*Associations between intra- and inter-personal emotion regulation* Benjamin A. Swerdlow and Sheri L. Johnson Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley *Summary *Across four samples, we investigated cross-sectional and prospective links between intrapersonal and interpersonal emotion regulation. *Keywords *· Interpersonal emotion regulation · Intrapersonal emotion regulation · Close relationships · Daily diary · Ecological momentary assessment *Introduction *Recent research has drawn attention to the ubiquity and potency of interpersonal emotion regulation, defined as goal-directed social transactions motivated to alter one’s own (intrinsic) or another’s (extrinsic) emotions (c.f., Zaki, & Williams, 2013). A still largely unresolved empirical question, however, is how individual differences in *intra*personal emotion regulation may impinge on interpersonal emotional regulation, with some studies finding, e.g., that people who experience symptoms of mood dysregulation may benefit more from interpersonal than intrapersonal emotion regulation (e.g., Levy-Gigi & Shamay-Tsoory, 2016; Stone et al., 2018) and others reporting that, e.g., use of expressive suppression may undermine intrinsic interpersonal emotion regulation (e.g., Williams et al., 2018). *Aims *We evaluate cross-sectional and prospective links between three widely studied intrapersonal emotion regulation variables and 1) tendencies to pursue and 2) perceptions of the efficacy of intrinsic interpersonal emotion regulation interactions. We hypothesized that: 1) more frequent use of expressive suppression would be associated with less inclination to pursue interpersonal regulation and lower ratings of interpersonal regulation interactions; 2) more frequent use of cognitive reappraisal would be associated with greater inclination to pursue interpersonal emotion regulation and higher ratings of interpersonal emotion regulation; and 3) higher global emotion dysregulation would be associated with more inclination to pursue interpersonal emotion regulation, but lower ratings of interpersonal emotion regulation efficacy. *Methods* We collected data from four samples, including three undergraduate samples (analyzable *n*s = 295, 390, 90) and a community sample of adults in cohabiting romantic relationships (*n* = 114). Procedures varied across samples, but entailed collecting baseline questionnaire (Samples 1-4), autobiographical recall (Sample 2), daily diaries (Sample 3; *k* = 1118), and ecological momentary assessment (Sample 4; *k* = 2396) data to capture three facets of intrapersonal emotion regulation (using the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire and the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale) and interpersonal emotion regulation. *Results *Core hypotheses were tested using multiple linear regression for cross-sectional data (Samples 1 & 2) and random-intercept linear and logistic mixed effects models for repeated measures data (Samples 3 & 4). Consistent evidence emerged across samples that use of expressive suppression was associated with less motivation to seek interpersonal emotion regulation (*b*s ranging from -.57 to -.31, *p*s from <.001 to .004) and that global emotion dysregulation was associated with greater motivation to seek interpersonal emotion regulation (*b*s from .17 to .60, *p*s from .002 to .03); however, results were less consistent across studies regarding associations with perceived efficacy, and the magnitudes of the observed effects were modest. No consistent evidence was found regarding reappraisal. *Conclusions *Findings are consistent with the intuition that people who take a dimmer view of their own intrapersonal emotion regulation abilities and those who are more willing to display their emotions pursue intrinsic interpersonal emotion regulation more readily. Contrary to hypotheses, however, we did not observe links between cognitive reappraisal and interpersonal emotion regulation, nor consistent evidence that any of these individual differences in intrapersonal emotion regulation impinged on perceptions of the efficacy of receiving interpersonal regulation, suggesting that these main effects, if they do exist, may be small, or that people may selectively choose the moments in which these strategies will be adaptive. These findings thus leave open the possibility that people who struggle to regulate their own emotions adaptively may nevertheless accrue similar benefits from receiving interpersonal regulation as those who endorse less emotion dysregulation. *References* Levy-Gigi, E., & Shamay-Tsoory, S. G. (2017). Help me if you can: Evaluating the effectiveness of interpersonal compared to intrapersonal emotion regulation in reducing distress. *Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry*, *55*, 33-40. Stone, L. B., Mennies, R. J., Waller, J. M., Ladouceur, C. D., Forbes, E. E., Ryan, N. D., ... & Silk, J. S. (2019). Help me feel better! Ecological momentary assessment of anxious youths’ emotion regulation with parents and peers. *Journal of abnormal child psychology*, *47*(2), 313-324. Williams, W. C., Morelli, S. A., Ong, D. C., & Zaki, J. (2018). Interpersonal emotion regulation: Implications for affiliation, perceived support, relationships, and well-being. *Journal of Personality and Social Psychology*, *115*, 224. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspi0000132 Zaki, J., & Williams, W. C. (2013). Interpersonal emotion regulation. *Emotion*, *13*, 803-810. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0033839