The role of emotion regulation on the relationship between academic burnout and daily affect in university students – an experience sampling study

Abstract

As society progresses and jobs evolve, students in higher education face growing expectations to excel in multiple areas beyond academic achievements. These excessive demands can result in academic burnout which may adversely impact students’ health and well-being. There is thus a need to better understand emotion regulation strategies that may help buffer burned-out students against negative outcomes. The current study investigated the associations of academic burnout with reports of daily positive and negative affect amongst undergraduates (N = 81), and examined whether the use of expressive suppression and cognitive reappraisal strategies moderated these relationships. Participants first completed baseline measures of academic burnout levels and trait emotion regulation. Using experience sampling, daily positive and negative affect levels were assessed thrice daily over seven consecutive days. Results revealed that higher academic burnout was associated with higher daily negative affect, but not lower daily positive affect. In addition, we found that the relationship between academic burnout and negative affect was moderated by expressive suppression but not cognitive reappraisal strategies. Simple slope analyses revealed that higher usage of expressive suppression was associated with lower negative affect in individuals with low levels of academic burnout, but not for individuals with high levels of academic burnout. These findings suggest that academic burnout is primarily associated with higher negative but not lower positive affect, and that expressive suppression may be an effective strategy for managing negative emotions before academic burnout levels become excessive.