Presidential elections are a period of heightened negative affect for many Americans. Emotion regulation strategies are known to alleviate single-shot experiences of negative affect, but it is unclear how some of these strategies work in the context of recurring negative affect, like the days surrounding a presidential election. The present research examined these issues in the context of the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election by collecting data from an online sample of U.S. partisans at four distinct assessments, spanning the day prior to Election Day to 1 week after Election Day. We find that Democrats reported significantly more negative affect than Republicans prior to the race being called, and as expected, Joe Biden's projected victory corresponded to increases in negative affect among Republicans and decreases among Democrats. Examining how the use of seven emotion regulation strategies was associated with changes in negative affect revealed that, broadly, cognitive change strategies (i.e., reappraisal, self-distancing, acceptance) were associated with decreases in negative affect, while disengagement-focused strategies (i.e., situational avoidance, distraction, cognitive suppression) were associated with increases in negative affect. Crucially, we detected differences in the source of these effects, with the effects of reappraisal and self-distancing occurring at the dispositional level (between-person), and those of acceptance and expressive suppression occurring at the state level (within-person). This study provides valuable insights into how different patterns of emotion regulation may affect negative affect caused by heightened political tensions and highlights the importance of separating between- and within-person variance when assessing these processes. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
Sgambati et al. (Mon,) studied this question.