Which of the following is not one of the three stages of problem solving according to traditional models select one A Acceptance interpretation coping appraisal?

An emotion regulation strategy model

The micro approach to emotion regulation is best captured by Gross’ (2015a) process model of emotion regulation. This model maps onto the modal model of emotion generation and illustrates the strategies individuals use to alter the trajectory of an emotion at different points in the emotion generative process to facilitate progress toward a desired goal (Gross, 2015a). The different strategies an individual may use to influence emotional experience can be classified according to when they are employed in the emotion generative process: (1) situation selection (i.e., influencing exposure to situations that could generate desirable or undesirable emotions), (2) situation modification (i.e., altering a situation to modify its emotional impact), (3) attentional deployment (i.e., controlling the allocation of attention to modify an emotional response), (4) cognitive change (i.e., changing the evaluation of a situation to influence its emotional impact), and (5) response modulation (i.e., engaging in a behavior to influence some aspect of a generated emotion). According to this model, there are different short- and long-term emotional, cognitive, behavioral, and situational consequences depending on the timing and type of strategy used (Gross, 2015a).

Recently, Gross (2015b) expanded his original model to incorporate the concept of interacting valuation systems, now referring to the model as the extended process model of emotion regulation. This expanded model states that there are three valuation systems (with each unfolding through a process of perception, valuation, and action) involved in emotion regulation distinguished by where they occur in the emotion regulation process. The first stage, identification, involves the detection of an emotion (perception), its evaluation as an experience that requires regulation (valuation), and a decision about whether regulation will begin (action). The second stage, selection, involves the identification of available emotion regulation strategies (perception), evaluation of whether specific strategies will be more or less successful depending on internal and external contextual factors (valuation), and making the choice to use a particular strategy (action). The third and final stage, implementation, involves translating a general emotion regulation strategy into specific behaviors that would be most suitable for that specific situation (perception), evaluating the likely effectiveness or ineffectiveness of specific emotion regulation strategies (valuation), and actually choosing and implementing a specific emotion regulation strategy (action).

Summary and Implications for the Study of Aging and Work

In this chapter, we have introduced theories of social and emotional aging under the framework of the process model of emotion regulation (Gross, 2001). We argue that older adults manage to maintain a high level of emotion well-being in spite of undeniable age-related losses and declines at least in part because (1) they select and modify their situations to favor emotionally close social partners and low arousal positive affect; (2) they pay selective attention to and show preferential cognitive processing for positively-valanced stimuli and other stimuli that they find emotionally meaningful; (3) they have outlooks of life, explanatory styles and attributions that are consistent with their levels of control in different domains; and, finally, (4) they perceive and express emotions, and cope with problems in ways that maximize their emotional gratification.

Applying these theories to the areas of aging and work, one may speculate that older workers maintain their competence and job satisfaction by focusing on work domains or tasks that they find emotionally meaningful, or those that can provide them with low arousal positive emotions (as opposed to high arousal positive emotions). For example, they may focus on one project and does it well, rather than working on several projects at the same time. Moreover, they may pay selective attention to stimuli in the work environment that they consider to be positive (e.g., praises) and ignore those that are negative (e.g., criticisms). They may also be optimistic in work domains over which they have control, and be pessimistic in and let go of domains that they perceive to be unlikely to change. Finally, they may perceive positive emotions in clients and coworkers better than negative emotions, use cognitive appraisal for more important work relationships and suppression for less important ones, and solve problems with more avoidance and less confrontation. All these are promising research directions for research in aging and work.

In fact, some of these speculations have already been confirmed by empirical research on aging and work, as described by other chapters in this book. For example, one of the most consistent findings in the aging and work literature is that older adults show less strong motives in seeking promotion and career development than do younger adults (Thrasher, Zabel, Bramble, Baltes, & Kooij, 2017). According to the socioemotional selectivity theory (Carstensen et al., 2003), promotion and development may be more consistent with knowledge-related goals, rather than emotionally meaningful goals. The findings on socioemotional selectivity theory may suggest that highlighting the emotionally meaningful aspects in promotion and career development may be effective in recruitment and retention of older workers. In fact, Yeung, Fung, & Chan, (2015a, 2016) found that the association between intrinsic social work-values (i.e., preferences for the job characteristics and work outcomes that are related to affiliation and social interaction) and self-rated job performance was stronger in older workers than in younger workers. In addition, there is ample evidence that older workers use healthy emotion regulation strategies (e.g., positive reappraisal) more often and/or more effectively than do younger workers. Such age differences in strategy use have implications for how the age groups handle emotion display demands (Scheibe, Stamov-Roßnagel, & Zacher, 2015), resolve conflicts (Yeung, Fung, & Chan, 2015b), maintain emotional well-being in the face of stress (Scheibe, Spieler, & Kuba, 2016) and compensate for age-related declines and losses (Urry & Gross, 2010) in the work place. These findings are described in greater detail in later chapters.

