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

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 sequential experience of 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)

4 Empirical Chapters

Peer-reviewed

• 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
• 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

• Lo, T. T., Pouwels, J. L., Vink, J. M., van den Broek, N., Eltanamly, H., Maciejewski, D. F., & Verhagen, M. (Preprint). Loneliness and Depressive Symptoms Within and Across Hourly and Half-Yearly Timescales: Testing the Evolutionary Theory of Loneliness. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/pnuq4_v1
• 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