Exploring paths of change: Analyzing teachers’ emotion regulation repertoire over time using multi-level latent profile analysis

Background

The emotion regulation (ER) strategies that teachers use impact their personal well-being. As teachers gain job experience, they may select different, more adaptive strategies. Previous research has often focused on individual ER strategies, neglecting the combined use of multiple strategies.

Aims

We set out to understand how teachers use a range of different strategies to regulate negative emotions, measured at the daily level across two measurement bursts spaced six months apart, and how their ER strategy patterns are linked with job experience and occupational well-being.

Sample

Participants were NBurst1 = 268 and NBurst2 = 164 German primary and secondary school teachers.

Method

Our measurement-burst design involved daily-diary assessments of 12 ER strategies (acceptance, positive reappraisal, social support, situation modification, situation selection, expressive suppression, experience suppression, distraction, acting-out, self-blame, rumination, substance use) at two time points. We applied multilevel latent profile analyses to identify ER profiles at the person level. We explored profiles’ associations with occupational well-being, predicted profile membership by job experience, and looked into profile changes over time.

Results

Five ER profiles emerged, of which three were common and two unique to the two bursts, differing in the specific combination of strategies. Less experienced teachers were more likely to be in profiles characterized by avoidance strategies. Those profiles were also linked to lower affective well-being and more emotional exhaustion, and displayed lower stability over time.

Conclusion

Teachers use a wide variety of ER strategies which have implications for their occupational well-being.