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5 The psychology of emotion

regulation: An integrative review

Sander L. Koole

VU University Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Emotions are often portrayed as irresistible forces that exert a sweeping

influence on behaviour. There is reason to believe, however, that people are

much more flexible in dealing with their emotions. As it turns out, people

can control virtually every aspect of emotional processing, including how

emotion directs attention (Rothermund, Voss, & Wentura, 2008), the

cognitive appraisals that shape emotional experience (Gross, 1998a), and

the physiological consequences of emotion (Porges, 2007). These and other

processes whereby people manage their own emotions are commonly

referred to as emotion regulation. Emotion regulation has been linked to

such important outcomes as mental health (Gross & Mun˜oz, 1995),

physical health (Sapolsky, 2007), relationship satisfaction (Murray, 2005),

and work performance (Diefendorff, Hall, Lord, & Strean, 2000). It thus

seems vital to learn more about the psychology of emotion regulation.

The past decade has witnessed an explosion of emotion-regulation

research (see Gross, 2007, for a comprehensive overview). Indeed, since the

last review on this topic was published in Cognition and Emotion (Gross,

1999), more than 700 journal articles appeared with the term ‘‘emotion

regulation’’ in the title or abstract, according to the PsycInfo database. The

number of relevant publications becomes several times greater if one

considers work on closely related topics such as mood regulation, affect

regulation, and coping. The tremendous increase in research volume has

rendered the study of emotion regulation one of the most vibrant areas in

contemporary psychology. At the same time, it has become increasingly

important to integrate the rapidly accumulating findings and insights. The

need for integration is further enhanced by the multidisciplinary nature of

emotion regulation research, which spans developmental, cognitive, social,

personality, and clinical psychology, and, more recently, cognitive and

affective neurosciences and psychophysiology.

The present article provides an integrative review of contemporary

research on the psychology of emotion regulation. The relevant literature is

too large to be covered exhaustively. Consequently, the present article gives

priority to ideas and findings with broad implications for the psychology of

emotion regulation. Because the development and disorders of emotion

regulation have been reviewed elsewhere (Kring & Werner, 2004; Skinner

& Zimmer-Gembeck, 2007; Southam-Gerow & Kendall, 2002; Taylor &

Liberzon, 2007), the present article concentrates on emotion regulation

among healthy adults. In the following paragraphs, I first consider more

closely what emotion regulation is and how it relates to other forms of

emotion processing. Next, I discuss several approaches to classifying

strategies of emotion regulation and review empirical research on emo-

tion-regulation strategies. Finally, I summarise the main conclusions of the

present article and suggest avenues for future research on emotion

regulation.

WHAT IS EMOTION REGULATION?

In everyday life, people are continually exposed to potentially emotion-

arousing stimuli, ranging from internal sensations like an upset stomach to

external events such as juicy gossip about a colleague or music played in

supermarkets. From the fact that these kinds of stimuli only occasionally

trigger full-blown emotions, one could infer that people engage in some

form of emotion regulation almost all of the time (Davidson, 1998). But

emotion regulation may also become manifested in more overt ways. For

instance, there are reliable observations that people may rapidly shift their

attention away from threatening stimuli (Langens & Mo¨rth, 2003), that

people may overcome traumatic experiences by writing about them

(Pennebaker & Chung, 2007), and that people may choose to hit a pillow

instead of lashing out at the true cause of their anger (Bushman,

Baumeister, & Phillips, 2001).

In each of the aforementioned cases, people resist being carried away or

‘‘hijacked’’ (Goleman, 1995) by the immediate emotional impact of the

situation. Emotion regulation can thus be defined as the set of processes

whereby people seek to redirect the spontaneous flow of their emotions.

Some approaches have also considered emotion regulation by the external

environment. For instance, developmental research indicates that caregivers

may play a key role in regulating children’s emotional states (Southam-

Gerow & Kandell, 2002) and environmental research has shown that

natural settings can promote more rapid recovery from stress than urban

settings (Van den Berg, Hartig, & Staats, 2007). Emotion regulation by

forces outside the self is clearly important. Nevertheless, following the

predominant focus of the literature (Gross, 2007), the present article

concentrates on the self-regulation of emotion.

The prototype of emotion regulation is a deliberate, effortful process that

seeks to override people’s spontaneous emotional responses. Some forms of

emotion regulation indeed fit this prototype, by drawing upon the same

psychological and neurobiological systems that are involved in the effortful

control of action and attention (Ochsner & Gross, 2005, 2008; Tice &

5. The psychology of emotion regulation 129

Bratslavsky, 2000). However, other forms of emotion regulation are

relatively automatic and effortless (Bargh & Williams, 2007; Koole &

Kuhl, 2007; Mauss, Bunge, & Gross, 2007). Furthermore, emotion

regulation does not always consist of an overriding process, in as far as

this implies an antagonistic stance towards one’s emotions. Indeed, some

sophisticated forms of emotion regulation unfold in close collaboration

with other types of emotion processing (Brown, Ryan, & Creswell, 2007;

Pennebaker & Chung, 2007; Porges, 2007).

During emotion regulation, people may increase, maintain, or decrease

positive and negative emotions. Accordingly, emotion regulation often

involves changes in emotional responding. These changes may occur in the

kinds of emotions that people have, when they have their emotions, and

how they experience and express their emotions (Gross, 1999). Notably,

the emotional changes that are produced by emotion regulation may or may

not bring people closer to the emotional state that they desired. Indeed,

some forms of emotion regulation ironically bring about the very emotional

outcomes that people hope to avoid (e.g., Wegner, Erber, & Zanakos,

1993). Emotion regulation may also fail in other ways, such that people

may still display unwanted emotions despite their best efforts to avoid

them. When people are chronically unable to regulate their emotions, this

may seriously disrupt psychological functioning. Indeed, chronic deficits in

emotion regulation contribute to all major forms of psychopathology

(Bradley, 2000; Kring & Werner, 2004).

The scope of emotion regulation

Emotions have multiple components, consisting of a more or less coherent

cluster of valenced (i.e., positive or negative) behavioural and physiological

responses that are accompanied by specific thoughts and feelings

(Cacioppo, Berntson, & Klein, 1992; Frijda, 2006; Mauss, Levenson,

McCarter, Wilhelm, & Gross, 2005). Because emotion regulation operates

on people’s emotions, it follows that the effects of emotion regulation can

be observed across all modalities of emotional responding, including

behaviour, physiology, thoughts, and feelings.

According to some classic theories of emotion, each emotion triggers a

discrete pattern of behaviour, physiology, thoughts, and feelings. However,

the available evidence does not support the existence of discrete emotional

states (Mauss & Robinson, 2009; Russell, 2003). Instead, emotional

responding appears to be organised in terms of a few fundamental

dimensions, including valence, arousal, and approachÁavoidance. The

influence of emotion regulation on people’s emotional states is therefore

likely to be similarly dimensional. In other words, emotion regulation may

not be so much concerned with getting people in or out of discrete

emotional states like anger, sadness, or joy. Rather, emotion regulation may

130 Koole

change people’s emotional states along dimensions such as valence, arousal,

and approachÁavoidance.

Closely related to emotion regulation are constructs such as mood

regulation, coping with stress, and affect regulation. Although it is possible

to distinguish semantically between these constructs, their substantive

overlap is considerable. At the heart of all emotional states is core affect

(Russell, 2003), basic states of feeling good or bad, energised or enervated.

The regulation of specific emotions, moods, stress, and diffuse affect is

therefore always aimed at changing core affect. Moreover, the empirical

borders between these different emotion constructs are very fuzzy (Russell,

2003). In view of these considerations, it seems most productive to conceive

of emotion regulation broadly, as relating to the management of all

emotionally charged states, including discrete emotions, mood, stress, and

affect. Ultimately, it may be possible to derive more fine-grained distinc-

tions between different types of emotional states that are being regulated.

At present, however, a broad conception of emotion regulation offers the

best promise of uncovering the basic principles that underlie various

emotion-regulatory activities.

Emotion regulation versus emotional sensitivity

A longstanding issue is the distinction between emotion regulation and

other forms of emotion processing. One seemingly straightforward

approach would be to observe the differences between regulated and

unregulated emotions. Unfortunately, this comparison is often difficult to

make. People can regulate their emotions very rapidly (Jostmann, Koole,

Van der Wulp, & Fockenberg, 2005; Rothermund et al., 2008). It is

therefore often unclear ‘‘where an emotion ends and regulation begins’’

(Davidson, 1998, p. 308).