2.1 Process model of emotion regulation

The conceptual models of emotion and cognition in older adulthood predict age differences in emotion regulation, or the ways individuals interact with and influence their emotions. Given observed age differences in affective experiences, it appears to follow logically that these theories would suggest older adults regulate their emotions differently (if not better in some cases) than young adults to achieve desired emotional outcomes. Gross (1998) proposed a process model of emotion regulation, which may provide a helpful framework for testing age differences in emotion regulation. This process model details five main families of regulatory processes by which responses to emotional experiences might be regulated: situation selection, situation modification, attention deployment, cognitive change, and response modification. These emotion regulation processes may be employed and may be effective at varying points during an emotional experience. In this section, we will define each of the five response categories, detail how they are studied, when in the processes of an emotional experience these strategies are most likely to be effective, conceptual predictions about how age might affect the success and frequency of these strategies, and review relevant empirical evidence that speaks to either age differences or age similarities in emotion regulation.

Emotion regulation

There is now substantial research to support the role of early attachment relationships as forming the physiological templates for emotion regulation strategies throughout the lifespan—both the development of self-regulation strategies, as well as our ability to coregulate with others (for an extensive review, see Cassidy & Shaver, 2008, 2016; Hill, 2015; Schore, 1994; Schore & Schore, 2008). The terms “affect” and “emotion” have been used interchangeably throughout the years depending on the theory cited, and for this section we will use what is used by each of the researchers. As psychologist Rick Hanson, PhD, says: “The foundation of emotion regulation is physiological regulation.”

According to both Schore's Regulation Theory (Schore, 1994, 2012) and Hill's Affect Regulation Theory (2015), attachment relationships are responsible for developing what is known as the primary affect regulating system. This system governs the ways in which we learn to regulate our affect on a physiological level—the “somatic representation of the state of the organism” (e.g., tightening of the chest, tears, smiles, tingling in the legs; Hill, 2015, p. 5). This system is differentiated from secondary affect, which are the categorical names we cognitively assign our emotions (e.g., joy, sadness, shame, fear), similar to Mentalization Theory (Fonagy, Gergely, Jurist, & Target, 2002). The primary affect regulating system is argued to be the foundation of emotion regulation: “The interval between 10–12 to 16–18 months is a critical period for the final maturation of a system in the prefrontal cortex that is essential to the regulation of affect over the rest of the lifespan” (Schore, 1994, p. 24). Of note, the idea that our affect is influenced and regulated by others is similar in many ways to the emerging field of interpersonal neurobiology (Siegel, 1999, 2012), which “explores the ways in which relationships and the brain interact to shape our mental lives” (Siegel, 2012, p. AI-42).

And why is emotion regulation important? Aside from the more obvious social ramifications, that there is now growing recognition that difficulties with emotional regulation are the salient characteristics of many of the externalizing and internalizing disorders that are overrepresented among offending youth, including Oppositional Defiant Disorder and Conduct Disorder (Aldao, Nolen-Hoeksema, & Schweizer, 2010; Cabrera & Linick, 2019; Caspi, 2000; Cavanagh, Quinn, Duncan, Graham, & Balbuena, 2017; Cooper, Wood, Orcutt, & Albino, 2003; Frick & Morris, 2004; Mullin & Hinshaw, 2007; Shields & Cicchetti, 1998). Difficulties with both the reactive and effortful domains have been linked to aggression, conduct problems, and subsequent delinquency (Eisenberg et al., 2001; Eisenberg, Spinrad, & Eggum, 2010; Rothbart & Bates, 2006; Rothbart & Sheese, 2007).

The construct of Emotion Regulation has been defined and redefined by many researchers over the years (see Eisenberg et al., 2010 for review). For the purposes of this chapter, we define emotion regulation similarly to Gross (1998, 2007, 2015): the external and internal processes that determine how individuals express or inhibit reactions of an emotional nature, which includes frequency, duration, intensity, and type. Gross' Process Model of Emotion Regulation divides the construct into two:

External processes: those of a parent (or caregiver, staff member, partner, etc.) who might assist a young child or youth in coregulation of an emotion (this process continues throughout the lifespan, and many adults continue to seek coregulatory support from parents, friends, partners, and even pets!).

Internal processes: those that happen from within the child or youth, their auto-, or self-regulation strategies. These are typically divided into two domains:

Reactive or “automatic” responses, like those that occur naturally from within the body (from the bottom-up); and

Effortful or “voluntary” responses, like those that occur after input from the prefrontal cortex (from the top-down) that would assist in either inhibition of an emotional or behavioral response, or regulation of their attention in relation to a particular emotional response.

