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How Can Emotions Be Regulated?

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To appear in The Routledge Handbook of Emotion Theory

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How Can Emotions Be Regulated?

Andero Uusberg1,2, Helen Uusberg2, & James J. Gross1

1
Stanford University, Department of Psychology, Stanford, CA, United States
2
University of Tartu, Institute of Psychology, Tartu, Estonia
2

Introduction
Sometimes, the emotions we have are not the emotions we want to have. We may be too anxious
about a work presentation or insufficiently enthusiastic about an upcoming trip. Such circumstances
call for emotion regulation, or attempts to change emotion in a desired direction (Gross, 1998, 2015).
When these attempts are self-generated, emotion regulation is said to be intrinsic. When these
attempts are prompted by the social environment, emotion regulation is said to be extrinsic (Reeck,
Ames, & Ochsner, 2016; Zaki & Williams, 2013). This chapter focusses on intrinsic emotion
regulation involving intra-individual goal-directed changes to emotion. For instance, to feel less
anxious about a presentation, one could do a breathing exercise or focus on a friendly face in the
audience. To feel more excited about a travel destination, one could read up on attractions, or
choose to visit a different destination.

Scholarly interest in emotion regulation has a long history. In the Western tradition, discourse about
controlling emotion can be traced back to Plato and the Stoic doctrine of apatheia (Knuuttila, 2004).
In the Eastern tradition, major belief systems from Buddhism to Confucianism touch upon the role
of emotion and its regulation for a virtuous life (Joshanloo, 2014). Modern accounts of emotion
regulation emerged in theories of psychological defenses (Freud, 1929), stress and coping (Lazarus &
Folkman, 1984), attachment (Bowlby, 1969), emotional development (Garber & Dodge, 1991), and
self-regulation (Mischel, Shoda, & Rodriguez, 1989). Owing in part to efforts to integrate these
hitherto disparate lines of thinking (Gross, 1998; Koole, 2009; Larsen, 2000), recent decades have
witnessed an explosion of emotion regulation research (Gross, 2013, 2014). As scholars have sought
to describe, explain, predict, and influence emotion regulation, a set of core research goals has emerged
under each of these aims.

A key descriptive goal is to taxonomically organize the ways in which emotions are regulated (Gross,
1998; Koole, 2009; Larsen, 2000; Naragon-Gainey, McMahon, & Chacko, 2017; Parkinson &
Totterdell, 1999; Webb, Miles, & Sheeran, 2012). Essential questions also bear on conceptual
relations between emotion regulation and neighboring phenomena such as emotion generation
(Campos, Frankel, & Camras, 2004; Gross & Feldman Barrett, 2011; Gross, Sheppes, & Urry, 2011;
Kappas, 2011; Thompson, 2011) and self-regulation (Boureau, Sokol-Hessner, & Daw, 2015;
Heatherton & Wagner, 2011; Kotabe & Hofmann, 2015). Conceptual questions also concern the
interplay between intra- and inter-individual processes in emotion regulation (Burkitt, 2017; Reeck et
al., 2016; Zaki & Williams, 2013).
3

Chief among the explanatory goals is understanding the mechanisms through which emotion
regulation strategies end up changing emotions (van Dillen & Koole, 2007; Gross, 1998; Koole,
2009; Messina, Sambin, Beschoner, & Viviani, 2016; Ochsner, Silvers, & Buhle, 2012). For instance,
why does thinking differently about a situation sometimes change the emotion elicited by the
situation? Related questions include how people decide whether to regulate an emotion, how to do
so, and when to stop (Gross, 2015; Larsen, 2000; Webb, Schweiger Gallo, Miles, Gollwitzer, &
Sheeran, 2012). It can be challenging to model these processes while avoiding the problem of
infinite regress – explanatory units (e.g., a decision module) that are simply postulated to perform
the function they are meant to explain (e.g., emotion regulation decision-making).

