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Reappraisal and mindfulness represent two fundamentally different but interconnected ways of dealing with one’s emotions: whereas reappraisal is aimed at changing one’s thoughts and emotions, mindfulness is aimed at notimmediately changing, but appreciating them. Despite this difference, prior research has shown that both are beneficial for one’s affective well-being. However, research on the spontaneous use of reappraisal and mindfulness in daily life found that they might be differentially associated with positive and negative affect, with reappraisal and mindful attention being more strongly associated with increased positive affect and mindful acceptance with decreased negative affect. Moreover, the spontaneous use of reappraisal may be less effective than mindfulness in daily life given that it is more cognitively taxing. To compare these possibly different benefits (i.e., change in positive and negative affect) and costs (i.e., feeling depleted), we re-analyzed two experience sampling studies (N= 125 and N= 179). Regarding benefits, endorsing reappraisal and mindful attention was significantly associated with increases in positive affect, whereas endorsing mindful acceptance was significantly associated with decreases in negative affect. Regarding costs, we found that endorsing reappraisal led to more depletion and that reappraisal was selected less often than mindfulness in daily life. Our results demonstrate the importance of assessing not only the different benefits but also the costs of emotion regulation in daily life.

Contextual factors shape emotion regulation (ER). The intensity of emotional stimuli may be such a contextual factor that influences the selection and moderates the effectiveness of ER strategies in reducing negative affect (NA). Prior research has shown that, on average, when emotional stimuli were more intense, distraction was selected over reappraisal (and vice versa). This pattern was previously shown to be adaptive as the preferred strategies were more efficient in the respective contexts. Here, we investigated whether stressor intensity predicted strategy use and effectiveness in similar ways in daily life. We examined five ER strategies (reappraisal, reflection, acceptance, distraction, and rumination) in relation to the intensity of everyday stressors, using two waves of experience-sampling data (N= 156). In accordance with our hypotheses, reappraisal, reflection, and acceptance were used less, and rumination was used more, when stressors were more intense. Moreover, results suggested that distraction was more effective, and rumination more detrimental the higher the stressor intensity. Against our hypotheses, distraction did not covary with stressor intensity, and there was no evidence that reappraisal, reflection, and acceptance were more effective at lower levels of stressor intensity. Instead, when examined individually, reflection and reappraisal (like distraction) were more effective at higher levels of stressor intensity. In sum, stressor intensity predicted ER selection and moderated strategy effectiveness, but the results also point to a more complex ER strategy use in daily life than in the laboratory.