Graduation Year

2019

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree

Ph.D.

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)

Degree Granting Department

Psychology

Major Professor

Jonathan Rottenberg, Ph.D.

Committee Member

Mark Goldman, Ph.D.

Committee Member

Edelyn Verona, Ph.D.

Committee Member

Kristen Salomon, Ph.D.

Committee Member

Brent Small, Ph.D.

Keywords

depression, emotional functioning, psychopathology, sleep quality

Abstract

Depressive symptoms and sleep are both strongly associated with deficits in emotional functioning (Durmer & Dinges, 2005; van der Helm & Walker, 2010). Although sleep and depression are tightly intertwined, understanding their independent and conjoint impact on emotional functioning is imperative. Given the limitations of previous designs, the primary goal of this study was to examine the separate impact of poor sleep quality and depressive symptoms on emotion regulation. In order to accomplish this goal, we preselected groups on the basis of their sleep and depression profiles: individuals with mainly sleep problems (N = 30), individuals with mainly depressive symptoms (N = 10), individuals who scored highly on both problems (N = 37), as well as individuals who are low on both problems (N = 33). Main predictions were that sleep would be uniquely associated with poor trait and laboratory emotion regulation. Results were contrary to hypotheses in that we found main effects of depression on all self-reported measures of emotion regulation and a main effect of sleep on rumination alone. Sleep and depression both predicted affective consequences of laboratory emotion regulation but in the opposite of the expected direction: greater severity scores predicted more benefit from instructed emotion regulation strategy use in the laboratory. Further discussion centers on the complexity of sleep problems and future directions for a greater understanding of sleep within emotion regulation.

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