# To Turn Inward or Outward? Examining the Reciprocal Relationships Between Mindfulness, Interpersonal Emotion Regulation, and Aggression Over Time

## TL;DR

This study explores how mindfulness and seeking help from others to regulate emotions relate to aggression over time.

## Contribution

It reveals a paradoxical relationship between mindfulness and interpersonal emotion regulation that challenges initial assumptions.

## Key findings

- More mindful individuals engaged in less interpersonal emotion regulation over time.
- When participants were more mindful than usual, they subsequently used more interpersonal emotion regulation.
- Mindfulness and interpersonal emotion regulation did not consistently predict aggressive behavior.

## Abstract

People frequently turn to others to help regulate their emotions in what is referred to as interpersonal emotion regulation (IER). Mindfulness entails an intrapersonal strategy of turning inward to facilitate emotion regulation. Yet little research has examined the relationships between these distinct regulation strategies and their consequences for aggression. The current study aims to elucidate how dispositional tendencies towards mindfulness and IER interact to predict each other and aggression over time. To do so, a diverse sample of undergraduates (N = 469) at a Minority Serving Institution completed a three-wave, longitudinal study with approximately 20 days between each wave. Against our predictions, between-participants estimates suggested that more mindful individuals engaged in less IER across time points. Paradoxically, within-participant analyses revealed that when participants were more mindful than usual, they subsequently engaged in more IER. IER and mindfulness did not consistently explain our measures of aggressive behavior. As both IER and mindfulness are effective regulatory approaches with salutary effects, the inverse relationship between the two raises important questions about the trade-offs between the costs and benefits associated with these approaches.