A conceptual solution to this problem lies in the temporal unfolding of

an emotional response (Baumann, Kaschel, & Kuhl, 2007; Davidson,

Jackson, & Kalin, 2000; Skinner & Zimmer-Gembeck, 2007). As it turns

out, people’s primary emotional response to the situation can be qualita-

tively different from their secondary emotional response*see also Lazarus’

(1991) distinction between primary versus secondary appraisals. People’s

primary emotional response presumably reflects their emotional sensitivity,

whereas their secondary emotional response presumably reflects emotion

regulation. This distinction is grounded in the conceptualisation of emotion

regulation as a control process. Control processes, as they are commonly

understood, consist of the monitoring and adjusting of a lower-level process

with respect to a given standard (Carver & Scheier, 1998). Applied to

emotion regulation, this implies that an unwanted emotional response must

occur initially before any emotion regulation can take place. Although

people’s primary emotional response is not yet regulated, it serves as vital

5. The psychology of emotion regulation 131

input for the subsequent monitoring and control processes that constitute

emotion regulation.

To illustrate the distinction between emotional sensitivity and emotion

regulation, Figure 5.1 displays the development of an emotional response

over time (after Kuhl, 2008). To simplify matters, the figure only shows a

single emotional response with a single maximum strength. Emotional

sensitivity is represented by the entry gradient, or the steepness with which

the emotional response reaches its full force. Emotional sensitivity is

determined by any variable that influences people’s initial emotional

response to the situation, including the nature of the stimuli that people

encounter, personal characteristics, and the broader situation. The offset of

the emotional response is depicted in Figure 5.1 as the exit gradient, or the

steepness with which the emotional response returns to a neutral baseline.

Variables that influence the exit gradient belong to the process of emotion

regulation. Similar to emotional sensitivity, emotion regulation is deter-

mined by the characteristics of the person, the stimuli that the person

encounters, and the broader situation.

Down-regulation processes aim to achieve a steeper exit gradient,

resulting in a speedier return to the baseline (e.g., Gross, 1998a). By

contrast, maintenance processes aim to achieve a flatter exit gradient, such

that the emotional response is maintained over a longer period of time (e.g.,

Nolen-Hoeksema, 2000). Up-regulation processes may even increase the

magnitude of the emotion response, for instance, when people engage in

response exaggeration (Schmeichel, Demaree, Robinson, & Pu, 2006).

Emotion regulation may also influence aspects of emotion processing

besides the exit gradient, such as the coherence, intensity, awareness, and

goal-directedness of emotional responses. Nevertheless, it is the impact on

the exit gradient of an emotional response that sets emotion regulation

apart from other types of emotion processing.

Distinguishing between emotional sensitivity and emotion regulation is

relatively straightforward when people are engaged in the on-line regula-

tion of their emotions. However, some forms of emotion regulation occur

Down-regulation

Time

Up-regulation

Primary reaction

Secondary reaction

High sensitivity

Low sensitivity

Emotional

response

Figure 5.1 Model of emotional sensitivity versus emotion regulation.

132 Koole

proactively, for instance, when people avoid an upcoming situation that is

expected to elicit an undesired emotion (Aspinwall & Taylor, 1997;

Zeelenberg & Pieters, 2007). In such cases, emotion regulation subjectively

precedes the onset of emotion. Indeed, to the extent that proactive coping is

successful, people may never experience any unwanted emotion at all.

However, studies have shown that anticipating an emotional experience

leads to a partial simulation of that experience, in which emotional

responses of the brain and body become activated (Niedenthal, 2007;

Niedenthal, Barsalou, Winkielman, Krauth-Gruber, & Ric, 2005). There-

fore emotional sensitivity already comes into play during the anticipation of

unwanted emotions. The distinction between emotional sensitivity and

emotion regulation is therefore meaningful regardless of whether people

regulate their emotions on line, in the heat of the moment, or proactively,

before an emotion-arousing situation has actually occurred.

Separate contributions of emotional sensitivity and emotion regulation

have been observed throughout the lifespan. Infants and young children

display inborn physiological differences that relate to emotional sensitivity,

whereas other physiological differences relate to children’s ability to

regulate their emotional responses (Derryberry, Reed, & Pilkenton-Taylor,

2003; Eisenberg, Fabes, & Guthrie, 1997; Rothbart, Derryberry, & Posner,

1994). Emotion sensitivity follows an intrinsic path of development that is

largely independent of environmental influences and changes less as people

grow older (McCrae et al., 2000; Terracciano, Costa, & McCrae, 2005). By

contrast, competencies at emotion regulation are strongly influenced by the

quality of children’s social interactions with their caregivers (Mikulincer,

Shaver, & Pereg, 2003; Southam-Gerow & Kendall, 2002) and continue to

improve even into old age (Carstensen, Fung, & Charles, 2003; Gro¨pel,

Kuhl, & Kazén, 2004; John & Gross, 2004). Across the lifespan, traits

related to emotion regulation and traits related to emotional reactivity

interact in predicting psychological functioning (Baumann et al., 2007;

Davidson, 1998; Skinner & Zimmer-Gembeck, 2007).

Summary

Emotion regulation consists of people’s active attempts to manage their

emotional states. In its broadest sense, emotion regulation subsumes the

regulation of all states that are emotionally charged, including moods,

stress, and positive or negative affect. Emotion regulation determines the

offset of an emotional response, and can thus be distinguished from

emotional sensitivity, which determines the onset of an emotional response.

Emotional sensitivity and emotion regulation follow different develop-

mental paths and are functionally distinct throughout the lifespan.

5. The psychology of emotion regulation 133

CLASSIFYING EMOTION-REGULATION STRATEGIES

Emotion-regulation strategies refer to the concrete approach that people

take in managing their emotions. For instance, after a romantic break-up,

people may focus their attention on a neutral activity (Van Dillen & Koole,

2007), cognitively reframe the situation (Tugade & Frederickson, 2004),

write about their feelings (Pennebaker & Chung, 2007), or eat away at

tasty but fattening foods (Tice, Bratslavsky, & Baumeister, 2001).

Although the notion of ‘‘strategies’’ seems to imply conscious deliberation,

the term as it is used in the present article is agnostic about the underlying

process. The strategic aspect of a given emotion-regulation process refers to

its specification of how a given act of emotion regulation is implemented.

This specification requires making decisions about the implementation of

emotion regulation, but people may not be always fully aware of these

decisions.

The ordering problem

The potential variety of emotion-regulation strategies is enormous, given

that any activity that impacts people’s emotions may (at least, in principle)

be recruited in the service of emotion regulation. Finding an underlying

order in people’s emotion-regulation strategies therefore represents a

formidable scientific challenge. One empirical method used to classify

emotion-regulation strategies is exploratory factor analysis (e.g., Thayer,

Newman, & McCain, 1994). However, this approach suffers from

problems of interpretability and difficulties in ensuring the comprehensive-

ness of the categories that are derived (see Skinner, Edge, Altman, &

Sherwood, 2003). For instance, in the coping domain, multiple factor

analyses, even on the same set of items, have not produced a replicable

structure in coping strategies (Skinner et al., 2003). Another empirical

method is rational sorting, which involves grouping items that share

common features and separating items that differ (e.g., Parkinson &

Totterdell, 1999). Rational sorting is similarly associated with problems of

comprehensiveness, and has not converged on a common set of categories

in the coping domain (Skinner et al., 2003).

The most rigorous approach to the ordering problem combines top-down

(theoretical) and bottom-up (empirical) approaches. In this combined

approach, one first defines the higher-order categories of emotion-regulation

strategies, after which an empirical approach (such as confirmatory factor

analysis) is used to test the fit of specific emotion-regulation strategies into

the higher-order categories. To date, a combined top-down/bottom-up

approach has not been applied to the classification of emotion-regulation

strategies (though see Skinner et al., 2003, for illustrations in the coping

domain). Nevertheless, researchers have proposed several concepts that

134 Koole

seem potentially useful in fleshing out the higher-order categories of

emotion-regulation strategies.

One potentially useful category distinguishes between automatic versus

controlled emotion-regulation processes. An attractive aspect of this

distinction is that it cuts across the complete range of emotion-regulation

strategies (Mauss et al., 2007). However, automaticity is a heterogeneous

construct. Indeed, a recent conceptual analysis identified as many as eight

concepts associated with automaticity that may vary more or less

independently: intentionality; goal dependence; controllability; autonomy;

the extent to which a process is stimulus driven; consciousness; efficiency;

and speed (Moors & De Houwer, 2006). For constructing a taxonomy, it is

desirable to have categories that are functionally homogeneous (see Skinner

et al., 2003, on criteria for a scientific taxonomy). The concept of

automaticity is therefore less suitable in classifying emotion-regulation

strategies.

