Emotion © 2013 American Psychological Association

2013, Vol. 13, No. 3, 359 –365 1528-3542/13/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/a0032135

Emotion Regulation: Taking Stock and Moving Forward

James J. Gross
Stanford University

The field of emotion regulation has now come of age. However, enthusiasm for the topic continues to
outstrip conceptual clarity. In this article, I review the state of the field. I do this by asking—and
attempting to succinctly answer—10 fundamental questions concerning emotion regulation, ranging from
what emotion regulation is, to why it matters, to how we can change it. I conclude by considering some
of the challenges that confront this rapidly growing field.
This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to be disseminated broadly.

Keywords: emotion, emotion regulation, self-regulation, affective science

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Our emotions are often our best allies, helping us to respond of the fastest growing areas within psychology (Koole, 2009). The
energetically and effectively to the opportunities and difficulties exponential increase in research on emotion regulation has trans-
we encounter (Lazarus, 1991). There are times, however, when our formed the field, generating new questions and novel applications.
emotions are our worst enemies, leading us to think and behave in A second thing that is new is the frameworks, techniques, and
ways that are downright destructive (Parrott, 2001). Cultivating methods that are being applied to examine a wide range of emotion
emotions that are helpful—and managing emotions that are harm- regulatory processes. These include process-oriented information
ful—is one of the central concerns of the field of emotion regu- processing frameworks; statistical techniques, such as mediational
lation. analysis; and methods, such as experience sampling, functional
Fifteen years ago, the nascent field of emotion regulation was MRI, electroencephography, and deep brain stimulation. These
more of a promissory note than a tangible reality (Gross, 1998). new approaches have made it possible to begin to discern and
Since this time, what was a trickle of empirical and theoretical manipulate the specific psychological and biological mechanisms
work on emotion regulation has become a flood (Gross, 2007, in that enable us to influence our emotions as they unfold over time.
press). In this article, I take stock of the field and consider how it A third thing that is new is the diversity in the populations that
might be moved forward. I do this by asking—and briefly answer- are being studied. These range from nonhuman animals to humans,
ing—10 fundamental questions about emotion regulation. Given and, among humans, from the very young to the very old, from the
space constraints, my answers will of necessity be illustrative Western to the distinctly non-Western in cultural orientation, and
rather than exhaustive. from the healthy to the mentally or physically ill. This expanded
range of view has made it possible to begin to explore ontogenetic
Question 1: What’s New Here? and phylogenetic continuities and discontinuities in emotion reg-
ulation abilities, to examine the influence of culture on emotion
Two millennia ago, the Stoic philosopher Epictetus recom- regulation use, and to test the causal role of emotion regulation
mended that people control their emotions by controlling their processes in determining important psychological and physical
thoughts (Epictetus, 2004). More recently— but still a long time health outcomes.
ago—Freud directed attention to how people defend against
anxiety-inducing impulses (Freud, 1926/1959), and Lazarus con-
ducted a series of laboratory studies designed to assess the relative Question 2: What Exactly Is Emotion Regulation?
effectiveness of these defensive operations (Lazarus, 1966; Enthusiasm for the topic of emotion regulation currently coex-
Lazarus & Alfert, 1964). ists with a great deal of confusion about what emotion regulation
Given this age-old interest in emotion regulation, one might well is (and isn’t; Lewis, Zinbarg, & Durbin, 2010). From my perspec-
wonder: “What—if anything—is really new here?” I think at least tive, emotion regulation requires the activation of a goal to up- or
three things are new. One thing that is new is the level of interest down-regulate either the magnitude or duration of the emotional
in this topic. Until the early 1990s, there were relatively few response (Gross, Sheppes, & Urry, 2011). This goal may be
articles each year on emotion regulation. Now there are thousands activated in oneself or in someone else. Intrinsic emotion regula-
of new articles each year (Figure 1), and emotion regulation is one tion refers to the first case (Romeo’s emotions are regulated by
Romeo); extrinsic emotion regulation refers to the second case
(Romeo’s emotions are regulated by Juliette; Gross & Thompson,
2007). Much of the research to date has focused on intrinsic
This article was published Online First March 25, 2013.
I thank members of the Stanford Psychophysiology Laboratory for their
emotion regulation, but there is growing interest in extrinsic or
helpful comments on this article. interpersonal emotion regulation (Coan & Maresh, in press; Shaver
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to James J. & Mikulincer, in press; Zaki & Williams, in press). This new work
Gross, Department of Psychology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA promises to illuminate the role of emotion regulation in interper-
94305–2130. E-mail: [email protected] sonal interactions, and to fashion much-needed bridges to devel-

