Department of Psychology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Perspect Psychol Sci. 2021 Jan;16(1):94-117. doi: 10.1177/1745691620922199. Epub 2020 Aug 3.
Emotion regulation is important for psychological well-being, yet we know relatively little about why, when, and how hard people try to regulate emotions. This article seeks to address these motivational issues by considering effortful emotion regulation as a unique form of cybernetic control. In any domain of self-regulation, emotions serve as indices of progress in regulation and inform the expected value of regulation. In emotion regulation, however, emotions also serve as the very target of regulation. This interdependence gives rise to ironic processes that may render people less likely to exert effort in emotion regulation, precisely when they need it most. The proposed analysis complements and extends existing theories of emotion regulation, sheds new light on available findings, carries implications for psychopathology and well-being, and points to new hypotheses that could lead to theoretical and applied advances in the field.
情绪调节对于心理健康很重要，但我们对于人们为什么、何时以及如何努力调节情绪知之甚少。本文通过将努力的情绪调节视为一种独特的控制论形式，试图解决这些动机问题。在自我调节的任何领域中，情绪都可以作为调节进展的指标，并为调节的预期价值提供信息。然而，在情绪调节中，情绪本身也是调节的目标。这种相互依存关系导致了讽刺的过程，这些过程可能使人们在最需要的时候不太可能在情绪调节上付出努力。所提出的分析补充和扩展了现有的情绪调节理论，为现有发现提供了新的视角，对精神病理学和幸福感具有启示意义，并指出了新的假设，这些假设可能会推动该领域的理论和应用进展。
