A daily diary study on stressors, hurt feelings, aggression, and somatic symptoms: The role of rejection sensitivity and negative emotion differentiation

Abstract

AbstractThe current study adopted a daily diary design to examine associations of daily stressors and hurt feelings to three unfavorable daily outcomes, including verbal aggression, physical aggression, and somatic symptoms and the moderation of rejection sensitivity and negative emotion regulation on the relations between these daily variables. A total of 248 college students participated in the daily diary study in which they responded to the assessment on a daily basis for 7 consecutive days. The results indicated that daily stressors predicted daily verbal aggression; daily stressors, daily hurt feelings, and rejection sensitivity predicted somatic symptoms. Negative emotion regulation moderated the association between stressors and verbal aggression such that more stressors and high negative emotion regulation predicted more frequent daily verbal aggression. Rejection sensitivity moderated the association of hurt feelings to verbal and physical aggression. Perception of hurt feelings and high rejection sensitivity predicted more verbal aggression but less physical aggression. Rejection sensitivity also moderated the association of stressors to somatic symptoms such that more stressors and high rejection sensitivity predicted more somatic symptoms. The findings collectively highlight the importance of supporting individuals with high rejection sensitivity to encode social cues in a healthy way. It is imperative to provide emotion regulation skills to cope with negative emotions derived from social interactions.