359
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Figure 1. Number of publications containing the exact phrase “emotion regulation” in GOOGLE SCHOLAR
from 1990 –2012. Note that this is not a cumulative plot— each point represents the citation count for that single
year.

opmental psychology, where a concern with extrinsic emotion highlighting five points at which individuals can regulate their
regulation has long been dominant. emotions (Gross & Thompson, 2007).
Once a goal to regulate emotion has been activated, many Each of these five points represents a family of emotion regu-
different processes may be recruited. These vary in whether they lation processes: situation selection, situation modification, atten-
are explicit or implicit. Prototypic instances of emotion regulation tional deployment, cognitive change, and response modulation.
are explicit, such as when we try hard to look calm even though Movement from left to right in Figure 2 represents movement
we are very anxious before a talk, or when we try to soothe an through time within a given emotion-generative cycle. The idea
upset child who is on the verge of melting down. However, that emotion regulation often alters the context that gave rise to the
emotion regulatory activity can also be implicit, and take place emotion in the first place is indicated by the feedback arrow in
without conscious awareness. One example is quickly turning Figure 2.
one’s attention away from potentially upsetting material. I find it
useful to think of a continuum of emotion regulation possibilities Question 4: Who Cares How People Regulate Their
that range from explicit, conscious, effortful, and controlled reg- Emotions?
ulation to implicit, unconscious, effortless, and automatic regula-
tion (Gyurak, Gross, & Etkin, 2011; Mauss, Bunge, & Gross, According to the process model, different forms of emotion
2007). regulation should have different consequences. This is because
they influence the emotion-generative process at different stages in
Question 3: How Do People Regulate Their Emotions? the “assembly” of an emotion. One illustration of how this idea has
been tested is the contrast between suppression (from the response
People try to decrease negative emotions, such as anger, sad- modulation family) and reappraisal (from the cognitive change
ness, and anxiety (Gross, Richards, & John, 2006). They also try
to increase positive emotions, such as love, interest, and joy
(Quoidbach, Berry, Hansenne, & Mikolajczak, 2010). Less fre-
quently, people try to increase negative emotions (e.g., anger when
collecting debts; Sutton, 1991), or decrease positive emotions
(e.g., amusement during a serious meeting; Gruber, Mauss, &
Tamir, 2011).
Whatever their goals, people do lots of different things to
regulate their emotions (Parkinson & Totterdell, 1999). One chal-
lenge has been making sense of this array of regulatory activities.
One framework that I have found useful is the process model of
emotion regulation (Gross, 1998). This information-processing
model treats each step in the emotion-generative process as a Figure 2. The process model of emotion regulation (Gross & Thompson,
potential target for regulation. Figure 2 depicts the process model, 2007).
 EMOTION REGULATION 361

family). This contrast is interesting because although both sup- explain the relatively high levels of well-being that often are seen
pression and reappraisal are commonly employed to down- in older age (Carstensen, Gross, & Fung, 1998). Evidence consis-
regulate emotion, suppression is a behaviorally oriented form of tent with this view is found in older adults tendency to attend to
emotion regulation in which a person decreases emotion- positive (vs. negative) features of the environment to a greater
expressive behavior while emotionally aroused, whereas reap- degree than younger adults (Isaacowitz, 2012; Mather &
praisal is a cognitively oriented form of emotion regulation in Carstensen, 2005), as well as their self-reports of greater use of
which a person tries to think about a situation in a way that alters cognitive reappraisal (John & Gross, 2004).
the emotional response (for a broader review, see Webb, Miles, &
Sheeran, 2012). Question 6: Do Individual Differences in Emotion
Affectively, suppression leads to decreased positive but not
Regulation Matter?
negative emotion experience, increased sympathetic nervous sys-
tem responses, and greater activation in emotion-generative brain Studying individual differences in specific emotion regulation
regions such as the amygdala. By contrast, reappraisal leads to patterns has allowed researchers to examine whether longer-term
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decreased levels of negative emotion experience and increased patterns of regulation use are associated with important outcomes.
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.