Predictive goals include identifying key antecedents and consequences of different emotion regulation
behaviors. Among key antecedents of emotion regulation are features of an individual, such as their
personality traits and beliefs (John & Eng, 2014; Peña-Sarrionandia, Mikolajczak, & Gross, 2015) as
well as features of a situation, such as affordances for using a particular regulation strategy (Suri et
al., 2017). It is also important to learn how emotion regulation develops through childhood,
adolescence, and adulthood (Garber & Dodge, 1991). Turning to consequences, investigators seek
to understand how effective different emotion regulation behaviors are, and what side-effects they
might have over the short or long term (Augustine & Hemenover, 2009; Webb, Miles, et al., 2012).
These questions are particularly relevant for clarifying the role of emotion regulation in health and
illness, both mental and physical (Aldao, Nolen-Hoeksema, & Schweizer, 2010; Berking &
Wupperman, 2012; Gross & Jazaieri, 2014; Sheppes, Suri, & Gross, 2015; Troy & Mauss, 2011).

Research with the goal to influence emotion regulation helps to explain how existing interventions
from cognitive-behavioral therapy to mindfulness-based techniques become effective (Campbell-
Sills & Barlow, 2007; Chambers, Gullone, & Allen, 2009; Farb, Anderson, Irving, & Segal, 2014).
This line of work also inspires the development of new therapeutic approaches (Berking & Whitley,
2014; Mennin & Fresco, 2014) as well as technological aids (Miri et al., 2017; Morris, Schueller, &
Picard, 2015) to overcome regulation deficits. Influencing emotion regulation is relevant in disparate
contexts such as education (Duckworth, Gendler, & Gross, 2014), business (Elfenbein, 2007), and
politics (e.g. Halperin, Porat, Tamir, & Gross, 2013).

The progress achieved under these various headings cannot be fit into a single chapter (c.f., Gross,
2014; Philippot & Feldman, 2004; Vingerhoets, Nyklicek, & Denollet, 2008). We therefore focus this
chapter on a selective overview of key conceptual advances. We will scaffold our discussion using
4

the Extended Process Model (EPM) of emotion regulation, a recent integrative model distilling
advances across several research areas (Gross, 2015).

Conceptual Foundations
The EPM has its starting point in a simple question: What is the purpose of having emotions and
being able to regulate them? Adopting such a functional lens suggests that both generation and
regulation of emotion facilitate flexible goal-directed behavior. For instance, the quality of a work
presentation can be improved both by generation of anxiety that motivates thorough preparation as
well as by regulation of excess anxiety that – if unchecked – would impair delivery. The EPM
therefore views the generation and regulation of emotion as interacting valuation systems that weigh
the adaptive value of different behavioral options in light of situational affordances and individual
goals (Gross, 2015). This approach allows the EPM to build on ideas originally developed for
understanding other valuation systems, such as the ones involved in pursuing goals and controlling
action. In particular, as we will explain next, the EPM uses the constructs of a) hierarchical goal
representations and b) feedback control loops (Figure 1) to model the structure and dynamics of
generation as well as regulation of emotion.

Goals are typically viewed as representations of some desired state, such as a finished e-mail, a
completed project, or obtained social status (Austin & Vancouver, 1996; Elliot & Fryer, 2008). The
same state of a finished e-mail can be both an end valued in and of itself and a means for achieving
another end, such as completing a project. Means are usually more concrete, context-specific, and
rapidly attainable than ends. This principle can be visualized as a hierarchy with increasingly abstract,
decontextualized, and longer-term ends on higher layers and more concrete, contextual, and shorter-
term means on lower layers (Figure 1a; Carver, Johnson, Joormann, & Scheier, 2015; Duckworth &
Gross, 2014; Fujita, Trope, Liberman, & Levin-Sagi, 2006; Vallacher & Wegner, 1987; Watkins,
2011).

On their own, goal hierarchies are static representations of expected relationships between means
and ends. To guide behavior, goals need to be translated into actions. This is a nontrivial task as
there is rarely a one-to-one mapping between ends and means. People can use different means to
serve the same end (e.g., put on a sweater or turn up the heater to be warmer), as well as the same
mean in service of different ends (e.g., put on a sweater to be warmer or to hide the stain from a
recent coffee-spill). The emergence of this kind of flexible goal-directed behavior can be modelled as
a valuation system – a negative feedback control loop which transfers value from a goal to an action
5

based on the predicted efficacy of the action to deliver the goal in a given situation (Carver et al.,
2015; Lord & Levy, 1994; Simon, 1967).

