emotional regulation Flashcards
what is emotional regulation
initiating, inhibiting or modulating ones state or behaviour in a given situation. can apply to subjective experiences, cognitive responses, emotion-related physiological response and emotion-related behaviour.
why should we regulate emotion
can help to improve quality of life through impacting mental and physical health, relationships satisfaction and work performance
need to be developed though life through practise and engaging how to regulate responses.
emotional regulation impulse control
exercise and advice helping resilience and emotional literacy
helps to control reflexive reactions for impulse control with making decisions and dealing with discomfort
emotional dysregulation
difficulty in managing empotions which may interfere with daily functioning
emotional regulation
the set of processes allowing people to redirect the spontaneous flow of emotions - down regulate and up regulate for both positive and negative emotions - important as losing control over emotions and behaviour and emotions is problematic.
often involved changes in emotional responding - changes occur in what, when and how people experience emotions
Gross 1998 Process model of emotional regulation
represents the relationship between us and our environment. when in a situation, we focus on specific aspects, interpret them and give meanings to them which informs our emotional response
different ways to regulate emotions either before or after experiencing by choosing which aspect to focus on
situation selection - current focus
situation modification - situation may be tailored to modify emotional impact
attentional deployment - select which aspect of situation to focus on
cognitive change - reflect which of the possible meanings to attach to the situation
response modulation - influencing these response tendencies once they have been elicited.
situation selection
approaching/avoiding certain people, places or objects to regulate emotions.
requires self-knowledge to make decisions about what situations to seek out/avoid - particularly when weighing up short term benefits vs long term costs.
situation modification
active efforts to directly modify the situation and to alter its emotional impact.
deal with situations though different choices
important form of ER
attentional deployment
3 ways
distraction - focus on non-emotional aspects or move from the situation altogether
concentration - can shift focus onto something else to absorb cognitive resources and divert attention –> create a self-sustaining transcendent state called flow (absorbed in what you are doing, total engagement and engrossment in an activity = happiest)
rumination = attention is directed to feelings and their consequences - failure of attentional deployment
an issue for those suffering from anxiety or depression
cognitive change
emotion requires perception of the situation to be infused with meaning = we need to give meaning to the situation to move on
reset how we view the situation to change perception - either helpful (reappraisal) or unhelpful (denial) to overcome challenge
Response modulation
directly influencing physiological, experiential or behavioural responding
occurs late in the emotion generative process, after response has been initiated -choose what to do and how to act on feelings.
suppression is ineffective as will deplete resources and dousing guarantee change
regulatory behaviour can be effective in decreasing physiological and experiential aspects –> can also lead to negative behaviours though
emotion generating system
attention, knowledge and bodily expressions - emotion regulation strategies tend to target one or more of these
attention - select information from input
knowledge - cognitive appraisal and reappraisal - consisting of subjective evaluations during their encounter with emotionally significant events
embodied emotions - feelings reflected in our body e.g. facial expressions, posture, voluntary and involuntary motor movements and psycho-physioloical responses
Emotion regulation strategires
need oriented - promoting pleasure and preventing pain, often unconscious and aimed at immediate gratification (biologically driven, responsive and impulsive)
goal oriented - up/down regulation achieve specific goals and tasks - employ appropriate strategies to achieve goals
person oriented - promotes flexibility in personality functioning and promoting coherence and long-term stability of the personality system (holistic)
goal and person oriented emotion regulation strategies are often used when tolerating negative emotional states - endure periods of discomfort
need-oriented emotion regulation: attention
hedrnically reward driven - maximise short term benefit at the cost of long term = avoidance as in the long term will have less insight into their emotional states = more like to experience intrusive thoughts.
repressive coping = avoidance of negative stimuli e.g. spend less time reading negative feedback
need-oriented emotion regulation: knowledge
e.g. psychological defence mechanisms introduced by freud.
use what we know to cope - e.g. reappraise the situation, deeply held belief is classed with so employ cognitive dissonance to discredit the information = feel better
adaptiveness of defence bias has been subject to debate - extremes and rigid defence bias = undermines adjustment but flexible, moderate forms are good for MH
need-oriented emotional regulation
what you do to make yourself feel better in the now e.g. eating, okay sometimes but can be detrimental
chronic use of eating as emotional regulation = binging. may be explained by attentional processed - down regulate emotional distress by focussing attention on physical sensation of eating.
similarly, some people drink/drugs/work too much - don’t deal with things –> no one thing that is healthy to do all the time.
