Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2019 Feb 1:10:72.
doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00072. eCollection 2019.

Flexible Emotion Regulation: How Situational Demands and Individual Differences Influence the Effectiveness of Regulatory Strategies

Dorota Kobylińska  1 , Petko Kusev  2
Affiliations
Review

Flexible Emotion Regulation: How Situational Demands and Individual Differences Influence the Effectiveness of Regulatory Strategies

Dorota Kobylińska et al. Front Psychol. .

Abstract

The number of studies and theoretical contributions on emotion regulation has grown rapidly. In this article we describe the concept of flexible emotion regulation. We argue that the effectiveness of specific emotion regulation strategies depends on the interaction of the features of a situation and personality characteristics of the individual regulating his/her emotions. We review a few recent theoretical contributions and studies that have attempted to capture some aspects of the flexibility of emotion regulation rather than distinguish between overly adaptive and maladaptive strategies. Moreover, we discuss potential personality determinants of effectiveness of particular regulatory strategies. We claim that further studies should address the interaction of situational and dispositional factors in shaping the effectiveness of particular emotion regulation strategies. So far, situational and personality determinants have been studied rather separately.

Keywords: context; emotion regulation; flexibility; personality; reappraisal; suppression.

PubMed Disclaimer

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. Aldao A. (2013). The future of emotion regulation research: capturing context. Perspect. Psychol. Sci. 8 155–172. 10.1177/1745691612459518 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Aldao A., Jazaieri H., Goldin P., Gross J. J. (2014). Adaptive and maladaptive emotion regulation strategies: interactive effects during CBT for social anxiety disorder. J. Anxiety Disord. 28 382–389. 10.1016/j.janxdis.2014.03.005 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Aldao A., Nolen-Hoeksema S. (2012a). The influence of context on the implementation of adaptive emotion regulation strategies. Behav. Res. Ther. 50 493–501. 10.1016/j.brat.2012.04.004 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Aldao A., Nolen-Hoeksema S. (2012b). When are adaptive strategies most predictive of psychopathology? J. Abnorm. Psychol. 121 276–281. 10.1037/a0023598 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Aldao A., Nolen-Hoeksema S., Schweizer S. (2010). Emotion-regulation strategies across psychopathology: a meta-analytic review. Clin. Psychol. Rev. 30 217–237. 10.1016/j.cpr.2009.11.004 - DOI - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources