Individual Differences in Two Emotion Regulation Processes: Implications for Affect, Relationships, and Well-Being Theoretical Background: A Process Model of Emotion Regulation

Abstract

Five studies tested two general hypotheses: Individuals differ in their use of emotion regulation strategies such as reappraisal and suppression, and these individual differences have implications for affect, well-being, and social relationships. Study 1 presents new measures of the habitual use of reappraisal and suppression. Study 2 examines convergent and discriminant validity. Study 3 shows that reappraisers experience and express greater positive emotion and lesser negative emotion, whereas suppressors experience and express lesser positive emotion, yet experience greater negative emotion. Study 4 indicates that using reappraisal is associated with better interpersonal functioning, whereas using suppression is associated with worse interpersonal functioning. Study 5 shows that using reappraisal is related positively to well-being, whereas using suppression is related negatively. Emotions have long been viewed as passions that come and go, more or less of their own accord (Solomon, 1976). However, there is a growing appreciation that individuals exert considerable con-trol over their emotions, using a wide range of strategies to influence which emotions they have and when they have them (Gross, 1998). Do individuals differ systematically in their use of particular emotion regulation strategies? If so, do these individual differences have important implications for adaptation? In this article, we describe five studies that examine individual differences in the use of two common emotion regulation strate-gies— cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression. In Study 1, we present brief scales to measure individual differences in the chronic use of these two strategies, and address psychomet-ric issues as well as gender and ethnicity effects. In Study 2, we link our new emotion regulation constructs to conceptually related individual differences and address potential confounds. Studies 3–5 examine the consequences of these emotion regulation strat-egies in three important domains of adaptation: experience and expression of emotion, interpersonal functioning, and personal well-being.