Published in a recent issue of Emotion Review, a paper by Isaacowitz and Wolfe discusses differences in the usage of emotion regulation techniques and their effectiveness.

What is emotion regulation?

Emotion regulation refers to the process of trying to manage and control our emotions. It involves attempting to influence not only which emotions we have but also their intensity, duration, and expression.

Some examples of emotion regulation are:

• Putting on a smile to conceal sadness.
• Listening to upbeat music to feel happy.
• Turning off the news to avoid experiencing fear or anger.
• Seeking social support.
• Engaging in problem-solving.

When people decide that emotion regulation is required in a situation, they must also decide which emotion regulation strategy to use and how to implement the strategy, meaning what tactic to use.

Strategies and tactics are described below.

Emotion-regulation strategies

Emotion-regulation strategies refer to techniques a person uses to manage their emotions.

There are five categories of strategies:

1. Situation selection: Approaching or avoiding a situation (e.g., avoiding a toxic coworker).
2. Situation modification: Modifying the environment (e.g., turning off your smartphone so you can focus on your studies).
3. Attentional deployment: Shifting one’s attention (e.g., looking out the window instead of watching a news program on TV).
4. Reappraisal: Altering one’s thinking, such as seeing the positive in the negative (e.g., reframing a failure as a valuable opportunity to learn new skills).
5. Response modulation: Modifying one’s emotional expression (e.g., smiling despite feeling angry).

Emotion regulation tactics

Emotion regulation tactics refer to the specific ways strategies are implemented. Simply put, they are behaviors one may adopt to achieve an emotion-regulation goal.

For each of the five categories of emotion-regulation strategies reviewed above, there are sub-categories of tactics.

These tactics involve two “directions” and two “valences”: moving toward (approaching) or moving away (receding) from either positive or negative elements.

Crossing valence and direction results in the following pairs: negative-approaching, negative-receding, positive-approaching, and positive-receding tactics.

I describe the first three of these tactics, along with relevant examples, for each of the five families of emotion regulation strategies. The fourth tactic (i.e., avoiding positive aspects of negative situations) rarely improves mood, so it is not discussed further.

1. Situation selection strategy

• Negative-receding tactic: Avoiding the situation or leaving it (avoiding roads with heavy traffic).
• Positive-approaching tactic: Seeking a positive situation (going to dinner with friends).
• Negative-approaching tactic: Choosing a negative situation (going to a haunted house to get a good scare).

2. Situation modification strategy

• Negative-receding tactic: Making the situation less negative (wearing earplugs to drown out noisy neighbors).
• Positive-approaching tactic: Making the situation more positive (listening to a favorite audiobook while driving to work).
• Negative-approaching tactic: Making the situation more negative (watching a sad movie when you feel down).

3. Attentional deployment strategy

• Negative-receding tactic: Ignoring negative aspects of the situation (looking away from a melancholy painting in an art gallery).
• Positive-approaching tactic: Refocusing on positive aspects of the situation (shifting your attention away from dead victims of a crash and focusing on the firefighters providing first aid to the survivors).
• Negative-approaching tactic: Focusing on negative aspects of the situation (watching graphic footage of an ongoing war to understand it better).

4. Cognitive change strategy (reappraisal)

• Negative-receding tactic: Analyzing the situation objectively (telling yourself that your current headache may be bad but is not as disabling as your migraines).
• Positive-approaching tactic: Considering positive aspects or consequences of the event (thinking of the freedom and opportunity you now have after getting fired from a long-held job to try something new and exciting).
• Negative-approaching tactic: Considering potential negative consequences (pondering how failing a high school class may affect not only your GPA but also college admission prospects).

5. Response modulation strategy

• Negative-receding tactic: Suppressing emotional expression (hiding your fear when a stranger approaches you in a dark alley).
• Positive-approaching tactic: Expressing positive emotions no matter how you feel deep inside (maintaining a smile as you listen to a customer’s complaint).
• Negative-approaching tactic: Intentionally expressing negative inner emotions (using harsh words and gestures to talk about an abusive coworker to the Human resources department).

Which emotion-regulation tactics are more effective?

One reason some people experience higher levels of emotional well-being is that they use more effective ways to regulate their emotions.

Isaacowitz and Wolfe’s paper discusses past research that suggests many older adults experience happiness and emotional well-being because they use positive-approaching tactics.

Positive-approaching tactics were associated with “better affective experience after regulation attempts than negative-receding tactics.” This was true of all age groups.

Furthermore, the use of “negative-receding tactics was associated with relatively worse mood outcomes after regulation, especially for younger adults.” This is worrisome since young people “used negative-receding tactics the most.”

Summary

Emotion-regulation strategies refer to ways people try to manage and control their emotions. Common strategies include approaching/avoiding a situation, shifting one’s attention, modifying the environment, reinterpreting the situation, and altering one’s response.

Emotion-regulation tactics refer to how strategies are implemented. Tactics involve moving toward or away from positive or negative elements in a situation. Here are some examples:

• Positive-approaching tactic: Watching a comedy to feel better.
• Negative-approaching tactic: Listening to sad music when feeling down.
• Negative-receding tactic: Hiding your anger after being criticized.

Takeaway

People who have higher levels of emotional well-being are more likely to use positive-approaching tactics.

Negative-receding tactics, in contrast, are less likely to make one feel better.

Note that using positive-approaching tactics does not mean ignoring problems. It simply means choosing to “ac-cent-tchu-ate the positive,” as the song says.

Many positive-approaching techniques are simple and easy to use; for instance, playing your favorite music, watching a funny TV show, or chatting with a good friend. Other techniques (e.g., finding the silver lining in a stressful event) may take some practice.

Some may work better in one situation or at a particular time. So, experiment to find which emotion-regulation tactics work best for you.