Another influential approach, the so-called ‘‘process model’’ of emotion

regulation, has proposed that emotion-regulation strategies may be

classified by the time at which they intervene in the emotion-generation

process (Gross, 1998a,b, 2001). The process model assumes that emotion

responses are generated in a fixed cycle, such that attention to emotionally

relevant information precedes cognitive appraisals, which in turn precede

emotionally expressive behaviour. However, research indicates that the

order in which emotion responses are generated is in fact variable.

Attention, cognitive appraisals, or behaviour may each occur early or late

in the emotion-generation process. For instance, bodily movements may

directly activate emotional experiences (Niedenthal et al., 2005; Strack,

Martin, & Stepper, 1988), and merely attending to emotional stimuli may

directly trigger emotional behaviour without any intervening cognitive

appraisals (e.g., Neumann, Fo¨rster, & Strack, 2003). The temporal order of

the emotion-generation process therefore offers no basis for systematically

relating emotion-regulation strategies to different classes of emotion

responses.

Targets of emotion regulation

Regardless of considerations about the timing of emotion-generation

processes, the process model (Gross, 1998a,b, 2001) calls attention to the

targets of emotion regulation. Emotion regulation is always directed at

manipulating some emotional response. It is plausible that the type of

emotional response that is targeted for regulation will at least partly

determine how people go about the emotion-regulation process. The

emotion-generation system that is targeted for regulation may thus serve

as a higher-order category to classify different emotion-regulation strate-

gies. Among the three most widely studied emotion-generating systems

are attention, knowledge, and bodily expressions of emotion. Emotion

5. The psychology of emotion regulation 135

regulation may thus target one or more of these three broad emotion-

generating systems (Gross, 1998a,b, 2001; Parkinson & Totterdell, 1999;

Philippot, Baeyens, Douilliez, & Francart, 2004).

The first of the emotion-generating systems, attention, consists of a set of

neurological networks that allow people to select incoming information

from sensory input (Fan, McCandliss, Fossella, Flombaum, & Posner,

2005). Attention has been extensively researched within cognitive psychol-

ogy and cognitive neuroscience (see Posner & Rothbart, 2007, for a

review). The resulting insights and methods are increasingly finding their

way to the study of emotion regulation (Derakshan, Eysenck, & Myers,

2007; Ochsner & Gross, 2005; Van Dillen & Koole, 2007, 2009). For

instance, emotion regulation has been examined in well-established

attentional paradigms such as the emotional Stroop task (e.g., Newman

& McKinney, 2002), and the dot-probe task (e.g., Fox, 1993). Attentional

processing in emotion regulation has also been manipulated, for instance by

providing people with an attention-demanding task (Van Dillen & Koole,

2007) or training exercises (Brown et al., 2007).

Emotion-relevant knowledge constitutes a second broad, emotion-

generating system. Among the most widely studied types of emotion

knowledge are cognitive appraisals, which consist of people’s subjective

evaluations during their encounter with emotionally significant events

(Lazarus, 1991; Scherer, Schorr, & Johnstone, 2001). Particularly impor-

tant is the appraisal whether or not an event is relevant to the satisfaction or

frustration of important goals and motives (Lazarus, 1991; Moors, 2007).

Other important appraisals include attributions of an event to self versus

others, controllability of the event, accountability, expectations (Ortony,

Clore, & Collins, 1988; Smith & Lazarus, 1993), and implicit theories of

emotion (Tamir, John, Srivastava, & Gross, 2007b). Emotionally signifi-

cant knowledge may also be retrieved from memory (e.g., Joormann &

Siemer, 2004), and may differ in terms of structure and processing aspects,

including their differentiation (Tugade, Frederickson, & Barrett, 2004),

complexity (Kang & Shaver, 2004), and awareness (Ruys & Stapel, 2008).

The third of the emotion-generating systems includes the many

embodied ways in which emotions unfold, including facial expressions,

bodily postures, voluntary and involuntary motor movements, and psycho-

physiological responses (see Mauss & Robinson, 2009, for a review). In as

far as attention and appraisals influence the body (e.g., Dandeneau,

Baldwin, Baccus, Sakellaropoulo, & Pruessner, 2007; Sapolsky, 2007),

one might question whether the body represents a separate emotion-

generating system. Nevertheless, bodily emotion responses often follow

different patterns than cognitive emotion responses (Mauss & Robinson,

2009). Moreover, bodily emotion responses shape the course of people’s

emotions in ways that cannot be reduced to attention or appraisal processes

(Niedenthal et al., 2005; Zajonc, 1998). A separate status for the body is

further warranted because several important emotion-regulation strategies,

136 Koole

such as expressive suppression (Gross, 1998a) and progressive muscle

relaxation (Esch, Fricchione, & Stefano, 2003), primarily target bodily

manifestations of emotion.

When emotion-regulation strategies are merely classified by their

targeted emotion-generation system, this results in rather heterogeneous

groupings. For instance, repressive coping (Langens & Mo¨rth, 2003) and

mindfulness training (Brown et al., 2007) may both target attention, even

though the latter involves purposefully paying attention to negative

emotion, whereas the former avoids negative emotion altogether. In this

regard, mindfulness training seems more similar to expressive writing about

one’s emotional experiences (Pennebaker & Chung, 2007). However,

expressive writing also involves acquiring more insight into one’s emotions,

and hence targets knowledge systems. Although these are just a few

examples, it appears that some important element is still missing from the

classification of emotion-regulation strategies.

Functions of emotion regulation

The missing element may be the functions of emotion regulation. By

regulating their emotions, people seek to achieve certain psychological

outcomes or functions. The functions of emotion regulation cut across all

emotion-regulation strategies, and apply regardless of whether these

strategies are directed at attention, knowledge, or the body. As such, the

functions of emotion regulation represent a basic category for characteris-

ing different emotion strategies, a category that is independent of which

emotion-generating system is targeted.

Traditionally, psychologists have assumed that people’s emotion-regula-

tion efforts serve hedonic needs that are aimed at promoting pleasure and

preventing pain (e.g., Larsen, 2000; Westen, 1994). Negative emotional

states are costly, because they mobilise a wide array of mental and physical

resources within the individual (Sapolsky, 2007). Need-oriented emotion

regulation may thus be adaptive, by allowing individuals to conserve these

resources by promoting a rapid return to hedonically agreeable states.

Because hedonic needs presumably operate on subcognitive levels of

information processing (Panksepp, 1998), need-oriented emotion regula-

tion may operate even in the absence of any conscious emotion-regulation

goal. Indeed, hedonic needs may be immediately activated upon encounter-

ing emotional stimuli (Berridge & Winkielman, 2003; Neumann et al.,

2003). Because the need-oriented functions of emotion regulation are

directed towards immediate gratification, this type of emotion regulation

often has an impulsive quality (Tice et al., 2001).

Although hedonic needs are important, they cannot account for the full

range of emotion-regulation processes (Erber, 1996; Erber & Erber, 2000).

For instance, social interactions often require people to remain ‘‘cool and

collected’’, and hence may lead people to down-regulate both negative and

5. The psychology of emotion regulation 137

positive moods (Erber, Wegner, & Therriault, 1996). Other types of goals

may similarly increase the utility of hedonically aversive states (Achtzinger,

Gollwitzer, & Sheeran, 2008; Tamir, Chiu, & Gross, 2007a), and thereby

motivate emotion regulation efforts to attain or maintain those states. For

instance, because many people believe that fear and worry promote the

attainment of avoidance goals, people who adopt avoidance goals may be

motivated to maintain these negative emotions (Tamir et al., 2007a). In a

related vein, changes in task demands may decrease the relevance of

emotionally charged information, leading people to devote fewer proces-

sing resources to emotion-eliciting information (Van Dillen & Koole,

2009). Rather than being hedonically oriented, the latter forms of emotion

regulation are oriented towards the priorities that are set by specific norms,

goals, or tasks. Emotion regulation may thus serve important goal-oriented

functions.