Children with high levels of negative emotional reactivity tend to display poor frustration tolerance, impulsive outbursts in response to stressors or provocation, attenuated empathy, and poor understanding of emotions, all of which play a large role in antisocial behaviors (Cook, Greenberg, & Kusche, 1994; Dodge & Coie, 1987; Frick & Morris, 2004). Reactive aggression has been distinguished in the research literature from proactive or instrumental aggression, which is characterized by less emotional, more goal-oriented, predatory aggressive acts such as stealing. While poor emotional regulation may play a lesser role in proactive aggression, within individual youth there is frequent overlap; youth who engage in proactive aggressive acts are highly likely to engage in spontaneous, impulsive aggressive acts as well (Barker, Tremblay, Nagin, Vitaro, & Lacourse, 2006; Bushman & Anderson, 2001; Mullin & Hinshaw, 2007).

Effortful control is another critical component of emotion regulation and has been defined as the ability to inhibit a dominant response in favor of a subdominant response, in many cases a more socially appropriate response (Rothbart & Bates, 2006). Effortful control is believed to involve executive functioning processes in the prefrontal cortex that relate to both effortful attentional regulation and inhibitory control (Eisenberg & Spinrad, 2004; Frick & Morris, 2004; Mullin & Hinshaw, 2007; Nigg, 2000). Attentional regulation involves the ability to focus or shift attention as needed in a current situation; inhibitory control involves preventing a response to activate a more adaptive behavior, as needed, even if the person does not really desire to do so (e.g., in response to parental commands, socially/legally regulated behavior; Cole, Martin, & Dennis, 2004). Poor effortful control has been linked to antisocial or delinquent behavior (see Bavilgio, Wolff, DeLisi, Vaughn, & Piquero, 2016 and Pratt & Cullen, 2000, for review), with poor inhibitory control in particular linked to adolescent alcohol-related problems and drug use (Nigg et al., 2006).

11.09.6.3 Anxiety and Depressive Disorders

As a broader approach, the UP (Ellard et al., 2010) is designed to target the internalizing dimension of psychopathology, which is characterized by high negative affectivity and the emotions of fear and distress (Krueger and Markon, 2006). The UP consists of modules designed to reduce avoidance, escape, and emotional suppression, and instead increase cognitive flexibility via cognitive reappraisal, acceptance, and distress-tolerance skills within the context of high negative emotion. Psychoeducation is also provided to increase awareness of emotions and adaptive coping. The UP has been evaluated across a range of disorders characterized by high internalizing symptoms, including anxiety disorders (Farchione et al., 2012), borderline personality disorder (Lopez et al., 2015), and depression (Boswell et al., 2014). A recent meta-analysis of trials of the UP (15 studies, 1244 participants) found large within-group (uncontrolled) effect sizes from pre-to post-treatment across a range of measures of psychopathology, with the largest effects for symptoms of OCD (Hedge's g = 1.23) and the weakest for symptoms of depression (0.92, Sakiris and Berle, 2019). Effect sizes on these measures were moderate and large for depression and anxiety, respectively, compared to treatment as usual, waitlist, and medication control groups. Uncontrolled effect sizes on positive (0.48) and negative (0.62) affect were moderate, as were changes on adaptive (mindfulness, reappraisal, 0.57) and maladaptive (avoidance, suppression, difficulties in emotion regulation, 0.65) emotion regulation strategies.

Studies have attempted to identify adaptive and maladaptive emotion regulation strategies using Gross’ (2007) process theory as a framework. The process model of emotion regulation (Gross, 1998, 2007) describes five emotion regulation processes along a temporal dimension. Antecedent-focused processes occur prior to full emotional activation and include: (1) situation selection, (2) situation modification, (3) attentional deployment, (4) cognitive change, and (5) response modulation, which occurs after an emotion has been fully activated (although see Gross, 2015, for a description of the extended process model). Most CBT protocols target some if not all stages in Gross (2007) process model of emotion regulation. For example, exposure may be used to reduce avoidance (i.e., situation selection) where this maintains emotion dysregulation. Reducing safety behaviors may be one way of addressing dysfunctional situational modification, if this prevents disconfirmation of negative beliefs. Attention training and flexibility skills may promote disengagement from perceived threat or loss and engagement with more neutral stimuli. Cognitive restructuring may be used to increase flexibility and to modify negative interpretations of experiences. Acceptance, mindfulness, and reappraisal are also common antidotes to the pernicious impact of response-focused emotional and cognitive suppression.