goal oriented emotional regulation- attention
top-down manner by trying to not think about an unwanted emotion
distracters increase efficiency of suppression - emotional pleasure of engrossments
even neutral tasks help emotional regulation as working memory becomes loaded and so disrupts the emotional-congruent cognitions = van better deal with the situation
goal oriented emotional regulation - knowledge
cognitive reappraisal reduces emotional impact by changing subjective evaluations of the event
- reinterpreting situation or contextual aspects of stimuli
- distancing oneself from stimuli by adopting a detached, third-person perspective
studies have shown that cognitive reappraising inhibits activation in emotional regions (e,g. amygdala and insult) and increasing activation in dorsal anterior cingulate cortex and prefrontal cortex
goal oriented emotional regulation - body
outward bodily manifestations e.g. facial expressions/posture.
expressive suppression - inhibit emotional expression - draws on WM and interfere with memory of ongoing social interaction and does little to prevent the experience of the emotion
sometimes do the opposite e.g. response exaggeration and venting
person oriented emotion regulation
do things in a way that will feed into the sort of person you want to be
holistic focus - maintains integrity of the overall personality system consisting of the entirety of a persons needs, goals, motives and other aspects
contextual sensitivity - ability to alternate between different motivational , cognitive or affective subsystems in a context appropriate manner
integration - coordinated functioning of personality systems that are traditionally regarded as antagonistic - e.g. positive vs negative emotions, body vs mind, passion vs reason and top-down vs bottom-up processing
person-oriented emotion regulation: attention
attentional counter-regulation helps to restore balance when responding to information - fosters contextual sensitivity and reduces attentional bias = balanced view
stimulated by activities such as meditation and mindfulness- encourages engaging in noticing internal and external experiences in an object manner - ignore momentary emotional states and bias from schemas and expectations
e.g. be less reactive - feeling sad is a feeling that will pass, don’t let it overtake and define you
person-oriented emotion regulation: knowledge
think about personal long term narrative and how feelings integrate with who you want to be - cognitive integration may down-regulate unwanted emotions to create the conditions for personal growth by integrating painful experiences among other experiences
expressive writing - build a better MH mindset, employ different ways to work on self-knowledge
by turning emotional experiences into coherent narratives which reduce emotional distress
imagining destinctive details of emotional memories reduced emotional intensity as this helps to build sensitivity of self
person-oriented emotion regulation: body
voluntarily control of breath often used = calming
progressive muscle relaxation - tense and relax muscle groups to reduce anxiety and stress
emotion regulation goals
- specific or abstract - e.g. short term or long term to live a happy life
- vary by emotion - e.g. anger management
- differ between people
- typically seek positive and less negative emotions - compromised in affective disorders
Milgram et al (2015)
emotion-regulation goals in depression
assessed the direction in which people with depression regulate their emotion -
presented with pictures and music that are positive, negative and neutral - shown for 2 secs and ppt choose if they want to see it again
all want to see happy again, and neutral (more interesting than nothing), bit depressed patients more likely to choose to look at a sad picture - supports their emotional state
more likely to choose to view sad images rather than avoid, listen to sad music rather than happy/neutral and chose to increase reactions to sad pictures rather than decrease reactions – chose to engage in stimuli that they rated as making them feel moderate/intense sadness
–> also chose to view happy images more than sad, reported wanting more happiness than sadness and chose to up regulate happiness more frequently than increase sadness = not trying to be sad but find it hard to let go of sad stimuli
= more likely to use ER strategies to maintain or increase levels of sadness = maladaptive both in the means used and the end directed
= not an active choice to be sad but have less willingness to disengage from sad stimuli
emotional regulation in depression
strategies used differ - often maladaptive e.g. rumination more often than reappraisal but it is uncles whether they have trouble implementing such adaptive strategies or just fail in selecting them
emotion regulation goals in depression
seek emotions that promote other benefits e.g. experience emotions that verify sense of self
may be that depression = familiar with sadness so linked to sense of self
Emotional-regulation choice (Sheppes et al., 2011)
instructed to either
- think about something emotionally neutral (distraction) or
- think about each picture in a way that reduced its negative meaning (reappraisal)
high emotional intensity = look way and distract, less threat = reappraisal. impossible to always use the same strategy
scary/high intensity = use strategies less adaptive in long term but adaptive in the short term to give time build up resilience
healthy individuals can show flexible in their emotional regulation strategies
mnemonic emotion regulation
the umbrella term for instances in which people attempt to alter the nature of their memories in order to influence the experience or expression of emotions.
- reconstruct a memory to remember it as more pleasant
- up regulate memories by rehearsing pleasant ones
down regulate memories by trying to forget an unpleasant one
forgetting
helps prevent rumination, good to forget every past mistake = room to focus on the positive and can protect sense of self
affective disorders associated with forgetting deficits - unlcear if theyre the cause, maintain or result of disorders - particularly elective forgetting of negative memories.
