Frontiers in Psychiatry · doi

  Longitudinal studies are needed to examine the relationships between emotional regulation ability, coping styles, and depressive symptoms over time, - Future research should investigate the mechanisms by which emotional regulation ability influences depressive symptoms, - Studies should examine the effectiveness of interventions aimed at improving emotional regulation ability and reducing depressive symptoms

  generalfuture-work section
  Keywords: longitudinal studies needed examine relationships between emotional regulation
• Beyond Individual Differences in Affective Symptomatology: The Distinct Contributions of Emotional Competence and Rumination in a Nationally Representative Sample (2025) · Behavioral Sciences · cited 3× · doi

  Future studies should examine the longitudinal relationships between neuroticism, emotion regulation strategies, and affective symptomatology. Research should investigate the effectiveness of interventions targeting emotional competence and rumination in reducing affective symptomatology. Studies should explore the generalizability of the findings to other populations and cultural contexts.

  generalfuture-work section
  Keywords: future studies examine longitudinal relationships between neuroticism emotion
• How do we regulate other's emotions in the here and now? Interpersonal emotion regulation strategies and nonverbal behaviors in immediate social interactions (2025) · The Japanese journal of psychology · cited 1× · doi

  Future research should investigate the effectiveness of different emotion regulation strategies in various social contexts. The study's findings suggest that nonverbal behaviors play an important role in emotion regulation, and future research should explore this further. Future research should also examine the cultural and individual differences in emotion regulation strategies and nonverbal behaviors.

  generalfuture-work sectionevidence 5/5
  Keywords: future research investigate effectiveness different emotion regulation strategies
• Emotion Regulation Strategies and Cognitive Flexibility in Turkish Young Adults: A Dual-Method Investigation (2026) · European Journal of Psychology and Educational Research · doi

  To build upon the current findings, future research should prioritize ecologically valid designs that capture the dynamic nature of emotion regulation flexibility. Subsequent studies would significantly benefit from utilizing ecological momentary assessment to investigate how young adults dynamically synchronize multiple strategies with specific contextual demands in their daily lives, such as adjusting their regulatory efforts based on the perceived long-term implications of an emotional event (Pruessner & Ortner, 2025). Furthermore, understanding this regulatory flexibility requires a deeper integration of individual differences and cultural contexts. Rather than relying on broad country-level generalizations or simple East-West dichotomies, future investigations should explicitly examine within-culture variability. Assessing individual-level cultural orientations— such as horizontal versus vertical collectivism (Klein et al., 2024)—alongside specific cultural dimensions may provide a more nuanced understanding of regulatory success. Integrating these individual cultural metrics with distinct personality profiles would further clarify for whom, and under what specific conditions, strategies like expressive suppression become adaptive rather than maladaptive. Finally, to clarify causal relationships, future longitudinal and experimental studies should move beyond isolating single strategies. Researchers are encouraged to examine combinations and sequences of emotion regulation strategies across different developmental stages to better understand their effects on adaptive cognitive functioning.

  generalrecommendationsevidence 5/5
  Keywords: strategies cultural future specific regulatory individual emotion regulation flexibility understanding rather level examine clarify adaptive
• A Scoping Review on Positive Emotions and Affect in Autism (2026) · Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders · doi

  Finally, future research should focus on developing and evaluating interventions targeting positive emotions, including posi- tive emotion regulation, in ecological contexts, in order to enhance emotional experience, well-being, social participa- tion, and quality of life. Finally, the scarcity and heterogeneity of the available studies, along with contradictory results, highlight the need for further research, including longitudinal designs and approaches with greater ecological validity.

  generallimitationsevidence 5/5
  Keywords: finally including ecological future focus developing evaluating interventions targeting positive emotions posi tive emotion regulation

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