The EPM envisions a version of this loop with four key steps – world (W), perception (P), valuation
(V), and action (A; see Figure 1b). Before considering how these steps help us understand the
generation and regulation of emotion, we define each step in the domain of action control. Consider
someone working on a piece of ready-to-assemble furniture such as a table. The action control loop
is activated by committing to a goal - the end state of an assembled table. The world step W of the
loop denotes the current state of the world with a disassembled table. At the perception step P, goal-
relevant aspects of the current state are represented, including pieces of the table and all the ways
they could be connected to each-other (i.e., action affordances, which we define as the means
available for a person in a given situation). At the valuation step V, the loop compares the current
state (disassembled table) to the goal state (assembled table), and in case of a discrepancy, evaluates
action affordances based on how much each is predicted to minimize the discrepancy. For instance,
attaching a leg to the base of the table has a higher value than attaching two legs to each-other as
only the former action brings the world closer to the goal. At the action step A, the most valuable of
the actions is implemented. Next, all steps of the loop are repeated - the change in the world W (one
leg now attached) is reflected in an updated perception P followed by re-evaluation of remaining
action affordances at V leading to another action at A. The loop iterates until the discrepancy has
been minimized, either because actions have brought the current state in line with the goal, or the
goal has been abandoned.
6

Figure 1. Conceptual foundations of the extended process model of emotion regulation. Panel a.
Hierarchical goal representations provide the structure for the valuation systems that underlie
emotion generation and emotion regulation. Panel b. A feedback control loop describes the
processes performed by these valuation systems. See text for details.

Emotion Generation and Emotion Regulation as Interacting Valuation Systems

The EPM views emotion generation as a first-tier valuation system taking a situation as input and
producing experiential, physiological, and behavioral changes as output. Emotion regulation is
viewed as a second-tier valuation system that takes the emotion emerging from the first-tier system
as input and launches emotion regulation as output.

Consider for instance how anxiety about giving a presentation would emerge from the first-tier
valuation system underlying emotion generation. The W step corresponds to a real or imagined
situation, for instance losing ones’ train of thought during a presentation. The P step corresponds to
attending to core features and action affordances of this situation. For instance, the presenter may
focus on the number and importance of people witnessing his failure and see few affordances for
action other than either struggling endlessly to regain his train of thought or leaving the room. At
the V step, the attended features and affordances of the situation are appraised in relation to
important goals. The presenter in our example may find that his goals such as maintaining social
status are seriously threatened by not regaining his train of thought whereas escaping the situation
7

provides a chance to minimize this discrepancy. The A step comprises of changes in experiential,
physiological, and behavioral response systems that prepare the person for enacting the highest valued
action affordances. The emotion generation loop can therefore make a presenter feel anxious,
develop sweaty palms, and have an urge to flee.

This model of emotion generation integrates a seminal cybernetic model of affect (Carver & Scheier,
1990) with appraisal theories of emotion (Moors, Ellsworth, Scherer, & Frijda, 2013). The valuation
system envisioned by Carver and Scheier takes the rate of progress during goal pursuit as input and
produces negative and positive affect as output, depending on whether the rate lags or exceeds
expectations, respectively. The EPM extends this idea by suggesting that the rate of progress is one
of several situational features assessed in the valuation system that underlies emotion. Other features
include the ones identified by appraisal theories, such as goal relevance, goal congruence,
accountability, coping potential, and others (Moors et al., 2013).

The EPM goes on to suggest that emotion regulation constitutes a second-tier valuation system that
modulates the operation of the first-tier valuation system underlying emotion (see Figure 2). As
emotions shape behavior in the service of some of the goals the person values, they can nevertheless
come into conflict with other important goals. The intensity, duration, frequency, or type of emotion
can thereby become maladaptive. For instance, while moderate anxiety can be invigorating, too
much anxiety can hinder giving a good presentation. The counterproductive functioning of a single
feedback control loop can be mitigated by a second-tier loop that modulates the first-tier loop
(Carver et al., 2015). The EPM views emotion regulation as one such second-tier valuation system
that modulates the first-tier system of emotion. Specifically, the regulation valuation system assesses
the current emotion in light of superordinate goals and initiates a cascade of processes to reduce any
detected discrepancies.