Some of the functions of emotion regulation may extend even beyond

single goals. In particular, emotion regulation may allow people to balance

multiple goal pursuits (Koole & Kuhl, 2007; Rothermund et al., 2008) and

promote integration among personality processes (Baumann, Kaschel, &

Kuhl, 2005; Kuhl, 2000). Human personality consists of many interacting

processes, the joint functioning of which has emergent, system-level

properties that cannot be reduced to the behaviour of its individual

elements (Nowak, Vallacher, Tesser, & Borkowski, 2000). As such,

emotion-regulation processes at the level of the whole person serve distinct

psychological functions. The person-oriented functions of emotion regula-

tion have been elaborated by personality systems interactions theory (PSI)

(Kuhl, 2000). According to PSI theory, emotion regulation may facilitate

personality functioning in two major ways. First, by preventing people

becoming locked up in specific motivational-emotional states, emotion

regulation may promote flexibility in personality functioning (see Rother-

mund et al., 2008). Second, by stimulating the dynamic exchange between

personality processes, emotion regulation may promote coherence and

long-term stability within the overall personality system (Baumann et al.,

2005).

Emotion regulation may thus serve multiple functions, including the

satisfaction of hedonic needs, facilitation of specific goals and tasks, and

optimisation of personality functioning. In many cases, people may

combine these functions. For instance, when people experience emotional

distress, boosting positive emotions may simultaneously satisfy hedonic

needs, facilitate compliance with social norms for emotional neutrality, and

increase the overall flexibility of the personality system. The functions may

also conflict. Both goal- and person-oriented emotion regulation may

require people to tolerate negative emotional states, and may thus conflict

with need-oriented emotion regulation. Moreover, goal-oriented emotion

regulation may conflict with person-oriented emotion regulation because

the former has a narrower focus. For instance, extended activation of

138 Koole

goal-oriented emotion regulation may cause over-activation of the sympa-

thetic nervous system (Thayer & Lane, 2007). When the latter occurs,

person-oriented emotion regulation will aim to restore autonomic balance

and thus conflict with goal-oriented emotion regulation.

How people resolve conflicts between need-, goal-, or person-oriented

functions is largely unknown. Conceivably, people alternate between

functions. Need-oriented functions may become more important when

people are experiencing acute emotional distress; goal-oriented functions

when there are strong situational norms for appropriate emotional

responding; and person-oriented functions when people are oriented

towards their long-term well-being. It is also plausible that there exist

individual differences in the preferential use of each function. For instance,

need-oriented functions may be more important among repressive copers

(Derakshan et al., 2007), and person-oriented functions may be more

important among individuals with a secure attachment style (Mikulincer

et al., 2003) or action-oriented individuals (Kuhl & Beckmann, 1994).

Summary

Emotion-regulation strategies specify how people go about managing a

particular unwanted emotion. A consensual, empirically validated taxon-

omy that spans all known emotion-regulation strategies has yet to be

developed. Nevertheless, the literature has yielded several higher-order

categories that seem useful in classifying emotion-regulation strategies. The

most viable higher-order categories to this end are the emotion-generating

system that is targeted and the psychological functions that are served by

emotion regulation. Among the major emotion-generating systems that are

targeted in emotion regulation are attention, knowledge, and the body. The

main functions of emotion regulation are promoting the satisfaction of

hedonic needs, facilitating goal achievement, and optimising global

personality functioning.

EMPIRICAL RESEARCH ON EMOTION-REGULATION STRATEGIES

The classification of emotion-regulation strategies by their targets and

functions offers a preliminary basis for reviewing the extant literature. An

overview of the target by function classification is provided in Table 5.1.

Notably, this classification scheme does not propose a new theoretical

explanation of emotion-regulation strategies. Rather, it provides a descrip-

tive framework for organising the known universe of emotion-regulation

strategies. The classification will hopefully stimulate the development of

more sophisticated models that can provide a mechanistic explanation for

the observed differences between emotion-regulation strategies.

5. The psychology of emotion regulation 139

The remainder of this section will use the target by function classification

to organise the literature on emotion-regulation strategies. For each

psychological function of emotion regulation, I first discuss the criteria

for deciding whether emotion-regulation strategies fit with this function. I

then review the empirical evidence for emotion-regulation strategies that

are oriented towards each function, which may respectively target atten-

tion, knowledge representations, or bodily manifestations of emotion. Some

work has suggested that emotion-regulation strategies that target attention

or knowledge are more effective than strategies that target bodily

Table 5.1 Target by function classification of emotion-regulation strategies

Psychological function

Emotion-

generating

system

Need-oriented

Goal-oriented

Person-oriented

Attention

Thinking pleasurable

or relaxing thoughts

(Langens & Mörth,

2003);

Attentional

avoidance

(Derakshan et al.,

2007)

Effortful distraction

(Van Dillen & Koole,

2007);

Thought

suppression

(Wenzlaff &

Wegner, 2000)

Attentional counter-

regulation

(Rothermund et al.,

2008); Meditation

(Cahn & Polich,

2006); Mindfulness

training (Brown

et al., 2007)

Knowledge

Cognitive dissonance

reduction (Harmon-

Jones & Mills,

1999);

Motivated reasoning

(Kunda, 1990);

Self-defence (Tesser,

2000)

Cognitive

reappraisal (Gross,

1998b; Ochsner &

Gross, 2008)

Expressive writing

(Pennebaker, 1997);

Specification of

emotional

experience

(Neumann &

Philippot, 2007);

Activating stored

networks of emotion

knowledge (Barrett

et al., 2001)

Body

Stress-induced eating

(Greeno & Wing,

1994);

Stress-induced

affiliation (Taylor

et al., 2000)

Expressive

suppression

(Gross, 1998a);

Response

exaggeration

(Schmeichel et al.,

2006)

Venting (Bushman

et al., 2001)

Controlled breathing

(Philippot et al.,

2002);

Progressive muscle

relaxation (Esch

et al., 2003)

Note: Cited articles refer to relevant empirical demonstrations or literature reviews.

140 Koole

expressions of emotion (Gross, 1998a,b, 2001). Accordingly, I also

consider the relative effectiveness of cognitive versus bodily emotion-

regulation strategies for each psychological function of emotion regulation.

The present review is necessarily selective, and focuses on well-controlled,

process-oriented research. The main emphasis is on emotion-regulation

strategies that are widely used among psychologically healthy individuals.

When relevant, however, the present review considers individual differences

in emotion regulation. For instance, if an emotion-regulation strategy is used

particularly often by certain individuals, highlighting this group can bring

into sharper focus those processes that are involved in this particular

emotion-regulation strategy. Moreover, in as far as individual differences in

emotion regulation are stable over time, their study can shed more light on

the potential long-term consequences of using specific emotion-regulation

strategies.

Need-oriented emotion regulation

Need-oriented emotion regulation is driven by people’s needs to experience

hedonically rewarding states, which consist of low levels of negative and

high levels of positive emotion. Because needs can operate on a subcognitive

level (Panksepp, 1998), need-oriented strategies can emerge in the absence

of explicit goals or instructions to strive for a favourable hedonic state. The

strongest evidence for need-oriented emotion regulation is provided by

emotion-regulation behaviour that maximises short-term emotional bene-

fits at the expense of long-term well-being (cf. Tice et al., 2001). Never-

theless, need-oriented emotion regulation does not inevitably lead to poor

long-term outcomes. Theoretically, need-oriented emotion regulation

should mainly undermine long-term well-being in cases where there exists

a conflict between short-term hedonic benefits and long-term outcomes. In

the absence of such conflicts, need-oriented emotion regulation may be

adaptive. Consequently, discriminate use of need-oriented emotion regula-

tion could be beneficial, whereas chronic use of need-oriented emotion

regulation is likely to have adverse consequences.

Attention

Some of the most robust evidence for need-oriented regulation of attention

is based on research on individual differences in repressive coping style

(Derakshan et al., 2007; Weinberger, Schwarz, & Davidson, 1979). In this

research, individuals who score high on a measure of social desirability

(indicative of a self-aggrandising response style) and low on a measure of

trait anxiety are identified as repressors. Over many studies, repressors have

been found to avoid negative emotional stimuli to a greater degree than

non-repressors (see Derakshan et al., 2007, for a review). For instance,

relative to non-repressors, repressors avert their gaze more often from

5. The psychology of emotion regulation 141

unpleasant emotional stimuli (Haley, 1974; Olson & Zanna, 1979), and

spend less time reading negative personality feedback (Baumeister &

Cairns, 1992).

