Emotions, Cognitions, and Well-Being The Role of Perfectionism, Emotional Overexcitability, and Emotion Regulation

In this study, we examined interrelationships among emotional overexcitability, perfectionism, emotion regulation, and subjective well-being. Dabrowski and Piechowski’s theoretical conceptualization of overexcitabilities and J. J. Gross and John’s constructs of emotion regulation strategies provided a framework to guide hypotheses in the present study. Participants were 191 adults who responded to surveys administered via online methodology. Multiple-regression analyses revealed that participants in the present study with higher emotional overexcitability had lower degrees of emotion regulation overall, whereas individuals reporting higher levels of adaptive perfectionism (strivers) had higher levels of emotion regulation. Furthermore, strivers and those who used cognitive reappraisal strategies for emotion regulation were linked to higher subjective well-being for participants in this study.