Abstract
The Affective Control Scale (ACS) is a widely used measure of fear of emotion. Although the scale as a whole has good utility and predictive validity, there is little work on the specificity of the subscales of the ACS, which measure fear of anxiety, anger, depressed mood and positive mood. In the present study, we investigated the unique relations between fear of specific emotions and the everyday experience of those emotions. We sampled 120 undergraduate students and tracked their emotional experiences over the course of a week using ecological momentary assessments. We found evidence for specificity in the predictive validity of the subscales. After controlling for common variance across the subscales, fear of anger, anxiety, and depressed mood uniquely predicted greater daily experience of the corresponding emotion. These data also support the notion that those who fear specific emotions tend to experience more of those emotions in everyday life.
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Notes
In this study, the factor analysis suggested a fifth factor in addition to the original four subscales. The authors labeled the factor “emotion mismanagement.” However, the authors also noted that the scale was comprised entirely of reverse scored items and hence the separation of these items in the factor analysis might be a methodological artifact.
While the subscale is labeled fear of “depressed mood,” based on emotion theory it could also be considered fear of depressive emotions/sadness because their fear is triggered by the momentary experience of sadness and it’s potential consequences not the pervasive and sustained emotional climate of sadness (emotion not mood). Furthermore, depression as it is used in the items refers more to sadness than to clinical depression (e.g. “Depression could really take me over, so it is important to fight off sad feelings,” “When I start feeling ‘down,’ I think I might let the sadness go too far,” and “Being depressed is not so bad because I know it will soon pass [reverse scored]”). However, for continuity with the scale we have retained/use the original name in this paper.
We controlled for anxiety and depression symptoms in order to account for current mood states. We also added a control for neuroticism, which is a predisposition toward negative emotionality. The results remained the same, with the exception that the relationship between ACS anxiety and everyday anxiety became non-significant.
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This study was supported by a faculty research grant from American University.
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Hughes, C.D., Gunthert, K., Wenze, S. et al. The subscale specificity of the Affective Control Scale: Ecological validity and predictive validity of feared emotions. Motiv Emot 39, 984–992 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11031-015-9497-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11031-015-9497-7