The development of emotional dynamics in emerging adulthood: a longitudinal EMA examination of change and the predictive role of psychological resources

Emotion regulation continues to develop during emerging adulthood, a period marked by instability, heightened stress, identity exploration, and neurobiological maturation. Understanding the development of emotional processes during this phase, and the extent to which individual-level psychological resources facilitate the development of emotion regulation, is crucial for informing prevention efforts targeting adverse outcomes such as mental health problems. Ecological momentary assessment (EMA) offers a powerful methodological approach for advancing our understanding of emotional development, as it provides rich, fine-grained data on emotional dynamics in daily life. Longitudinal EMA, in particular, enables the examination of both moment-to-moment fluctuations and developmental changes that are often missed by traditional, low sampling frequency longitudinal designs. The current study has already conducted a preliminary examination of changes in negative emotional dynamics, including mean levels of negative emotion, inertia (the persistence of emotional states), and lability (reflecting emotional fluctuation) from ages 21 and 27 in a community sample who underwent a 2-week EMA protocol at each burst. These preliminary analyses suggested overall improvements in negative emotional dynamics across this developmental period (e.g., reductions in emotional lability). Building on this work, we will examine whether changes in these emotional dynamics are predicted by a set of individual-level psychological resources measured at ages 20 and 24 in a set of main cohort survey measures, including perceived adultness, hope, self-efficacy, conflict coping, stress coping, self-control, and future self-perception. These resources reflect a broader construct of psychological maturity, which is theorized to support adaptive emotion regulation during emerging adulthood. Assessing these resources at two time points allows us to examine, as an exploratory aim, whether resources measured earlier or later in emerging adulthood are differentially associated with changes in emotional dynamics. In addition, we will explore how key sociodemographic factors (including individual gender, educational status and years of education, independent living, financial-related factors, immigration background, and parents’/caregivers’ employment and educational status) relate to the changes in these emotional dynamics.