Attentional avoidance of negative stimuli among repressors has further

emerged in well-established cognitive tasks, including the emotional Stroop

task (Myers & McKenna, 1996; Newman & McKinney, 2002), the

dot-probe task (Fox, 1993), and the lexical decision task (Langens &

Mo¨rth, 2003). A sophisticated model of repressive coping is vigilance-

avoidance theory, which proposes that repressors respond to threatening

stimuli in two stages (Derakshan et al., 2007). The first stage, which is

presumably automatic and non-conscious, consists of a vigilance response

of elevated behavioural and physiological anxiety. The second stage, which

presumably involves more strategic and controlled processes, consists of

attentional avoidance and cognitive denial of anxiety.

When faced with threatening information, repressors may also increase

their attention to positive information (Boden & Baumeister, 1997; Langens

& Mo¨rth, 2003). The level of threat may determine whether repressors cope

with threats by avoiding negative information or seeking out positive

information (Langens & Mo¨rth, 2003). When threat levels are low,

repressors may avoid emotionally threatening information by shifting their

attention away from the threat. When threat levels are high, repressors may

be forced to pay a certain amount of attention to the threat and thus resort to

more effortful distraction strategies such as generating positive imagery.

Repressive coping is associated with short-term relief from emotional

distress (e.g., Boden & Baumeister, 1997). Many long-term outcomes that

are linked to repressive coping are negative. Relative to non-repressors,

repressors possess less insight into their own emotional states (Lane,

Sechrest, Riedel, Shapiro, & Kaszniak, 2000), and display intrusive

thoughts, even after initial success at thought suppression (Geraerts,

Merckelbach, Jelicic, & Smeets, 2006 ). Repressive coping is also associated

with adverse health outcomes1 (see Myers, 2000; Myers et al., 2008, for

reviews), such as heightened susceptibility to infectious disease (Jamner,

1 The literature on repressive coping has reported some positive effects on health (e.g.,

Coifman, Bonanno, Ray, & Gross, 2007). However, this research used affectiveÁautonomic

response discrepancy (AARD) as an index of repressive coping. With the AARD measure,

repressors are those who report low levels of negative affect following threat while

simultaneously displaying high levels of physiological activity, such as elevated heart rate or

skin conductance. An important problem of this index is that the underlying physiological

measures are not informative about emotional valence. Thus, high AARD scores could be

due to unreported negative emotion or unreported positive emotion. To the extent that

AARD scores are driven by unreported positive emotion, this measure may index counter-

regulation processes (Rothermund et al., 2008) rather than repressive coping. Because of this

ambiguity, the present review only considers the results for the more conventional self-report

measure of repressive coping.

142 Koole

Schwarz, & Leigh, 1988), inhibited immune function (Barger, Bachen,

Marsland, & Manuck, 2000), and increased risk for coronary heart disease,

cancer, and asthma (Weinberger, 1990).

Knowledge

Ever since Freud (1915/1961) introduced the notion of psychological

defence mechanisms, generations of researchers have been intrigued by the

idea that people may distort their perceptions of reality to ward off anxiety

and other types of negative emotion. In social psychology, Festinger’s

(1957) pioneering work on cognitive dissonance reduction (see Harmon-

Jones & Mills, 1999, for a recent overview) has spawned a large and

sophisticated body of research on interpretive biases (Baumeister &

Newman, 1994; Pyszczynski & Greenberg, 1987; Tesser, 2000). Among

other things, people may engage in selective criticism of threatening

information (Liberman & Chaiken, 1992), trivialise the information

(Simon, Greenberg, & Brehm, 1995), selectively forget the information

(Sedikides & Green, 2004), make self-serving attributions (Campbell &

Sedikides, 1999), inflate their self-conceptions in a non-threatened domain

(McGregor, 2006), engage in downward social comparison (Taylor &

Lobel, 1989), and derogate others (Fein & Spencer, 1997). From this list of

defences, which is far from complete, it appears that people may recruit

virtually any type of judgement for defensive purposes (Roese & Olson,

2007).

Defensive processes are mutually substitutable (Tesser, 2000), consistent

with the notion that they serve the common purpose of emotion regulation.

The emotion regulation function of defensive bias is further supported by

findings that affirming positive views of the self down-regulates negative

emotion, especially when emotion is assessed by physiological or implicit

measures (Creswell et al., 2005; Koole, Smeets, van Knippenberg, &

Dijksterhuis, 1999; Roese & Olson, 2007). In addition, defensive bias is

associated with neural activity in regions that are implicated in emotion

regulation, such as the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (Westen, Kilts,

Blagov, Harenski, & Hamann, 2006). Notably, defensive bias is not

associated with activation in brain regions that support effortful self-

regulation, even though such regions are implicated in goal-oriented

emotion-regulation strategies (Ochsner & Gross, 2008).

The potential adaptiveness of defensive bias has been subject to

considerable debate. Extreme and rigid forms of defensive bias appear to

undermine psychological adjustment (Colvin & Block, 1994). Moreover,

defensive bias has been linked to the repressive coping style (Derakshan

et al., 2007), which in turn is associated with poor health outcomes (Myers,

2000; Myers et al., 2008). However, more moderate and flexible forms of

defensive bias are positively associated with mental health (Baumeister,

1989; Kunda, 1990; Taylor, Kemeny, Reed, Bower, & Gruenewald, 2000).

5. The psychology of emotion regulation 143

Body

Bodily activities that provide immediate gratification represent a major

target for need-oriented emotion regulation. One such activity is eating.

Eating palatable food provides pleasant sensations to the mouth and

stomach, and thus can be used for need-oriented emotion regulation. Stress-

induced eating is a common emotion-regulation strategy, especially among

restrained eaters (Greeno & Wing, 1994). Chronic use of eating as an

emotion-regulation strategy may result in unhealthy behaviour patterns

such as overeating or binge eating (Heatherton & Baumeister, 1991). There

are also psychological disadvantages associated with this strategy, given

that chronic overeaters have greater difficulty identifying and making sense

of their emotional states (Whiteside et al., 2007). Notably, the emotional

profile of overeaters resembles that of repressors, suggesting that stress-

induced eating may be linked to repressive coping (cf. Derakshan et al.,

2007).

The emotion regulation effects of eating may be partly explained by

attentional processes. For instance, binge eating may down-regulate

emotional distress by focusing people’s attention on their immediate

physical sensations (Heatherton & Baumeister, 1991). However, eating

also has neuro-endocrine effects that may reduce emotional distress. For

instance, eating palatable food can stimulate the endogenous release of

opioids (Adam & Epel, 2007; Morley & Levine, 1980). Because opioids

relieve stress, this mechanism may explain why individuals engage in stress-

induced eating. Animal research has offered some support for this model:

When rats are treated with opioid antagonists, they display a marked

reduction in stress-induced eating (Hawkins, Cubic, Baumeister, & Barton,

1992).

Physical activities other than eating may also be recruited in need-

oriented emotion regulation. Potential candidates are stress-induced con-

sumption behaviours such as alcohol intake (Mohr, Brennan, Mohr,

Armeli, & Tennen, 2008; Sher & Grekin, 2007; Zack, Poulos, Fragopou-

los, Woodford, & MacLeod, 2006) and smoking (Gilbert et al., 2007).

Other bodily emotion-regulation strategies that may be at least partly need-

oriented are regular physical exercise, particularly when people have

developed exercise habits (Thayer, 1987), and stress-induced proximity

seeking, particularly among women (Taylor et al., 2000). These bodily

emotion-regulation strategies may provide immediate hedonic benefits, in

as far as they involve behaviours that can be easily and spontaneously

executed.

Summary

Need-oriented strategies regulate emotional responses to promote the

satisfaction of hedonic needs. Overall, the literature has emphasised the

144 Koole

need to minimise negative emotion over the need to maximise positive

emotion. On an attentional level, need-oriented emotion regulation may

occur through avoidance of threatening information or distraction by

positive information, tendencies that are especially prevalent among

repressive copers. On a representational level, need-oriented emotion

regulation may take the form of various interpretive biases, which may

serve anxiety-reducing functions. Finally, on a physical level, need-oriented

emotion regulation may occur through activities such as eating, physical

exercise, or proximity seeking. Regardless of whether they target attention,

knowledge representations, or the body, need-oriented strategies of

emotion regulation are associated with immediate emotional relief that

often comes at the expense of long-term well-being (Tice et al., 2001).