positive emotion experience, has no impact on or even decreases Consider individual differences in suppression and reappraisal
sympathetic nervous system responses, and leads to lesser activa- (measured using scales that are uncorrelated). Affectively, people
tion in emotion-generative brain regions such as the amygdala and who use suppression frequently (vs. infrequently) experience less
ventral striatum (Gross & Thompson, 2007). Cognitively, suppres- positive emotion and more negative emotion, including painful
sion leads to worse memory. By contrast, reappraisal either has no feelings of inauthenticity, as well as depressive symptoms. By
impact on subsequent memory, or actually improves it, and can contrast, people who use reappraisal frequently (vs. infrequently)
enhance exam performance (Jamieson, Mendes, Blackstock, & experience and express more positive emotion and less negative
Schmader, 2010; Richards & Gross, 2000). Socially, suppression emotion, including depressive symptoms (Gross & John, 2003;
leads to less liking from partners, and to an increase in partners’ Nezlek & Kuppens, 2008). Reappraisers’ reports of less negative
blood pressure levels. Reappraisal, by contrast, has no detectable emotion are corroborated by functional imaging studies in which
adverse consequences for social affiliation in the laboratory (But- they show lesser activation in emotion-related regions such as the
ler et al., 2003). The take-home message here is that we should amygdala while viewing negative pictures (Drabant, McRae,
care how people regulate emotions because different forms of Manuck, Hariri, & Gross, 2009). Cognitively, individuals who use
emotion regulation may have quite different consequences (a suppression frequently (vs. infrequently) have worse memory for
theme to which I will return below, when I consider emotion emotional interactions. By contrast, individuals who use reap-
regulation and mental and physical health). praisal frequently (vs. infrequently) have comparable or even
enhanced memory (Richards & Gross, 2000). Socially, individuals
Question 5: How Does Emotion Regulation Vary Over who use suppression frequently (vs. infrequently) avoid close
relationships and have less positive relations with others; this
the Life Span?
dovetails with peers’ reports that suppressors have relationships
Emotion regulation varies considerably across the life span. One that are less emotionally close. By contrast, individuals who use
organizing principle seems to be that individuals’ growing (or reappraisal frequently (vs. infrequently) are more likely to have
diminishing) capacities are employed as best the individual can to positive relations with others, reports that match their peers’ re-
successfully regulate emotions (Opitz, Gross, & Urry, 2012). ports of greater closeness and liking (English, John, Srivastava &
In infancy, extrinsic emotion regulation is initially dominant, Gross, 2012; Gross & John, 2003).
with caregivers playing a major role. Even in the first few months
of life, however, infants are capable of using gaze aversion to Question 7: How Can We Explain Emotion Regulation
self-soothe when they are distressed (Crockenberg & Leerkes,
Failure and Emotion Misregulation?
2004). In early to middle childhood, advances in linguistic, cog-
nitive, and motor abilities enable additional emotion regulation People often fail to regulate their emotions and— even when
capabilities, including an ability to modify thoughts that are giving they do regulate, their regulatory efforts sometimes backfire, mak-
rise to nondesired emotional states (Eisenberg, Hofer, Sulik, & ing things worse, not better. How can we explain such instances of
Spinrad, in press). Adolescence represents another period of emotion regulation failure and emotion misregulation?
change in emotion regulation (Riediger & Klipker, in press). From To regulate emotion, one must accurately track ongoing (or
the physical changes associated with puberty, to the social and anticipated) emotional responses either explicitly or implicitly.
academic changes associated with the transition to middle school, Failures at this stage may arise from simple tracking failures. Even
adolescents’ inner and outer worlds are typically in considerably if emotions are accurately tracked, however, one might still fail to
greater turmoil than they were in childhood. This turmoil poses activate a goal to regulate emotion, or make a mistake in the
new emotion regulation challenges at a time when some forms of selection of the emotion regulatory goal.
extrinsic emotion regulation (from the parents) may be unwel- Once an emotion regulatory goal has been activated, many
come. At the same time, luckily, the maturation of prefrontal different strategies may be selected to achieve that goal, some of
regions enables important new cognitive forms of emotion regu- which may be more appropriate to that particular context than
lation (Casey et al., 2010; McRae et al., 2012). others. What determines which of the many possible strategies is
Changes in emotion regulation are also evident in later adult- selected? Context-specific factors appear to play a role, such as the
hood (Urry & Gross, 2010). Such changes are often invoked to intensity of emotion that needs regulating. For example, people
 362 GROSS