Next, we will analyze the processes launched by the emotion regulation valuation system from two
complementary perspectives. First, we will ask what are the active ingredients of emotion regulation
processes that provide them with the power to change emotions. For instance, how can anxiety
about a presentation be reduced? Second, we will ask how a broad desire to regulate emotion gives
rise to a particular regulation behavior. For instance, how does someone wishing to feel less anxiety
about a presentation end up doing a breathing exercise rather than cancelling the presentation?
Viewing generation and regulation of emotion as interacting valuation systems turns out to be
helpful for answering both sets of questions.
8

Figure 2. Emotion generation and emotion regulation as a two-tier valuation system. Panel a. First-
tier emotion generation valuation system as a target for emotion regulation. A feedback process
attends to and appraises goal-relevant aspects of a situation to enact changes in multiple response systems.
Black arrows represent points at which emotion regulation can have an impact on emotion
generation. Panel b. Second-tier valuation system as a source of emotion regulation. Another
feedback process compares the current emotion to the desired emotion and launches regulation
strategies to minimize discrepancies. The inset shows how panel a can be embedded in panel b for a
full representation of the interacting valuation systems underlying emotion generation and emotion
regulation.

Emotion Regulation Strategies

How can emotions be changed by emotion regulation? One way to answer this question is to
identify the components of emotion that are open to influence. The EPM does this by using the
valuation system model of emotion generation to identify five classes of emotion regulation
strategies based on where they have their primary impact on emotion generation (Figure 2a; Gross,
1998, 2015). For instance, someone worrying about a presentation could target the W step in the
emotion generation loop by simply cancelling the talk (situation selection strategy) or preparing a full
transcript to read text from (situation modification). They could target the P step by focusing on
supportive audience members and ignoring the less enthusiastic ones (attentional deployment). They
9

could target the V step by construing the presentation as a learning experience rather than a test of
their abilities (cognitive change). Or they could do a deep breathing exercise before the presentation to
counteract the physiological anxiety response at the A step (response modulation). This taxonomic
system can subsume most of the methods people use to regulate their emotion, although the same
instances can also be organized differently (Koole, 2009; Larsen, 2000; Naragon-Gainey et al., 2017;
Parkinson & Totterdell, 1999; Webb, Miles, et al., 2012).

Situation selection and modification strategies change emotion by directly altering emotion-eliciting
situations. For instance, workers across different occupations report avoiding situations that make
them feel bad and seeking out individuals that make them feel good (Diefendorff, Richard, & Yang,
2008). Avoiding certain situations has been found to be an effective means of coping with adversity
(Aspinwall & Taylor, 1997) as well as resisting temptations (Duckworth, Gendler, & Gross, 2016).
Even when people are powerless to choose the situation they encounter, they may be able to alter it.
Research of problem-focused coping (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984) and primary control (Rothbaum,
Weisz, & Snyder, 1982) suggests that efforts to do so can also be highly effective.

Attentional deployment strategies re-allocate cognitive resources between emotionally relevant and
irrelevant aspects of a situation. Studies have shown, for instance, that emotional intensity decreases
when attention is diverted away from emotional content both overtly, by looking elsewhere, and
covertly, by thinking of something unemotional (Augustine & Hemenover, 2009; Ochsner & Gross,
2005; Webb, Miles, et al., 2012). The effectiveness of attentional deployment relies on the fact that
emotion generation requires some capacity-limited processing resources (Brosch, Pourtois, &
Sander, 2009; Pessoa & Adolphs, 2010). Changing the proportion of cognitive resources devoted to
emotional information can therefore also change the emotion.

Cognitive change strategies impact emotion by interfering primarily with appraisal – the process of
decoding the personal significance of a situation (Moors et al., 2013; Scherer, Schorr, & Johnstone,
2001). For instance, emotional responses to emotion-eliciting photographs can be reduced by asking
viewers to figure out how the depicted situation is not as bad as it looks or will improve soon
(McRae, Ciesielski, & Gross, 2012). Emotions depend on the appraisal of aspects such as how
important and how helpful the situation is, who is accountable, and what is likely to happen next.
Changing any of these interpretations has great potential to alter the emotion, as has been found in
therapeutic contexts (Beck & Clark, 1988; Campbell-Sills & Barlow, 2007) as well as laboratory
studies (Buhle et al., 2013; Kross & Ayduk, 2011; McRae, 2016).
10

