The thesis draws attention to type-related changes in everyday emotional processes. In emotion regulation, it may involve switching strategies, such as from distraction to social sharing. In emotion, it may involve differentiating between emotions, transitioning from one emotion to another (e.g., from anger to sadness), and tendencies in sequentially experience emotions (e.g., lonely→depressed). By analyzing simulated datasets and everyday data of young people (Nₑₛₘ Total = 848, hourly observations = 42,878; Nₚₐₙₑₗ Total = 777, half-yearly observations = 1,880), this thesis extends conventional approaches that focus only on changes in (average) intensity. Findings suggest that type-related dynamics are crucial for describing how young people adapt to everyday emotional experiences and may shape young people’s mental and social health.

Details of the Defence

Defence date: Tuesday, June 2, 2026
Time: 16:30
Location: Aula Radboud Universiteit (Academiezaal), Comeniuslaan 2, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
Livestream link: (to be updated)
RSVP: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/14e-k4MwZrARz2HAGah6_ie8c2bfXrgDxr53xUAZmvUU/viewform?edit_requested=true#responses

4 Empirical Chapters

Peer-reviewed

Loneliness and Depressive Symptoms: From Moments to Months

Pre-registered multi-timescale analyses integrating analysis of longitudinal and ESM data.
Feeling depressed after transient loneliness is unpleasant but common among adolescents. This could be part of a normal process that supports adolescents in achieving long-term social health.
Lo, T. T., Pouwels, J. L., Vink, J. M., van den Broek, N., Eltanamly, H., Maciejewski, D. F., & Verhagen, M. (in press). Loneliness and Depressive Symptoms Within and Across Hourly and Half-Yearly Timescales: Testing the Evolutionary Theory of Loneliness. Development and Psychopathology. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/pnuq4_v1

Emotion Differentiation’s Short-Term Trade-offs

Pre-registered mega-analysis on 5 ESM datasets (Ntotal = 750, 25,834 observations).
Within-person mediation shows that heightened emotion differentiation has short-term trade-offs in increased unpleasant feelings and less changes in emotion regulation strategies.
Lo, T. T., Verhagen, M., Pouwels, J. L., van Roekel, E., O’Brien, S. T., Debra, G., Braet, J., Vink, J. M., & Maciejewski, D. F. (2025). Emotion Differentiation in Adolescents: Short-term Trade-offs with Regulation Variability and Emotion Intensity. Affective Science, 1-16. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42761-025-00301-4

Bray-Curtis Dissimilarity to Detect Compensatory Changes in Multivariate ESM Data

Methodological innovation in capturing compensatory changes in multivariate time-series data
Validated with simulated and real-life data that Bray-Curtis dissimilarity, an index from ecology, outperforms conventional indices in capturing compensatory changes between variables
Applying the methodology to emotion regulation, we found that switching from using one emotion regulation strategy to another predicted lower intensity in negative emotions.
Lo, T. T., Van Lissa, C. J., Verhagen, M., Hoemann, K., Erbaş, Y., & Maciejewski,D. F. (2024). A theory-informed emotion regulation variability index: Bray–Curtis dissimilarity. Emotion, 24(5), 1273. https://dx.doi.org/10.1037/emo0001344

Under review

Negative Emotion Transition

Applied Bray-Curtis dissimilarity to examine everyday changes in the type of emotions.
Transitioning between negative emotions may have concurrent benefits in reducing the overall intensity of negative emotions. This benefit is more pronounced in depressed young adults.
Lo, T. T., Maciejewski, D. F., Vervoort, L., Vink, J. M., Cheng, T. N., Pouwels, J. L., & Verhagen, M. (Preprint). Negative Emotion Transitions May Have Immediate Benefits in Decreasing Negative Emotions in Daily Life. https://doi.org/10.31219/osf.io/7yqkw_v1

PhD thesis: Between moments, between emotions

Between moments, between emotions: how everyday (in)varying emotional processes relate to social and mental health in adolescents and young adults