Emotion Regulation & Social Media

Content
• Why this topic?
• Purpose of the study
• Brief Literature
• Research Questions
• Studies
• What’s Next
 Why this topic?
• Clinical experience:

Regardless of the issue, the first few steps are building

therapeutic alliances and stabilisation (emotion
regulation).

• Roughly 60% of clients try to find information on their

issues or how to manage their emotions on social media
(Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, etc.).
Purpose of the study
Examine the efficacy of a social media short video on emotion
regulation (ER).

It would be expected that modeling the advice from the

professional in the short video would assist in increasing ER
self-efficacy.
 • A survey found that 87% of teens and adults
would go online for ways to deal with stress,
anxiety, or depression, as compared to 20% who
would consider seeking professional help (Verma

Brief et al., 2023).

Literature • Some examples of ER via social media platforms

are scrolling through social media for distraction,
watching videos for stress relief, texting a friend for
support, following a motivational influencer, and
sharing emotions through status updates (Smith et
al., 2022).
Emotion Regulation
Emotion regulation (ER) is the process of influencing one’s emotional experiences, including how
intense an emotion is, how long the emotion lasts, and even what emotion one is feeling (Gross &
Thompson, 2007).

According to the Society of Clinical Psychology , American Psychological Association (2022), emotion
regulation strategies may be effective in the short term or adaptive in the long term.

The emotional goals people pursue and the strategies they select are strongly connected (Millgram et al.,
2019, p. 80).
Process Model of Emotion Regulation

Emotion regulation
strategies are the
specific ways in which
people try to change
their emotional
experiences (Gross,
1998).

Source: (Gross, 1998)

 • Definition: Learning that is facilitated by
observation of, or interaction with, another

Social individual or its products (Hoppitt & Laland,

2013).
Learning • Individual is biased in copying particular

Theory behaviours (“what” strategies), performed by

specific others (“who” strategies), and under
(SLT) suitable circumstances (“when” strategies) (Kendal
et al., 2018, p. 2).
SLT Processing (Nabavi, 2012)

OBSERVATION IMITATION MODELLING

Bandura’s SLT Modeling process

1. Attention

Modelling
4. Motivation Process 2. Retention

3. Reproduction
Source: (Nabavi, 2012)
SLT - Application

SLT in psychotherapy, for example,

techniques such as role-playing and social
skills training to empower clients to learn
new behaviours and enhance their coping
mechanisms. (Miller, 2016).
Research o What’s people’s natural tendency to watch to

Questions
regulate their emotions (positive and negative)? Is

there anything different for those feeling depressed?

(Study 1)

o How effective is social media short video for ER? (study 2)

o How adaptive is social media short video for ER? (Study 3)

 Study 1
o An exploratory cross-sectional study.

o Explore people’s natural tendency to regulate their emotions

(sad, angry, happy, and controlled) through social media short
video.
o Explore if there’s a different tendency for those feeling
depressed.
o Design

o Questionnaire based study – ongoing.

o Mixed between student and non-student participants (min

requirement: 172 participants).
 Study 1
Materials
o Vignettes (adapted from Ershadi et. al., 2017) – Pilot study on selection –
17 participants.
o Emotion check (adapted from the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule
– PANAS).
o Description of social media short video – 10 descriptions ( 2 from
professional, 2 from influencer, 6 various distractions)
o Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale – 18 (Victor & Klonsky, 2016)
o State Trait Anxiety Inventory – STAI (Spielberger et. al., 1964) – Anxiety
assessment
o Patient Health Questionnaire - PHQ9 (Spitzer et. al., 1999) - Depression
severity assessment
Study 2 (planning)
• Experimental study.

• Measure the short-term effectiveness of the short

video as an ER strategy.
• Questionnaire-based study after brief intervention
(short video).

Study 3 (planning)
• Experimental study.

• Measure the long-term adaptiveness of the short

video as an ER strategy, maybe through longitudinal
(such as 5 days).
What’s Next

PROCESSING DATA PREPARING FOR COR DESIGNING STUDY 2

COLLECTED FROM STUDY 1
 References
• Grusec, Joan (1992). "Social Learning Theory and developmental psychology: The legacies of Robert
Sears and Albert Bandura". Developmental Psychology. 28 (5): 776–786. doi:
10.1037/0012-1649.28.5.776.
• Hoppitt, W. and Laland, K.N. (2013) Social Learning Mechanisms: An Introduction 468 to Mechanisms,
Methods and Models. Princeton University Press
• Miller, Patricia H. (2016). Theories of developmental psychology (6th ed.). New York: Worth Publishers
Macmillan Learning. ISBN 978-1-4292-7898-0.
• Nabavi, R. T. (2012). Bandura’s social learning theory & social cognitive learning theory (Unpublished
manuscript). Retrieved from
https://www.researchgate.netpublication/267750204_Bandura’s_Social_Learning_Theory_Social_Cognit
ive_Learning_Theory
• W. Smith, G. Wadley, S. Webber, B. Tag, V. Kostakos, P. Koval, and J. J. Gross, “Digital emotion
regulation in everyday life,” in CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2022, pp. 1–
15.