Finally, response modulation strategies seek to directly influence emotional response systems such as
subjective feelings, physiological states, and behavioral expressions. For instance, people try to
suppress anger, soothe bodily tension by listening to calming music, or fake a smile. The desire to
feel differently is among the reasons why people engage in physical activity (Petruzzello, Landers,
Hatfield, Kubitz, & Salazar, 1991; Stathopoulou, Powers, Berry, Smits, & Otto, 2006) as well as in
less beneficial behaviors such as overeating or drug use (O’Leary, Suri, & Gross, 2017). Attempts to
directly impact emotional feelings and expressions have found to have mixed effectiveness in
changing emotion (Webb, Miles, et al., 2012).

Component Processes Involved in Emotion Regulation

We have now seen how construing emotion generation as a valuation system reveals the targets
emotion regulation strategies can use to change emotions. Next, we demonstrate how construing
emotion regulation as another, second-tier valuation system reveals the component processes
involved in emotion regulation (Gross, 2015; Larsen, 2000; Webb, Schweiger Gallo, et al., 2012).

According to the EPM, emotion regulation can be viewed as a multi-stage process of finding a
downward path through a goal hierarchy (Figure 3b). Regulation is triggered by a discrepancy
between the perceived emotion (e.g., anxiety) and a superordinate goal (e.g., giving a good
presentation). Identification of such a discrepancy activates an emotion goal (e.g., feel less anxiety),
which leads to the selection of a suitable emotion regulation strategy from the families identified
above (e.g., attentional deployment). Third, a specific emotion regulation tactic is implemented to
translate the selected strategy into a situation-specific action (e.g., focus on the substance of the talk
to distract from anxiety-provoking thoughts). Fourth, the outcomes of regulation are monitored in
order to maintain or change strategies and tactics until the emotion goal is met or abandoned. This
cascading process can be divided into four stages - Identification, Selection, Implementation, and
Monitoring. The first three stages involve nested feedback loops which translate successively less
abstract ends into increasingly specific means. The final stage comprises of subsequent iterations of
all three feedback loops, i.e. the entire second-tier valuation system (Figure 3a).

The Identification loop takes the current emotion as input and produces an emotion goal as output.
For instance, if a person believes that giving a good presentation requires lower anxiety than he
currently feels, an emotion goal to become less anxious is activated. The Identification process starts
with the current emotion (world W1; e.g., high anxiety) being represented together with emotion
affordances (other conceivable emotions in the situation, including low anxiety) at the perception P1
11

step. The valuation V1 step then detects whether the current emotion is helpful for the superordinate
goal (e.g., to give a good presentation) and, if not, evaluates emotion affordances based on how
much each would minimize this discrepancy (e.g., how helpful they would be for giving a good
presentation). The emotion affordance promising to minimize the gap the most is then activated at
the response A1 step as an emotion goal (e.g., feel less anxious).

The emotion goal then activates a nested Selection loop which takes the current emotion as input and
produces a regulation strategy as output. For instance, a speaker wishing to feel less anxious may
decide to use attentional deployment as a means to achieve that end. The Selection process starts
with the emotion goal (W2; e.g., feel less anxious) being represented together with available strategy
affordances at the perception P2 step. The valuation V2 step then detects whether the emotion goal
is being approached (e.g., is anxiety reducing?) and, if not, how much each afforded strategy is
predicted to minimize this discrepancy. The strategy with the highest likelihood to deliver the
emotion goal is then activated at the response A2 step as a selected regulation strategy (e.g., attentional
deployment).

The activated strategy is often still a relatively abstract representation of a desired end state (e.g., a
subordinate goal to deploy attention in a way that would lower anxiety). It can therefore activate a
nested Implementation loop, which takes the selected regulation strategy as input and enacts a specific
tactic as output. For instance, a speaker intending to deploy attention in an anxiolytic manner may
find the substance of the presentation an effective distraction from worrying about audience
reactions. The Implementation process starts with the strategy-relevant component of emotion (W3;
e.g., attention being devoted to worrying about audience reactions) being represented at the P3 step
together with tactical affordances available for changing the component (e.g., attend instead to the
substance of the presentation). The valuation V3 step then determines whether the current state of
the strategy-relevant component of emotion aligns with the selected strategy and, if not, evaluates
tactical affordances based on predicted changes to the component. The most valuable tactic is then
enacted at the A3 step as the regulation behavior that directly impacts emotion generation (e.g., focus
on the substance of the talk).

