Relation of negative emotion reactivity and average negative affect to depressive symptoms: A multitrait-multimethod construct validation study of North American adults.

Negative emotion reactivity (NER) is a central construct in the study of depression. Previous research has operationalized NER in a wide variety of ways. Some studies have examined emotional reactions to real-life events, using daily diary or ecological momentary assessment strategies. Others have focused on emotional reactions to analog stimuli, such as disturbing images or hypothetical scenarios. Little is known about the relative validity of these approaches-or even whether they tap the same underlying construct. Consequently, we administered four NER assessment methods in the same study to assess their convergent, discriminant, construct, and incremental validity. We found strong evidence of convergent validity, represented by large loadings onto a common NER factor. We also found evidence of discriminant validity with respect to a conceptually distinct construct, average negative affect. Evidence of construct validity emerged insofar as all four measures were negatively related to depressive symptoms, as predicted by emotion context insensitivity. Finally, evidence of incremental predictive utility emerged, highlighting the advantages of using more than one measure of NER, at least in depression research. Together, our findings support the validity of four NER measures and the wisdom of using multiple measures to represent the NER construct more completely in depression research. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).