Emotional regulation refers to the process by which individuals influence which

emotions they have, when they have them, and how they experience and express their
feelings. Emotional regulation can be automatic or controlled, conscious or
unconscious, and may have effects at one or more points in the emotion producing
process(Gross et al. 1998)

Emotional regulation involves three components:

 Initiating actions triggered by emotions.
 Inhibiting actions triggered by emotions.
 Modulating responses triggered by emotions.

 Emotional Regulation Skills

1. Self-awareness

Noticing what we feel and naming it is a great step toward emotional regulation.
Naming the specific emotions that one is feeling intensely at that very moment. Need
not act or judge the cause and effect of emotions at this stage; all that is needed is
complete awareness of each feeling that is controlling the mind.

2. Mindful awareness

Mindfulness lets us explore and identify all aspects of the external world, including
our body. Simple mindful exercises such as breath control or sensory relaxation can
calm the storm inside and guide our actions in the right way.

3. Cognitive reappraisal

Cognitive reappraisal includes altering the way we think. It is an essential component

of psychotherapies like CBT, DBT, and Anger Management, and calls for greater
acceptance and flexibility. Cognitive reappraisal skills may include practices such as
thought replacement or situational role reversal. For example, we can replace thought
like ‘My boss hates me’ with alternative such as, ‘My boss is upset at this moment’.

4. Adaptability

A great exercise to build adaptability is objective evaluation. For example, when

feeling bogged down by stressful emotions that one wants to avoid, and might end up
destructively reacting to them, taking a moment to think what if his best friend was
experiencing the same thing? What would you have suggested him to do under these
circumstances and try to follow the same steps.

5. Self-soothing
Self-soothing, in any form, can reduce the toxic effects of anger, sadness, and agony
that negative experiences bring (Heiy and Cheavens 2014). self-soothing exercises,
including:
 Self-compassion and loving-kindness meditation.
 Music meditation, where we set aside some minutes to listen to music and
unwind ourselves with the relaxing sound.
 Breathing exercises, including breath control, breath counting, and simple breath
relaxation.
 Simple self-care such as a hot bath, a relaxing massage, cooking for yourself, etc.

1. Attentional control

Attentional control starts with reappraisal. It aims to divert our attention away from
the negative emotion and allows us to look at it from a rewarding perspective.
For example, we can overpower the irresistible anger and shame that follows an insult
or abuse from someone, by thinking of it as a lesson that taught you to avoid building
connections with rude people.

Emotion Regulation Goals

1. First, emotions arise when an individual attends to a situation and sees it as relevant
to his or her goals.

a. The goals that support this evaluation may be enduring (staying alive) or transient
(seeing our team win the game).
b. They may be central to our sense of self (being a good student) or peripheral
(opening a cereal box).
c. Goals may be conscious and complicated (plotting revenge on a classroom bully) or
unconscious and simple (ducking a punch).
d. They may be widely shared and understood (having friends) or highly idiosyncratic
(finding a new beetle for our collection).
e. Whatever the goal, and whatever the source of the situational meaning for the
individual, it is this meaning that gives rise to emotion. As this meaning changes over
time (due either to changes in the situation itself or to changes in the meaning the
situation holds), the emotion will also change.

Emotional intelligence is the ability to perceive, control and evaluate emotions. The
term was first coined by researchers Peter Salovey and John D. Mayer and found
popularity through Dan Goleman’s 1996 book. They define it as the ability to
recognize, understand and manage our own emotions as well as recognize, understand
and influence those of others. 

The components of emotional intelligence include:

 Appraising and expressing emotions in the self and others: Recognizing or

expressing verbal or nonverbal cues about emotion

 Regulating emotion in the self and others: Managing emotions so that all

parties are motivated towards a positive outcome.

 Using emotions in adaptive ways: Using emotion and the interpretation of

emotions to result in positive outcomes.
Those who have emotional intelligence open themselves to positive and negative
emotional experiences, identify the emotions and communicate those emotions
appropriately. Emotionally intelligent people can use their understanding of their
emotions and the emotions of others to move toward personal and social growth.

Those with low emotional intelligence may unable to understand and control their
emotions or those of others. This could leave others feeling badly when they don’t
understand their emotions, feelings, or expressions.