The Identification, Selection, and Implementation loops continue to iterate until their goal states are
either achieved (i.e., the person feels appropriate level of anxiety about the presentation) or
abandoned (i.e., the person decides that it is either not necessary or possible to reduce the level of
anxiety). These iterations give rise to the broader Monitoring stage of emotion regulation during
12

which the system has three basic options. First, when the sequence of loops minimizes relevant
discrepancies without quite closing them, the system is expected to maintain regulation. For instance,
when focusing on the substance of the talk starts to lower anxiety but not quite to the desired level,
the person is likely to continue focusing on the substance of the talk. Second, when the initial
regulation does not produce sufficient progress, the system can switch tactics, strategies, or goals,
depending on at which level the failure occurs. For instance, when focusing on talk substance does
not work, the person may try to focus on friendly faces in the audience, thus switching a tactic but
keeping the strategy (attentional deployment) and emotion goal (lower anxiety) intact. Finally, once
an effective combination of a strategy and tactic has been found and maintained until the emotion
goal is met, regulation will be stopped. Alternatively, stopping can also result from changes in the
situation, or from the system failing to find effective regulation options leading to abandonment of
the emotion goal. For instance, when the presentation starts off well, the speaker may experience
reduced anxiety without any regulation, leading to deactivation of the emotion goal and the
subsequent loops.

In the remainder of the chapter, we will consider how the Identification, Selection, Implementation,
and Monitoring stages can be used to explain adaptive and maladaptive emotion regulation (Gross,
2015; Sheppes et al., 2015).
13

Figure 3. Dynamic and structural aspects of emotion regulation. Regulation emerges from nested
feedback control loops (panel a) which monitor distinct aspects of the current emotion (W) in
relation to different levels of regulation-related goals (panel b). The Identification loop activates an
emotion goal to bring the current emotion in line with a superordinate goal. The Selection loop
activates an emotion regulation strategy to bring the current change in emotion closer to the
emotion goal. The Implementation loop activates an emotion regulation tactic to change the current
state of a strategy-specific emotion generation step. The operation of each loop gives rise to
corresponding stages of emotion regulation followed by a Monitoring stage comprising of
subsequent iterations of the whole system.

The Identification Stage

The adaptive function of the Identification stage is to activate an emotion regulation goal whenever
the current emotion conflicts with a superordinate goal (Tamir, 2015). The latter is often the
hedonic goal to experience pleasure and not pain (Gross, Richards, & John, 2006; Kämpfe & Mitte,
2009). However, people also strive for counter-hedonic emotions (e.g., to be angrier during a
confrontation) suggesting that emotions serve goals other than hedonic value (Tamir, Mitchell, &
Gross, 2008). Non-hedonic (i.e., instrumental) drivers of emotion regulation include task success
14

(performance motive); understanding the world (epistemic motive); facilitating relationships (social
motive), and self-actualization (eudaimonic motive; Tamir, 2015). The emotions that are believed to
facilitate these motives, and that can thereby drive emotion goals, may also be quite different.
Emotion goals can involve an increase or a decrease in the current emotion (e.g., lower anxiety or
higher excitement); target qualitative aspects or quantitative aspects of the emotion (e.g., anger in
place of guilt or less guilt); and concern different components of emotion such as feeling, cognition,
expression, or physiology (Mauss & Tamir, 2014).

The EPM suggests that emotion dysregulation can be traced to suboptimal functioning of
Identification, Selection, Implementation, or Monitoring stages. Applying this rationale to the
Identification stage suggests that some maladaptive regulation patterns may be linked to either
under- or oversensitivity of the Identification loop. For instance, inadequate detection of the current
emotion can lead to a failure to activate an emotion goal in a situation where it would be adaptive.
There is evidence that people who are more aware of their physiological and emotional states can be
more successful in regulating emotions (Füstös, Gramann, Herbert, & Pollatos, 2013; Swart,
Kortekaas, & Aleman, 2009). Oversensitivity of the Identification loop, by contrast, can lead to
unnecessary regulatory efforts, a form of maladaptive emotion regulation. For instance, panic
disorder is associated with heightened sensitivity to signs of anxiety (McNally, 2002), which,
although harmless in themselves, can trigger unnecessary regulatory activity hindering the pursuit of
other goals.

