Regulation of emotion

Regulation of emotion describes ways that people attempt to regulate their emotions, for instance by denying, intensifying, weakening, curtailing, masking, or completely hiding them. Emotion regulation can also be described as the process in which people modify their emotional reactions—the coping processes that increase or decrease the intensity of the moment.

Human lives can be divided into three major stages: childhood, adolescence and adulthood. During each of these phases regulation of emotions drastically improves. There are individual differences in the way people regulate their emotions and in how well they do it. People who are good at it are seen as more emotionally intelligent. Emotion regulation is essential to socialization and is dependent on the culture one lives in as well as the specific social context of the situation.

The process of regulating emotions is complex, and involves four stages:

Strong emotional reactions are not always desirable, may be inconsistent with social norms, or may cause physical or psychological suffering. Thus people attempt to inhibit undesirable or painful emotions and enhance desirable or pleasant emotions.

It is difficult for children to regulate their emotions. This is why whenever a child needs or wants something they often cry or throw temper tantrums until they get it. As children get older the frequency and intensity of these outbursts decline. When children learn to talk it gives them a different way to regulate their emotions. The child can now talk about what is bothering him instead of only being able to communicate through expressions or actions. Being able to talk about emotional issues may also have a major impact on the relationship between child and parent. And as children mature they begin to argue instead of using physical violence, wait rather than wail, and contain their emotions instead of exploding into emotional rage. Something else that factors into this is the development of mobility, because along with walking comes the child's ability to satisfy some of his own desires without parental involvement. This acquired autonomy also lessens the child's need for an intense signaling system.

The neurological changes that take place during adolescence improve the regulation of emotion over the course of adolescence, particularly maturation of the frontal lobes. The frontal lobes are essential for controlling attention and inhibiting thoughts and behaviors. This leads to them being able to inhibit undesirable or painful emotions and enhance desirable or pleasant emotions. By learning this adolescents can attempt to suppress their emotions and attempt to reappraise the situation. Suppression may decrease expression but it tends to increase arousal and it tends to impair memory. While reappraisal may be more difficult to do, it can decrease the subjective experience of the emotion the expression of the emotion, and it does so without impairing memory. Therefore, as adolescents grow in maturity they also learn how to regulate their emotions, which has both positive and negative effects on their relationships with family and friends.

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