Mario Wenzel, Zarah Rowland
Research on emotion regulation has increasingly emphasized the flexible use of strategies in response to situational demands, highlighting the importance of strategy-situation fit. Despite its theoretical prominence, empirical evidence remains limited. In the present study, we examined whether individuals show context-sensitive preferences for distraction versus reappraisal as a function of negative affect intensity and whether such preferences are associated with greater well-being, reflecting strategy-situation fit. We reanalyzed 12 ambulatory assessment data sets (1,511 participants with 161,513 measurement occasions) collected from predominantly White samples including both student and community samples and used a coordinated data analysis approach and dynamic structural equation modeling. Results indicated a very small but statistically significant tendency for individuals to shift toward distraction relative to reappraisal as negative affect increased (β¯ = .02), consistent with context-sensitive strategy use. However, individual differences in this tendency were not predicted by baseline depressive symptoms nor were these differences associated with aggregated positive affect and negative affect in daily life (|β¯|s ≤ .03), providing no support for strategy-situation fit as operationalized here. These findings suggest that although individuals exhibit modest context-sensitive adjustments in strategy use, such adjustments may not reflect differences in mental health and may not translate into improved well-being in everyday life. We highlight methodological and conceptual challenges in capturing context sensitivity in naturalistic settings, discuss limitations of current operationalizations, and outline directions for future research to better assess emotion regulation flexibility in daily life. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).