Relationship between emotion regulation, negative affect, gender and delay discounting Marta Malesza 1 # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2019 Abstract The concept of emotion regulation states that individuals with poorly regulated emotions often engage in maladaptive behaviours to escape from or down-regulate their emotions, creating risk for a range of maladaptive behaviors. One such behavior may be higher delay discounting, which reflects greater impulsivity. The goal of the present study was therefore to examine the rela- tionship between emotion regulation strategies and deficits with discounting of delayed monetary outcomes (N = 458). Results showed that general emotion dysregulation was associated with greater delay discounting. Also, negative affect was directly related to greater delay discounting. However, specific regulation deficits, including deficits in emotional clarity, emotional awareness, acceptance of emotions, ability to engage in goal directed behaviors when distressed, impulse control, and access to effective regulation strategies, were associated with greater delay discounting above and beyond variance contributed by negative affectivity. Next, people who showed greater delay discounting reported significantly more use of suppression as a maladaptive emotion regulation strategy, compared to people who show shallow delay discounting. Finally, gender was related to a number of key study variables, with women reporting greater negative affect, slower delay discounting, and greater general difficulties with emotion regulation, less access to regulation strategies, and less ability to engage in goal directed behavior when upset, than men. Keywords Emotion regulation . Deficits in emotion regulation . Negative affect . Delay discounting Introduction The experience of emotion is undoubtedly an important aspect of our daily lives. Successful emotion regulation allows indi- viduals to function effectively even when confronted with experiences that provoke intense emotional responses. In con- trast, emotion dysregulation reflects various problematic ways in which individuals experience and react to emotional states, including a failure to understand or accept one’ s own emo- tional experiences (Gratz and Roemer 2004; Weiss et al. 2012). Researchers have suggested that failures of emotion regulation are associated with addictive behaviours (Aldao et al. 2010; Dorard et al. 2008; Fox et al. 2007, 2008; Lakey et al. 2007). Additionally, emotion regulation is a specific form of self-control (Tice et al. 2001), whereas difficulties in emotion regulation are associated with increased impulsivity (Schreiber et al. 2012). Consequently, individuals who experience emotion regulation difficulties may be found to report greater delay discounting and then report poorer ability to choose larger delayed rewards instead of smaller but avail- able immediately. Delay Discounting Delay discounting refers to the tendency for individuals to prefer immediate rewards instead of rewards received after a delay, even if the magnitude of the delayed reward is larger (Green and Myerson 2004; Kirby and Maraković 1996). The tendency to prefer immediate rewards over delayed ones can be maladaptive. High delay discounting rates have been linked with negative behaviours such as pathological gam- bling, alcohol and nicotine addictions (for review, see Critchfield and Kollins 2001). For example, possibly one might choose to forego future health (e.g., increased chance of cancer and disease) in order to enjoy the immediate plea- surable activities (e.g., smoking cigarettes, excessive sunbathing). Given that discounting is associated with numer- ous psychological and health consequences, it is important to examine different factors that may be associated with greater * Marta Malesza 1 Warsaw, Poland Current Psychology https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-019-00366-y