The Selection Stage

The adaptive function of the Selection stage is to pick an optimal emotion regulation strategy. This
task entails representing strategy affordances and considering their probabilistic costs and benefits.
Such calculations are evident in the choice between distraction (an attentional deployment strategy)
and reappraisal (a cognitive change strategy). For instance, during an uncomfortable dental
procedure, is it better to imagine oneself somewhere else or focus on the health benefits of the
procedure? Both strategies are generally effective, but with somewhat different outcome profiles
(Thiruchselvam, Blechert, Sheppes, Rydstrom, & Gross, 2011; Wilson & Gilbert, 2008). Distraction
tends to be more effective in the short term as it interferes with emotion generation earlier, but less
effective in the long term as it hinders emotional adaptation (Paul, Kathmann, & Riesel, 2016;
Uusberg, Uusberg, Talpsep, & Paaver, 2016). Reappraisal, by contrast, facilitates long-term
adaptation at some cost to immediate effectiveness (MacNamara, Ochsner, & Hajcak, 2011). It
15

would therefore be optimal to prefer distraction when the immediate hedonic benefit of escaping
displeasure outweighs the delayed cost of reduced adaptation, such as when dealing with strong
negative emotion. By contrast, choosing reappraisal would be more optimal if the immediate
hedonic pain is low enough to be worth the delayed benefit of adaptation, such as when regulating
weaker negative emotion. This pattern of preferences has indeed been found in studies of healthy
participants (Sheppes, 2014; Sheppes et al., 2014).

Suboptimal functioning of the Selection loop is involved in different forms of maladaptive use of
regulation strategies. On the one hand, people can underuse potentially helpful strategies. For
instance, in a series of laboratory studies, participants used reappraisal less than expected while
viewing unpleasant pictures (Suri, Whittaker, & Gross, 2014). This may stem from a small repertoire
due to a lack of relevant skills. Alternatively, the fault may lie in not perceiving or valuing suitable
regulatory affordances, for instance because of low strategy-specific self-efficacy (John & Eng,
2014). Another maladaptive pattern involves overreliance on strategies that have limited usefulness
or can be harmful. For instance, people with social anxiety disorder value avoidance (a situation
selection strategy) despite it severely restricting the pursuit of significant goals (Hofmann, 2007).

The Implementation Stage

The adaptive function of the Implementation stage is to directly modulate an emotion by enacting a
regulation tactic. Given the variance between people, situations, and goals, it is unlikely that any two
instances of emotion regulation are completely identical. Even after selecting a strategy, such as
cognitive change, the emotion regulation system needs to find a specific implementation, such as
identifying the appraisals that can be challenged, replaced, or complemented to view a situation
differently. For instance, to feel better about a disappointing exam result, the low score can be
reappraised as not really significant, as caused by an unfair Professor, or as a helpful source of
motivation to try harder next time. Systematic research on the implementation stage is so far
relatively limited (c.f. McRae et al., 2012), primarily due to the enormous range of potential
behaviors at this level.

The deficits leading to emotion dysregulation are to some extent similar at the Implementation and
the Selection stages. As both loops need to weigh the probabilistic costs and benefits of different
action options, they are similarly sensitive to errors in representing and valuing affordances. The
Implementation stage is unique, however, in that it operates closest to the full complexity of a given
situation. This suggests that the Implementation stage may be involved in maladaptive emotion
16

regulation associated with executive function deficits (Gyurak, Goodkind, Kramer, Miller, &
Levenson, 2012) which is a transdiagnostic feature of many disorders (Goodkind et al., 2015).
Although executive functions are required throughout the regulatory process, they may have an
outsized impact on the most context-dependent and information-heavy task of finding a way to
implement a broad regulation strategy.