Goal-oriented emotion regulation

Goal-oriented emotion regulation is directed by a single verbally reportable

goal, norm, or task. There are two major ways in which goal-oriented

emotion regulation may operate. First, goal-oriented emotion regulation

may be driven by people’s beliefs about the utility of particular emotional

states. These beliefs may be influenced by verbal instructions about the

desirability of certain emotional states (e.g., Achtzinger et al., 2008; Gross,

1998a), by implicit or explicit beliefs about the utility of particular

emotional states (Tamir et al., 2007a), or by more abstract theories that

people have about emotion regulation (Tamir et al., 2007b). Second, an

ongoing goal, task, or norm may change the relevance of emotionally

charged information. Emotionally charged information that is (potentially)

relevant to the ongoing task is likely to be maintained, whereas emotionally

charged information that is irrelevant is likely to be ignored or down-

regulated (Van Dillen & Koole, 2009). Because goals, norms, or tasks may

favour various types of emotional outcomes, goal-oriented emotion

regulation may either promote or inhibit emotional states that are

hedonically rewarding.

Attention

Goals can control attention in a top-down manner (Posner & Rothbart,

2007). Accordingly, attention forms a prime target for goal-oriented

emotion-regulation strategies. Erber et al. (1996) found that people who

anticipated interacting with an unknown other attended more to materials

of the opposite emotional valence to their current mood state. Presumably,

people engaged in this form of attention regulation because it is counter-

normative to behave highly emotionally in dealing with strangers.

Importantly, social-interaction goals fostered attention to negative stimuli

when people’s initial moods were positive. As such, these studies

5. The psychology of emotion regulation 145

demonstrate that goal-oriented emotion regulation can be dissociated from

people’s hedonic needs (see Erber & Erber, 2000).

A critical factor in goal-oriented regulation of attention appears to be the

availability of distracting stimuli. Indeed, simply instructing individuals

‘‘not to think about’’ an unwanted emotion may ironically serve to heighten

the activation of this emotion (Wegner et al., 1993; Wegner & Gold, 1995).

Research on mental control (Wegner, 1994) has found that providing

people with a focused distracter (such as, ‘‘Think about a red Volkswagen’’)

greatly increases the efficiency of thought suppression attempts. Depressed

individuals seem to have particular difficulties in finding suitable distracters

(Wenzlaff, Wegner, & Roper, 1988). As such, the breakdown of self-

generation of distracters may play a key role in the persistence of depression

(Joormann & Siemer, 2004).

Given that any demanding task can divert attention, even neutral tasks

may have emotion-regulatory implications (Erber & Tesser, 1992). Indeed,

studies have shown that distraction with neutral materials can reduce

depression (Morrow & Nolen-Hoeksema, 1990; Nolen-Hoeksema &

Morrow, 1993), and anger (Gerin, Davidson, Goyal, Christenfeld, &

Schwartz, 2006; Rusting & Nolen-Hoeksema, 1998). For instance, in one

study (Nolen-Hoeksema & Morrow, 1993), focusing attention on descrip-

tions of geographic locations and objects led depressed participants to

experience reductions in depressed mood, whereas focusing on current

feeling states and personal characteristics led depressed participants to

experience increases in depressed mood.

The effects of performing a neutral task on emotion regulation may be

understood in terms of underlying working-memory processes (Van Dillen

& Koole, 2007). Emotional states spontaneously and unintentionally

activate emotion-congruent cognitions in working memory (Bower &

Mayer, 1989; Siemer, 2005). This congruent processing stream may be

interrupted when working memory is loaded with an alternative task.

Consistent with this model, tasks that draw upon working memory have

been found to be particularly effective in reducing the emotional impact of

vivid emotion-laden stimuli (Erber & Tesser, 1992; Van Dillen & Koole,

2007, 2009). Moreover, performing a working-memory task attenuates the

neural response to negative emotional stimuli (Van Dillen, Heslenfeld, &

Koole, 2008). Working-memory load can even eliminate attentional

interference of negative stimuli (Van Dillen & Koole, 2009), an effect

that has previously been regarded as automatic (Pratto & John, 1991).

Knowledge

The explicit goals and norms that guide goal-oriented emotion regulation

are encoded in a linguistic format (Ochsner & Gross, 2005, 2008). Goal-

oriented emotion regulation is therefore highly compatible with linguistic

appraisal processes. During cognitive reappraisal, people reduce the

146 Koole

emotional impact of an event by changing their subjective evaluations of

this event (Gross, 1998a,b, 2001). Cognitive reappraisal may take the form

of: (a) reinterpreting situational or contextual aspects of stimuli (e.g.,

imagining a potentially upsetting image is fake); or (b) distancing oneself

from stimuli by adopting a detached, third-person perspective (Ochsner &

Gross, 2008). Cognitive reappraisal can inhibit the experience of unwanted

emotions, although it does not consistently decrease psycho-physiological

arousal (Gross, 1998a; Steptoe & Vogele, 1986). The strategy draws upon

working-memory resources (Schmeichel, Volokhov, & Demaree, 2008),

but is relatively efficient in that it does not impair people’s memory for

ongoing social interactions (Richards & Gross, 2000).

Reappraisal processes have been intensely researched in neuroimaging

studies (e.g., Beauregard, Levesque, & Bourgouin, 2001; Ochsner, Bunge,

Gross, & Gabrieli, 2002; see Ochsner & Gross, 2005, 2008, for reviews).

These studies have shown consistently that cognitive reappraisal inhibits

activation in emotional regions, including the amygdalae and insula, and

increases activation in dorsal anterior cingulate cortex and prefrontal

cortex, regions that support working memory, language, and long-term

memory. During reappraisal, emotional regions of the brain may become

inversely coupled to the activation of specific regions in the prefrontal

cortex (Urry et al., 2006). These findings are consistent with the idea that

reappraisal triggers top-down control of emotion-generating systems.

Notably, reappraisal activates some of the same brain regions as tasks

involving top-down attention control (Ochsner et al., 2002), and the effects

of reappraisal are partly explained by shifts in visual attention away from

emotion-eliciting stimuli (Van Reekum et al., 2007). Some reappraisal

processes may thus be driven by attentional mechanisms rather than

changes in knowledge representations.

Body

The verbal processes that mediate goal-oriented emotion regulation have

limited access to embodied emotion processes (Loewenstein, 1996;

Nordgren, van der Pligt, & van Harreveld, 2006). Accordingly, goal-

oriented emotion regulation may resort to more indirect ways of regulating

the body. Goal-oriented control of the body is typically focused on outward

bodily manifestations of emotion, such as facial expressions or overt

movements and bodily postures, because these are under the control of

explicit norms and goals.

One goal-oriented strategy of emotion regulation that targets the body is

expressive suppression (Gross, 1998a,b, 2001). In this strategy, people

actively inhibit their emotional expressions. For example, an individual

might try to keep a straight face while telling a lie. Expressive suppression

has been found to draw upon working-memory resources (Schmeichel

et al., 2008), to interfere with people’s memory of ongoing social

5. The psychology of emotion regulation 147

interactions (Richards & Gross, 2000), and increase sympathetic control of

the heart (Demaree et al., 2006). Despite its effortful nature, expressive

suppression does little to prevent the experience of unwanted emotions,

even when it effectively inhibits bodily expressions of emotion (Gross,

1998a; Schmeichel et al., 2008).

The foregoing suggests that expressive suppression may often create a

discrepancy between inner experience and outer expression, a condition

that may arouse ‘‘expressive dissonance’’ (Robinson & Demaree, 2007).

Indeed, individuals who chronically use expressive suppression report a

sense of being inauthentic or ‘‘fake’’ in their social relationships (Gross &

John, 2003). These alienating effects may be part of the reason why chronic

expressive suppression is linked to low emotional well-being (Gross &

John, 2003). Notably, the negative effects of expression suppression may be

specific to members of Western cultures (Butler, Lee, & Gross, 2007).

Whereas Western cultures traditionally value open emotion expression,

Asian cultures traditionally value emotional restraint (Frijda & Sundarar-

ajan, 2007). Consequently, expressive suppression may be perceived as less

negative by individuals with Asian cultural values. Consistent with this,

recent work has shown that, among individuals with Asian cultural values,

expressive suppression is associated with neither increased negative

emotion nor reduced social responsiveness (Butler et al., 2007).

Given the difficulties of expressive suppression (at least, among members

of Western cultures), goal-oriented regulation processes may try to redirect

bodily emotion responses rather than eliminating them altogether. For

instance, people may engage in response exaggeration, by deliberately

exaggerating their responses to an emotional stimulus (Schmeichel et al.,

2006). Another redirection strategy is venting, an emotion-regulation

process in which people intentionally give free reign to their emotional

impulses (Breuer & Freud, 1893Á1895/1955; see Bushman et al., 2001).

