Healthy and unhealthy emotion regulation: personality processes, individual differences, and life span development

J Pers. 2004 Dec;72(6):1301-33. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-6494.2004.00298.x.

Abstract

Individuals regulate their emotions in a wide variety of ways. Are some forms of emotion regulation healthier than others? We focus on two commonly used emotion regulation strategies: reappraisal (changing the way one thinks about a potentially emotion-eliciting event) and suppression (changing the way one responds behaviorally to an emotion-eliciting event). In the first section, we review experimental findings showing that reappraisal has a healthier profile of short-term affective, cognitive, and social consequences than suppression. In the second section, we review individual-difference findings, which show that using reappraisal to regulate emotions is associated with healthier patterns of affect, social functioning, and well-being than is using suppression. In the third section, we consider issues in the development of reappraisal and suppression and provide new evidence for a normative shift toward an increasingly healthy emotion regulation profile during adulthood (i.e., increases in the use of reappraisal and decreases in the use of suppression).

Publication types

  • Research Support, U.S. Gov't, P.H.S.
  • Review

MeSH terms

  • Adaptation, Psychological
  • Affect / physiology*
  • Cognition
  • Discriminant Analysis
  • Emotions / physiology*
  • Humans
  • Individuality*
  • Models, Psychological
  • Personal Satisfaction
  • Social Behavior
  • Surveys and Questionnaires