prefer reappraisal to distraction when emotion intensity is low, but Question 9: Can Emotion Regulation Affect Physical
prefer distraction to reappraisal when emotion intensity is high Health?
because at high intensity levels, reappraisal is often no longer
effective (Sheppes, Scheibe, Suri, & Gross, 2011). Other factors Mounting evidence suggests that our emotional responses can
are more stable across situations. For example, people with incre- influence our physical health. Particular attention has been paid to
the role that anger, anxiety, and depression play in the context of
mental beliefs about emotion see emotions as the kinds of things
cardiovascular disease. The core finding here is that heightened
that can be changed. People with entity beliefs about emotion see
levels of negative emotion predict worse cardiovascular disease
emotions as relatively immutable. Not surprisingly, individuals
(Suls & Bunde, 2005). This finding has led researchers to specu-
who have incremental beliefs are more adept at emotion regulation
late that emotion regulation might be implicated in cardiovascular
than those who have entity beliefs (Tamir, John, Srivastava, &
outcomes.
Gross, 2007).
In one test of this hypothesis, researchers examined the associ-
Even after activating a potentially appropriate strategy, success ation between C-reactive protein (a marker of inflammation that
is by no means assured. This is because successful execution predicts cardiovascular disease) and one generally more adaptive
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requires that the goal to regulate a particular emotion in a partic- form of emotion regulation (cognitive reappraisal) as well as one
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ular way (a) be shielded from other competing goals, and (b) be generally less adaptive form of emotion regulation (expressive
maintained and then flexibly adjusted if circumstances change (for suppression). They found that reappraisal was associated with
the importance of flexibility, see Bonanno, Papa, Lalande, West- lower levels of C-reactivity protein, whereas suppression was
phal, & Coifman, 2004). This analysis suggests that there are so associated with higher levels of C-reactivity protein (Appleton,
many paths to emotion regulation failure and misregulation, it’s a Buka, Loucks, Gilman, & Kubzansky, in press). These findings are
wonder people ever are able to successfully regulate their emotions consistent with a prospective study in which over a thousand
at all (see Webb, Gall, Miles, Gollwitzer, & Sheeran, 2012). participants were followed for over 13 years. In this study, re-
searchers found that an index of successful emotion regulation
(defined using items from the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality
Question 8: What Is the Link Between Emotion Inventory [MMPI]) predicted decreased subsequent risk of heart
Regulation and Psychopathology? attacks and coronary heart disease, even when controlling for
Many mental disorders are thought to involve to involve traditional coronary risk factors (Kubzansky, Park, Peterson, Vo-
emotion dysregulation, that is, emotion regulation failure or konas, & Sparrow, 2011). Although by no means definitive, these
emotion misregulation that results in problematic emotional intriguing findings suggest that emotion regulation may influence
cardiovascular health outcomes, and there is growing interest in
states (Gross & Munoz, 1995; Jazaieri, Urry, & Gross, 2012).
the role of emotion regulation processes in a wide array of other
Some disorders—such as the anxiety disorders, the mood dis-
physical health outcomes as well (DeSteno, Gross, & Kubzansky,
orders, or borderline personality disorder—are defined by dys-
in press).
regulated emotional states (American Psychiatric Association,
2000). Others—such as attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder,
schizophrenia, or autism—typically include, but do not require, Question 10: How Can Emotion Regulation Make the
emotion dysregulation (Kimhy et al., in press; Mazefsky, Pel- World a Better Place?
phrey, & Dahl, 2012; Nigg, 2000).
Consider social anxiety disorder. This disorder is character- Interventions designed to alter patterns of emotion regulation
typically target individuals who are suffering from— or who are at
ized by an intense fear of social situations, and, in particular, a
particular risk for—mental or physical disorders. However, inter-
dread of being evaluated by others. This fear of being evaluated
ventions can also target nonclinical populations such as school-age
is thought to arise from a combination of dysfunctional patterns
children, executives, or helping professionals. One example targets
of construing social situations (Rapee & Heimberg, 1997),
negative emotions in the context of seemingly intractable global
distorted self-beliefs (e.g., the belief that others would not like
conflicts (Halperin, in press; Halperin, Russell, Trzesniewski,
you if they really knew you; Moscovitch, Orr, Rowa, Reimer, &
Gross, & Dweck, 2011).
Antony, 2009), and maladaptive patterns of emotion regulation To assess the role of emotion regulation in one such conflict,
(e.g., difficulties with using cognitive reappraisal to down- namely the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a nationwide sur-
regulate negative emotions; Goldin, Manber-Ball, Werner, vey of Jewish-Israeli adults was conducted during the Gaza war
Heimberg, & Gross, 2009). between Israelis and Palestinians. This survey assessed both reap-
Framing social anxiety disorder from an emotion regulation praisal use and attitudes toward providing humanitarian aid to
perspective highlights potential mechanisms underlying psychos- Palestinian citizens. Findings indicated that Israelis who regulated
ocial interventions, such as cognitive– behavioral therapy. For their negative emotions during the war by using reappraisal were
example, one study showed that patients who received cognitive– more supportive of providing humanitarian aid than Israelis who
behavioral therapy (vs. those randomized to a waitlist group) did not use reappraisal (Halperin & Gross, 2011). Building on this
showed increased reappraisal self-efficacy, defined as the belief foundation, a second study randomized Israeli participants either to
that could use reappraisal to regulate their emotions when needed. a reappraisal training condition or to a control condition just before
It is important to note that these changes in cognitive reappraisal the Palestinian UN bid in 2011. Findings indicated that a week
self-efficacy mediated the effects of therapy on clinical improve- after the training, participants who had been trained to use reap-
ment (Goldin et al., in press). praisal showed greater support for conciliatory policies and less
 EMOTION REGULATION 363