Venting is a popular strategy in controlling anger and aggression (Bushman

et al., 2001). On the surface, venting seems to be the opposite of expressive

suppression. Nevertheless, venting is a goal-driven strategy to regulate

bodily expressions of emotion, just as expressive suppression (Bushman

et al., 2001). Although venting is widely advertised, research indicates that

venting anger actually increases anger and aggression (Geen & Quanty,

1977). Presumably, venting adds fuel to the flame by heightening the

activation of angry thoughts and action tendencies (Bushman, 2002), which

in turn promote angry emotion and behaviour.

Summary

Goal-oriented strategies of emotion regulation are driven by a single

explicit goal, task, or norm. Some of the most effective goal-oriented

strategies direct attention away from stimuli that could trigger unwanted

emotions. Effortful tasks that draw upon working memory resources have

148 Koole

been found to be particularly potent distracters. Other relatively effective

goal-oriented strategies use cognitive reappraisal, a process that modifies

the emotional impact of events by changing people’s assessments of these

events. Some of the least effective goal-oriented strategies target bodily

expressions of emotion, through processes such as expressive suppression,

response exaggeration, or venting. Overall, in the domain of goal-oriented

emotion regulation, cognitive strategies appear to be more effective than

bodily strategies.

Person-oriented emotion regulation

Person-oriented emotion regulation maintains the integrity of the overall

personality system, which consists of the entirety of a person’s needs, goals,

motives, and other self-aspects. A first signature of person-oriented emotion

regulation is its holistic focus. Whereas need-oriented and goal-oriented

emotion regulation focus on aspects of emotional or task-related function-

ing, person-oriented emotion regulation is geared to the functioning of the

whole person. A second signature of person-oriented emotion regulation is

contextual sensitivity, which is expressed in the ability to alternate between

different motivational, cognitive, or affective subsystems in a context-

appropriate manner (Rothermund et al., 2008). A third signature of person-

oriented emotion regulation is integration, which is manifested in the co-

ordinated functioning of personality systems that are traditionally regarded

as antagonistic, such as positive versus negative emotions, body versus

mind, passion versus reason, and top-down versus bottom-up processing.

Attention

An important pattern in the person-oriented regulation of attention is the

counter-regulation principle (Rothermund et al., 2008). According to this

principle, people are equipped with attentional biases that prevent the

perseveration of current motivational or emotional states. Attentional

counter-regulation presumably helps to restore a balanced receptiveness to

positive and negative information despite currently active affective-

motivational states. Counter-regulation thus fosters contextual sensitivity,

an important signature of person-oriented emotion regulation.

Counter-regulation processes are indirectly supported by many studies

showing that positive and negative events tend to have only short-term

consequences for people’s emotional states (e.g., Gilbert, Lieberman,

Morewedge, &Wilson, 2004). In addition, controlled experimental studies

have confirmed the existence of attentional biases in the opposite direction

as people’s current emotional-motivational states (Derryberry, 1993;

Rothermund et al., 2008; Tugade & Frederickson, 2004). Depending on the

context, attentional counter-regulation may inhibit either positive or negative

emotion (Rothermund et al., 2008). Accordingly, counter-regulation is

5. The psychology of emotion regulation 149

distinct from need-oriented emotion regulation. Consistent with its global

adaptive functions, attentional counter-regulation is most pronounced

among individuals disposed towards flexible action control (Jostmann

et al., 2005; Koole & Coenen, 2007; Koole & Jostmann, 2004), and largely

absent among individuals suffering from chronic anxiety, phobia, or

dysphoria (Mathews & MacLeod, 2005).

Person-oriented regulation of attention may be stimulated by activities

such as meditation (Cahn & Polich, 2006) and mindfulness training (Brown

et al., 2007). Meditation refers to practices that ‘‘self-regulate the body and

mind, thereby affecting mental events by engaging in a specific attentional

set’’ (Cahn & Polich, 2006, p. 180). Mindfulness training evolved out of

certain meditative practices, and encourages people to engage in a mere

noticing of their internal and external experiences in an objective manner,

without the biasing influence of pre-existing cognitive schemas (Brown

et al., 2007). Meditation and mindfulness training both foster emotion-

regulation abilities (see Brown et al., 2007; Cahn & Polich, 2006, for

reviews). The mechanisms that underlie meditation and mindfulness

training are incompletely understood. Nevertheless, both practices promote

personality integration, as indicated by greater neurological synchronisa-

tion (Cahn & Polich, 2006) and increased congruence between implicit and

explicit self-aspects (Brown & Ryan, 2003; Koole, Govorun, & Cheng,

2008). The latter findings fit with the involvement of person-oriented

emotion regulation.

Knowledge

Common sense has long held that people may overcome traumatic

experiences by ‘‘putting their feelings in perspective’’ or ‘‘working through’’

their emotions. These metaphors appear to describe cognitive integration

processes, in which emotionally charged information becomes incorporated

into larger networks of the person’s experiences. Though initially painful,

cognitive integration processes may eventually down-regulate unwanted

emotions and create the conditions for personal growth (Baumann & Kuhl,

2002; Kuhl, 2000). Integration of aversive emotional experiences thus

represents an important form of person-oriented emotion regulation.

Expressive writing is one activity that may foster integration of

emotional experiences. Studies have shown that expressive writing down-

regulates emotional distress and improves both physical and psychological

health (Pennebaker, 1997; Pennebaker & Chung, 2007). These beneficial

effects may arise because expressive writing helps to turn initially disturbing

emotional experiences into coherent narratives (Smyth, True, & Souto,

2001), which down-regulates emotional distress and promotes insight into

the self and one’s emotions (Klein & Boals, 2001; Pennebaker, Mayne, &

Francis, 1997).

150 Koole

Once emotion-relevant knowledge has been acquired, this knowledge

may assist in subsequent emotion-regulation efforts. Specifically, as

people’s emotion knowledge becomes broader and more differentiated,

new emotional experiences may be incorporated more easily into their

existing cognitive schema (Kuhl, 2000). Individuals who possess relatively

differentiated knowledge of self and emotion indeed display more efficient

emotion regulation, both in childhood (Diamond & Aspinwall, 2003) and

adulthood (Barrett, Gross, Conner, & Benvenuto, 2001; Linville, 1985,

1987; Rafaeli-Mor & Steinberg, 2002). Autobiographical knowledge about

the self and emotion may thus form an extended memory system that

allows people to down-regulate unwanted emotions (Kuhl, 2000; Philippot

et al., 2004).

People may access the emotion-regulatory functions of the autobiogra-

phical memory system whenever they process the specific details of an

emotional experience. Indeed, imagining the distinctive details of emotional

memories, rather than their general aspects, reduces the emotional intensity

of these memories (Neumann & Philippot, 2007). Furthermore, deficits in

emotion regulation, such as chronic depression and ruminative thinking,

are associated with reduced specificity of autobiographical memory

(Williams et al., 2007). Experimental studies have shown that concrete,

experiential thoughts (e.g., ‘‘How did you feel moment by moment?’’),

relative to abstract, attributional thoughts (e.g., ‘‘Why did you feel this

way?’’), lead to faster recovery from a negative emotion (Moberly &

Watkins, 2006; Watkins, 2004). Concrete rather than abstract processing

of emotional experience also leads to global improvements in cognitive

flexibility (Watkins & Moulds, 2005), consistent with the person-oriented

functions of this type of emotion regulation.

Body

In regulating bodily expressions of emotion, person-oriented emotion

regulation seeks to forge a mutual exchange between higher mental

processes and peripherally mediated emotion responses. Throughout this

exchange, mind and body are equally important, and each system is

allowed to express its natural tendencies. It is noteworthy that meditation

(Cahn & Polich, 2006) and mindfulness training (Brown et al., 2007),

which are often regarded as attentional strategies of emotion regulation,

typically include bodily activities such as breathing and relaxation

exercises. This dual focus on mind and body fits with the holistic

orientation of systematic emotion regulation.

