(PS7-A15) Self-invalidation Due to Emotion Predicts Problematic Use of and Attempts to Regulate Emotions via Social Media

Self-invalidation due to emotion occurs when people think less of themselves due to beliefs that they experience “too much” or “too little” emotion. People who self-invalidate more tend to struggle with emotion regulation and experience greater negative affect and symptoms of psychopathology (Schreiber & Veilleux, 2022). Research also highlights that people with heightened symptoms of psychopathology tended to spend more time on social media during the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic (Price et al., 2021), suggesting that excessive time spent consuming negative information (i.e., doomscrolling) may be related to worse mental health. Across two studies, the current research examined the relationship between self-invalidation due to emotion, tendencies to engage in doomscrolling via social media, emotion regulation skills, and attempts to regulate emotions via social media. In both Study 1 (N = 474 college students) and Study 2 (N = 402 college students and adults from around the US), both self-invalidation due to “too much” and “too little” emotion correlated with less emotion regulation skills, and with greater use of internal and external dysfunctional emotion regulation methods across studies. In Study 1, self-invalidation due to “too much” and “too little” emotion also correlated with less use of internal and external functional emotion regulation methods, but only self-invalidation due to “too little” emotion was associated with less external functional emotion regulation methods in Study 2. People who self-invalidated more due to feeling they experience “too much” emotion also tended to engage in more frequent doomscrolling, and while doomscrolling, had a greater tendency to 1) feel unable to stop despite negative emotions, 2) look for validation that others felt similarly, 3) try to remain upset, and 4) feel unable to change their emotions. People who tended to self-invalidate for “too much” emotion had higher social media addiction, and a greater tendency to use of social media for  emotion relief (e.g., increase feelings of enjoyment or distract from unpleasant things; Study 1 and 2), interpersonal emotion regulation (e.g., to seek validation or advice from others; Study 1), and broadcasting their feelings (e.g., posting about experiences or life events to receive support or compassion; Study 1 and 2) as measured by a novel measure of emotion regulation via social media. Self-invalidation due to feeling “too little” emotion did not significantly predict social media addiction, doomscrolling frequency, or emotion regulation tendencies while doomscrolling. Findings suggest that both people who self-invalidate for feeling they experience “too much” or “too little” emotion are less skilled at emotion regulation in general and more likely to engage in dysfunctional regulation methods. However, only people who self-invalidate for feeling “too much” tended to use more doomscrolling and social media to try to regulate their emotions. Perhaps people who judge themselves for feeling “too much” turn to social media to find evidence to combat their self-invalidation, or perhaps social media content reinforces negative judgments held by people who self-invalidate.