The “Realizing Growth Potential” Emotion Regulation Strategy: How Realizing the Potential for Psychological Growth from Negative Events can Mitigate Emotional Negativity Associated with the Events

Abstract

The present research proposes a novel emotion regulation strategy called “realizing growth potential” (RGP) strategy. The strategy involves realizing that negative events hold the potential for psychological growth and thus, to the extent that psychological growth is a cherished goal, we expect the affect-intensities associated with negative events to be mitigated when one employs the RGP strategy. We first differentiate RGP strategy from other emotion-regulation strategies (including benefit-finding). Then, across two pilot and two main studies, we test for the effectiveness of the RGP strategy in reducing the intensity of emotions associated with non-traumatic but serious negative events (such as, job loss). Pilot studies 1 and 2 reveal that, with distant-past (vs. recent-past) negative events, the drop-off in affect-intensity occurs naturally and is mediated by psychological growth. Study 1 investigates the impact of prompting individuals to recognize the potential for psychological growth arising from a recent-past negative event and suggests that this intervention can effectively mitigate the affect-intensities associated with such negative events. Study 2 illustrates that contemplating the psychological growth stemming from a distant-past incident, and even mere exposure to the notion that negative events foster psychological growth, can reduce emotional negativity linked to recent-past negative events. Our findings suggest the potential of the RGP strategy as a valuable tool for practitioners and therapists to address significant negativity.