One bodily activity that may foster person-oriented emotion regulation

relies on the voluntary control of breath. Some forms of controlled breathing

may facilitate emotion regulation, in that specific breathing patterns are

associated with general mood and distinct emotions (Boiten, Frijda, &

Wientjes, 1994). Indeed, voluntarily engaging in specific breathing patterns

5. The psychology of emotion regulation 151

can selectively activate specific emotional states (Philippot, Chapelle, &

Blairy, 2002) and reduce emotional distress (Franck, Schäfer, Stiels,

Wasserman, & Hermann, 1994; Meuret, Wilhelm, & Roth, 2001). The

effects of controlled breathing involve both bottom-up processes, such as

respiratory feedback (Philippot et al., 2002), and top-down processes, given

that attention to one’s own respiratory rhythms enhances the emotion-

regulation effects of controlled breathing (Arch & Craske, 2006; Clark &

Hirschman, 1990; Zeier, 1984). This co-ordinated interplay of top-down

and bottom-up functions fits with the integrative aspects of person-oriented

emotion regulation.

Another bodily activity that may foster person-oriented emotion regula-

tion relies on muscle relaxation (Esch et al., 2003). Much research has used

Jacobson’s (1928) classic technique of progressive muscle relaxation. In this

technique, people successively tense and relax their muscle groups in

different parts of the body. Experimental studies have shown that progressive

muscle relaxation down-regulates state anxiety and perceived stress (Pawlow

& Jones, 2002; Rankin, Gilner, Gfeller, & Katz, 1993; Rausch, Gramling, &

Auerbach, 2006). Progressive muscle relaxation further reduces heart rate

and salivary cortisol (Pawlow & Jones, 2002) and stress-related disease

(Carlson & Hoyle, 1993; Esch et al., 2003). Consistent with the involvement

of high-level processes in progressive muscle relaxation, the technique is most

effective when it is combined with attention to muscle sensations (Borkovec

& Hennings, 1978) or biofeedback (Lehrer, 1982).

Summary

Person-oriented strategies of emotion regulation promote the overall

functioning of the personality system. Some person-oriented emotion-

regulation strategies rely on counter-regulation, a process that directs

attention to information that is of opposite valence to people’s current

emotional state. Alternatively, person-oriented emotion regulation may

foster cognitive integration of unwanted emotional experiences, through

activities such as expressive writing. Over time, integration of emotional

experiences may give rise to an extensive autobiographical knowledge base,

and accessing this knowledge base may further stimulate person-oriented

emotion regulation. Bodily forms of person-oriented emotion regulation

involve such activities as controlled breathing and progressive muscle

relaxation. Person-oriented emotion regulation is associated with long-term

benefits, regardless of whether it targets attention, knowledge, or the body.

SUMMARY, CONCLUSIONS, AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS

The present article has reviewed contemporary insights and findings on the

psychology of emotion regulation. Emotion regulation was defined as the

152 Koole

set of processes whereby people seek to redirect the spontaneous flow of

their emotions. In a broad sense, emotion regulation refers to the set of

processes whereby people manage all of their emotionally charged states,

including specific emotions, affect, mood, and stress. Emotion regulation

determines how easily people can leave a given emotional state. It can thus

be distinguished from emotional sensitivity, which determines how easily

people can enter an emotional state.

Presently, there exists no consensual and empirically validated taxon-

omy of emotion-regulation strategies. Nevertheless, researchers have

identified several higher-order categories that could lay the foundation

for such a taxonomy. The most viable higher-order categories for

classifying emotion-regulation strategies are currently the emotion-gener-

ating systems that are targeted in emotion regulation (Gross, 1998a,b,

2001) and the psychological functions of emotion regulation. Among the

chief targets of emotion regulation are attention, cognitive emotion-

relevant knowledge, and bodily manifestations of emotion. Among the

major psychological functions of emotion regulation are the satisfaction of

hedonic needs, supporting goal pursuits, and maintenance of the global

personality system.

A dual classification in terms of targets and functions was found to be

helpful in organising the literature on emotion-regulation strategies. Need-

oriented emotion regulation includes strategies of: (a) turning attention

away from negative information or towards positive information; (b)

interpretative biases; and (c) bodily activities such as binge eating or

smoking. Goal-oriented emotion regulation includes strategies of: (a)

distraction through cognitive load; (b) cognitive reappraisal; and (c) bodily

activities such as expressive suppression, response exaggeration, and

venting. Finally, person-oriented emotion regulation includes strategies

of: (a) attentional counter-regulation; (b) cognitive activities such as

expressive writing or accessing autobiographical memories; and (c) bodily

activities such as controlled breathing and progressive muscle relaxation.

There is consistent empirical support for each of these strategies, though

more work remains necessary to fully understand their underlying

processes.

The hypothesis that cognitive strategies are more effective than bodily

strategies of emotion regulation (Gross, 1998a,b, 2001) was only partly

supported. With respect to goal-oriented emotion regulation, attentional

and reappraisal strategies indeed appear to have an edge over bodily

strategies such as expressive suppression or venting. However, the picture is

different with respect to need- and person-oriented emotion regulation. In

the domain of need-oriented emotion regulation, cognitive strategies appear

to be relatively ineffective, especially in the long run. For instance,

attentional avoidance of threatening information among repressors is

associated with intrusive thoughts and poor health outcomes (Geraerts

et al., 2006; Myers, 2000). Conversely, in the domain of person-oriented

5. The psychology of emotion regulation 153

emotion regulation, bodily strategies appear to be relatively effective. For

instance, progressive muscle relaxation effectively down-regulates stress

and stress-related disease (Pawlow & Jones, 2002; Esch et al., 2003). Taken

together, the advantage of cognitive over bodily strategies of emotion

regulation appears to be specific to goal-oriented emotion regulation and

does not apply across all known emotion-regulation strategies.

Because emotions are fundamentally embodied (Niedenthal, 2007), all

emotion-regulation processes must ultimately interface with bodily func-

tions. Nevertheless, only few studies to date have systematically addressed

the physiology of emotion regulation. One intriguing line of work suggests

an important role for cardiac vagal tone in emotion regulation (Appelhans

& Luecken, 2006; Porges, 2007; Thayer & Lane, 2000, 2007). The vagal

nerve may function as an active brake on heart rate that puts the individual

into a calm emotional state. In emotion regulation, vagal tone may be

dynamically controlled in a top-down manner by cortical systems (Porges,

Doussard-Roosevelt, & Maita, 1994; Thayer & Lane, 2000, 2007).

Identifying mechanisms such as vagal tone will be of key significance in

relating the physiology of emotion regulation to its cognitive and

neurological manifestations.

At a general level, the present article attests to the considerable growth

and vitality of modern research on emotion regulation. There is good

reason to believe that emotion regulation research will continue to

flourish, given the growing recognition that emotion regulation plays a

major role in physical and psychological well-being, combined with the

development of ever more powerful methods of investigation. One

particularly exciting set of recent discoveries has been that emotion-

regulatory competencies are susceptible to social learning experiences (see

also Butler et al., 2007). Indeed, emotion-regulatory competencies may be

improved through directed exercises (Brown et al., 2007; Dandeneau

et al., 2007; Serrano, Latorre, Gatz, & Montan˜és, 2004) and may

continue to develop even into old age (Carstensen et al., 2003). Studying

the social-cognitive processes that allow people to improve their compe-

tencies in emotion regulation is likely to generate important new insights

into the nature of emotion regulation. Moreover, such investigations may

eventually lead to better interventions for improving emotion-regulatory

competencies.

Some might fear that boosting people’s capacity for emotion regulation

will inevitably narrow emotional experience. In fact, research suggests just

the opposite. Drawing from Chinese poetics and Confucian philosophy,

Frijda and Sundararajan (2007) described how emotional restraint con-

tributes to a deeper and more differentiated appreciation of one’s emotions.

In line with this, empirical evidence indicates that individuals with high

emotion-regulation competencies are characterised by greater self-reflex-

ivity and a more profound awareness of their emotions (Barrett et al., 2001;

Brown et al., 2007). People’s emotional lives are thus likely to become

154 Koole

enriched as people learn new and more powerful ways of regulating their

emotions.

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Correspondence should be addressed to: Sander Koole, Department of Social Psychology, Vrije

Universiteit Amsterdam, van der Boechorststraat 1, NL-1081 BT, Amsterdam, the Nether-

lands. E-mail: SL.koole@psy.vu.nl

The author would like to thank Jan De Houwer, Daniel Fockenberg, Miguel Kazén, Julius

Kuhl, Klaus Rothermund, Hester Ruigendijk, Markus Quirin, Lotte van Dillen, and two

anonymous reviewers for their insightful feedback on a previous version of this paper.

5. The psychology of emotion regulation 167