emotional regulation

Question 1

what is emotional regulation

Answer 1

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.

Question 2

why should we regulate emotion

Answer 2

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.

Question 3

emotional regulation impulse control

Answer 3

exercise and advice helping resilience and emotional literacy
helps to control reflexive reactions for impulse control with making decisions and dealing with discomfort

Question 4

emotional dysregulation

Answer 4

difficulty in managing empotions which may interfere with daily functioning

Question 5

emotional regulation

Answer 5

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

Question 6

Gross 1998 Process model of emotional regulation

Answer 6

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.

Question 7

situation selection

Answer 7

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.

Question 8

situation modification

Answer 8

active efforts to directly modify the situation and to alter its emotional impact.
deal with situations though different choices

important form of ER

Question 9

attentional deployment

3 ways

Answer 9

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

Question 10

cognitive change

Answer 10

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

Question 11

Response modulation

Answer 11

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

Question 12

emotion generating system

Answer 12

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

Question 13

Emotion regulation strategires

Answer 13

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

Question 14

need-oriented emotion regulation: attention

Answer 14

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

Question 15

need-oriented emotion regulation: knowledge

Answer 15

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

Question 16

need-oriented emotional regulation

Answer 16

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.

Question 17

goal oriented emotional regulation- attention

Answer 17

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

Question 18

goal oriented emotional regulation - knowledge

Answer 18

cognitive reappraisal reduces emotional impact by changing subjective evaluations of the event

1. reinterpreting situation or contextual aspects of stimuli
2. 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

Question 19

goal oriented emotional regulation - body

Answer 19

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

Question 20

person oriented emotion regulation

Answer 20

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

Question 21

person-oriented emotion regulation: attention

Answer 21

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

Question 22

person-oriented emotion regulation: knowledge

Answer 22

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

Question 23

person-oriented emotion regulation: body

Answer 23

voluntarily control of breath often used = calming

progressive muscle relaxation - tense and relax muscle groups to reduce anxiety and stress

Question 24

emotion regulation goals

Answer 24

• 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

Question 25

Milgram et al (2015)

emotion-regulation goals in depression

Answer 25

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

Question 26

emotional regulation in depression

Answer 26

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

Question 27

emotion regulation goals in depression

Answer 27

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

Question 28

Emotional-regulation choice (Sheppes et al., 2011)

Answer 28

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

Question 29

mnemonic emotion regulation

Answer 29

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

Question 30

forgetting

Answer 30

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.