Module 5

Positive emotions

Negative emotions are incredibly important, and each plays a protective role in our
lives. For example, fear alerts us to danger and causes us to flee; sadness encourages
us to withdraw and reflect amid loss; and disgust helps rid us of contamination by
causing us to spit out potentially poisonous things. Negative emotions narrow our
attention and urge us to act in a specific way, positive emotions do the opposite.

Positive emotions broaden our attention and increase our thought-action repertoire. In

other words, they increase the range of thoughts we might consider and actions we
might take in a given situation. 

Positive emotions and health

Positive emotions help us build physical, psychological, and social resources. Those
who experience more positive emotions have lower blood pressure, fewer colds and
better sleep. They are more optimistic, resilient and more accepting. They also have
stronger and more satisfying relationships because the good times help buffer against
break-ups and divorce.

In 2003 a landmark study revealed that people who experience positive emotions are
at a reduced risk of disease. Researchers assessed a group of 334 people aged 18 to 54
for their tendency to experience positive emotions like happiness, pleasure and
relaxation along with negative emotions like anxiety, hostility and depression.
Participants were then injected with nasal drops containing the common cold.
People who expressed more positive emotions were less likely to develop the
common cold, and the relationship was so strong that it held across age, gender,
education, race, body mass and even season.

Research has found that warm touch such as hugging, particularly among loved ones,
releases oxytocin and improves physiological health.

There’s also evidence to suggest that people who are resilient and adaptable (read:
positive) have lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol and higher levels of heart
rate variability, which is associated with a reduced risk of heart disease.
psychological scientist Jiah Yoo of the University of Wisconsin-Madison says
"American adults who experience high levels of positive emotions, such as feeling
'cheerful' and 'extremely happy', are more likely to have healthy blood-lipid profiles,
even after accounting for other factors such as age, gender, socioeconomic status, and
chronic conditions.

By using brain imaging, Davidson and others have found that positive emotions can
trigger “reward” pathways located deep within the brain, including in an area known
as the ventral striatum.
“Individuals who are able to savor positive emotions have lasting activation in the
ventral striatum,” Davidson says. “The longer the activation lasts, the greater his or
her feelings of well-being.” Continued activation of this part of the brain has been
linked to healthful changes in the body, including lower levels of a stress hormone.

Positive emotions and relationships

As important as positive emotions are for us as individuals, they may be even more
important for our relationships. They help us forge strong connections with others by
breaking down boundaries that separate us from each other. By broadening our
attention in ways that help us see ourselves as less distinct from others, they allow us
to create all kinds of relationships, including romantic ones. When we are in romantic
relationships we desire to expand ourselves by including our partner or spouse within
our self and we associate that expansion of our self with the other.

This influential self-expansion model of love is based on the research of leading

relationship scientist Arthur Aron, professor of psychology at Stony Brook
University. Aron argues that self-expansion is a catalyst for positive emotions.

He and his colleagues use pairs of overlapping circles to ask couples about their
relationship quality. On one end of their scale, the pair of circles does not overlap at
all, and at the other end, the circles overlap almost completely. The more overlap an
individual feels with his or her partner, the better the relationship is likely to fare. This
simple measure has been more effective than more complex surveys and interviews at
predicting which couples will stay together and which will break up.

Barbara Fredrickson, Kenan Distinguished Professor at the University of North

Carolina at Chapel Hill and the leading researcher on positive emotions, in a variety
of experiments, has found that even lab-induced positive emotions can help people
see more overlap between themselves and others. These emotions can help people feel
closer and more connected to their loved ones. And the more you continually kindle
positive feelings in your relationships, the more connected and happy you feel overall.

Another way positive emotions can enhance relationships is through contagion. Just
as we can pass colds along to our partners through physical contagion, so we can pass
along our feelings to our partners through emotional contagion.

Example: when you spend time with your partner, you often wind up feeling the
emotions he or she is experiencing.
Emotional contagion is rather complex and often happens below the level of our
consciousness. It results from the fact that we are built to mimic each other. As
infants, we start mimicking our parents soon after we are born, behavior that is critical
for our development and constitutes a primary pathway to learning and growing
throughout our lives. Emotional contagion results from our tendency to copy or
synchronize our facial expressions, vocalizations, postures, and behaviors with those
around us, and as a result take on their emotional landscape.