The Monitoring Stage

The adaptive function of the Monitoring stage is to produce maintenance, switching, and stopping of
emotion regulation in a context-sensitive manner. The importance of this stage is underscored by
the growing realization that regulation effectiveness can depend on the person, the situation, and the
goals the person has in the situation (Doré, Silvers, & Ochsner, 2016; Gross, 2015). For instance,
reappraisal can be more adaptive in uncontrollable than in controllable situations (Troy, Shallcross,
& Mauss, 2013) – if a student can re-take an exam, it might be more adaptive to use the
disappointment as source of energy for learning instead of reducing the disappointment by thinking
that the exam was unfair. Adaptive emotion regulation therefore needs to exhibit sufficient flexibility
to respond to changing circumstances (Aldao, Sheppes, & Gross, 2015; Bonanno & Burton, 2013;
Gross, 2015; Kato, 2012). While adequately following differences between situations depends on the
first iteration of the regulation loops, reacting to shifts within situations, and correcting for mistakes
is a function of monitoring subsequent iterations.

The maintenance, switching, and stopping decisions produced by the Monitoring stage can be
considered maladaptive when they exhibit either too low or too high flexibility. Insufficient
flexibility manifests in delayed stopping or unnecessary maintenance of regulation efforts that have
already succeeded or are unlikely to become effective. For instance, maladaptive rumination can be
viewed as emotion regulation that has been maintained too long (Watkins, 2008). At the other
extreme, flexibility could also be too high whereby the person switches tactics or strategies either too
often or too early, barring them from reaping the benefits of regulation strategies that require some
time to become effective (Aldao et al., 2015).

Directions for Future Research

Many promising directions for future research relate to the themes addressed in this chapter. First,
much remains to be learned about why and how different forms of emotion regulation work.
Following the idea that regulation strategies have distinct targets among emotion generation
processes, future work could identify more detailed cognitive targets for different forms of emotion
17

regulation. For instance, different appraisal dimensions such as goal relevance, goal congruence,
accountability, and coping potential may be targets for different cognitive change tactics. Another
interesting question concerns the effectiveness of combining different strategies and tactics into
unique sequences and blends (Aldao & Nolen-Hoeksema, 2013). For instance, would distraction
followed by reappraisal work better than either strategy alone since distraction would first bring
emotional intensity to a level more suitable for reappraisal? More research is also needed to
understand how situational and individual differences moderate the effectiveness of different
emotion regulation strategies (Aldao, 2013; Doré et al., 2016).

Second, several broad conceptual questions await further refinement. What is the role of controlled
and automatic processes in emotion regulation (Berkman & Lieberman, 2009; Braunstein, Gross, &
Ochsner, 2017; Etkin, Büchel, & Gross, 2015; Gyurak, Gross, & Etkin, 2011)? What is the best way
to differentiate the generation and regulation of emotion (Campos et al., 2004; Gross & Feldman
Barrett, 2011; Gross et al., 2011; Kappas, 2011; Thompson, 2011)? What is the best way to
differentiate intra- and interindividual processes in these domains (Burkitt, 2017; Reeck et al., 2016;
Zaki & Williams, 2013)? How does emotion regulation relate to other forms of self-regulation
(Boureau et al., 2015; Heatherton & Wagner, 2011; Kotabe & Hofmann, 2015)?

Finally, it is important to learn more about how processes envisioned by the EPM are implemented
in the brain. While existing evidence implicates an interplay between lateral cognitive and medial
affective networks, the more specific computations carried out in these networks remain unclear
(Buhle et al., 2013; Messina et al., 2016; Morawetz, Bode, Derntl, & Heekeren, 2017; Ochsner et al.,
2012). One interesting possibility is that the parallelism between emotion generation and emotion
regulation suggested by the EPM is also visible in the brain. Specifically, the first-tier valuation
situations may be implemented in the ventral and medial areas of the prefrontal cortex while the
second-tier valuation of emotions may be implemented in dorsolateral prefrontal areas (Dixon,
Thiruchselvam, Todd, & Christoff, 2017).

In our view, the EPM is a promising framework for clarifying the specific mechanisms underlying
both adaptive and maladaptive emotion regulation (Gross & Jazaieri, 2014; Sheppes et al., 2015). It
relates emotion regulation processes explicitly to the structure of goal systems and the processes that
underlie flexible goal-directed behavior. These insights can direct and motivate future work on the
myriad processes that enable healthy emotion regulation.
18
19

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