support for aggressive policies toward Palestinians. These effects Egner, Peraza, Kandel, & Hirsch, 2006), philosophy (e.g., Gendler,
were still evident five months following training, and at each time 2008), sociology (Hochschild, 1983), business (Côté, 2005), and
point, negative emotion mediated the effects of reappraisal on neuroeconomics (Rangel, Camerer, & Montague, 2008). Clearly, a
conflict-related attitudes (Halperin, Porat, Tamir, & Gross, in more complete understanding of the causes and consequences of
press). More recent research has extended these findings to other emotion regulation will be facilitated via cross-fertilization among
global conflicts, such as the ongoing conflict in Cyprus (Halperin, affective scientists across disciplines, and new vehicles (e.g.,
Crisp, et al., in press), and there is a pressing need to examine grants, societies) are needed to facilitate this cross-fertilization.
whether interventions such as these result in lasting improvements. When I take stock of the field of emotion regulation, I am deeply
encouraged by the progress made in this field during its first 15
years. We now know a great deal that we didn’t know 15 years
Challenges and Opportunities
ago. This increased understanding is enabling us to now ask
The enduring interest in emotion regulation across the centu- smarter questions, and develop (and take advantage of) new meth-
ries— coupled with the extraordinary growth of interest in emotion ods for more precisely delineating and manipulating underlying
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regulation over the past 15 years—augurs well for the future of this psychological and biological mechanisms. At the same time, we
This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers.

field. Emotions are consequential, and people care a great deal are managing to keep in view the importance of context—includ-
about how they and others regulate these emotions. However, I ing both proximal and distal intra- and interpersonal contextual
think the field now faces several challenges. factors. Much more remains to be done, of course, but the spec-
One family of challenges is theoretical. Many have found it tacular growth in work on emotion regulation by an increasingly
useful to employ information processing models—like the process diverse community of scholars and practitioners would seem to
model—to specify how emotions are generated and regulated. promise a very bright future indeed for this field.
Much remains to be done, however, to more fully specify these
models. This is because the closer one looks, the harder it is to
draw a sharp line between emotion and emotion regulation (Gross References
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Social Psychology, 79, 410 – 424. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.79.3.410 Accepted January 28, 2013 !