Webb et al. (2012) conducted a meta-analysis of 306 experimental comparisons (across 190 studies) testing the effectiveness of strategies derived from the process model of emotion regulation. These researchers reviewed studies using a taxonomy of emotion regulation strategies divided into attention deployment strategies (distraction, concentration), cognitive change (reappraisal), response modulation (emotional suppression, expressive suppression) to control conditions. Within each of these strategies several subtypes were further delineated (e.g., reappraizing emotional response, reappraizing emotional stimulus, reappraise via perspective taking). Cognitive change strategies were found to have small-to-medium effect sizes, which were larger than attentional deployment (distraction or concentration, Webb et al., 2012). Previous meta-analyses of self-report assessments have also found cognitive reappraisal to be effective (Aldao et al., 2010; Augustine and Hemenover, 2009). Webb et al. (2012) found that response modulation yielded null or small effects on emotional responses. Variability was also found within the categories, with distraction being a more beneficial attention deployment strategy than concentration on the emotional features of the situation. Concentrating on the causes and implications of emotions (conceptual-evaluative or analytical processing) was even more pernicious than concentrating on the feelings themselves (experiential processing). Other differences also emerged. For instance, distracting goal-focused tasks, where the participant is required to bring something to mind that is unrelated to the emotion or emotional stimulus, are also more effective than passively providing participants with a distracting task. Perspective-taking and reappraizing the emotional stimulus had a greater effect than reappraizing the emotional response. Suppressing the expression of emotion was also more effective than suppressing the experience of emotion or thoughts. Gross’ (2007) process model and the taxonomy developed by Webb et al. (2012) therefore provide a transdiagnostic framework for understanding and investigating the complex relationships between different emotion regulation strategies and the processes of emotion generation and modulation.

Similar to the UP, emotion regulation models have been used as a broad transdiagnostic treatment approach (Mennin et al., 2015; Sloan et al., 2017). ERT is a 16 session intervention that targets motivational (i.e., focusing on security to the exclusion of reward) and regulatory (e.g., worry, self-criticism) mechanisms and behavioral responses (e.g., avoidance, reassurance-seeking), along with contextual learning consequences associated with distress disorders (Renna et al., 2017). The intervention aims to develop mindful emotion regulation skills to increase attentional control and increase flexible and intentional responding to emotions. The intervention also promotes behavioral context engagement by assisting clients to identify what is meaningful in their lives, how their emotional symptoms are interfering in them living a more meaningful life, and then encouraging engagement in actions reflective of the individual's values. Evidence for Mennin and Fresco’s (2014) ERT is currently limited to one open trial of adults with a diagnosis of GAD with and without co-occurring major depression (Mennin et al., 2015) and a randomized controlled trial of adults comparing ERT with an attentional control condition (Mennin et al., 2018). These studies have yielded promising early evidence of acceptability and large within-group effect sizes (ds = 1.5–4.5) up to 9 months follow-up, with medium to large effects on symptom severity (generalized anxiety, worry, trait anxiety, depression) and quality of life compared to controls. Studies comparing ERT to disorder-specific and other transdiagnostic treatments are now required.

Titov et al.’s (2011) Wellbeing Course is delivered over the internet and comprises five sessions completed over 8 weeks that focus on symptom identified and formulation, thought monitoring and challenging, relaxation and pleasant activity scheduling, graded exposure, and relapse prevention. In a series of four large randomized controlled trials, Titov, Dear and colleagues evaluated their transdiagnostic Wellbeing Course for symptoms of panic disorder (N = 145), GAD (N = 338), social anxiety disorder (N = 233), and depression (N = 290, Dear et al., 2016, 2015; Fogliati et al., 2016; Titov et al., 2015). Across these four studies, the Wellbeing Course was consistently found to be as effective as diagnosis-specific CBT up to 24-month follow-up. The researchers concluded that, rather than improving clinical outcomes compared to diagnosis-specific treatments, the main advantages of transdiagnostic CBT may be pragmatic, with reduced training and treatment costs, ease of dissemination of one compared to multiple protocols, and a reduced need for comprehensive diagnostic assessments by trained clinicians. Transdiagnostic internet-based CBT has also been found to have a positive impact on comorbid disorders, with a significant reduction in the number of comorbid diagnoses at 3-month follow-up (Johnston et al., 2013).

What Is Emotion Regulation?

The most prominent characterization of emotional regulation is that which has been formulated by Gross and his colleagues (Gross, 1998; Gross, Richards, & John, 2006; Quoidbach, Mikolajczak, & Gross, 2015). According to this characterization, emotion regulation pertains to how we control, experience, and express our emotions as they unfold over a very brief time period of time, usually on the order of a few seconds (Quoidbach et al., 2015). In everyday contexts, including use of social media such as Facebook, emotion regulation is typically used to enhance or upregulate our positive emotions (eg, reviewing Facebook pictures posted from a party that one attended and enjoyed) and dampen or downregulate negative emotions (eg, reading posts on a blog dedicated to sharing strategies for coping with a death of a loved one). How the strategies of upregulation and downregulation are enacted has been examined through the lens of Gross (1998) process model of emotion regulation. This model has been used to examine emotion regulation among adults. However, we see it as a useful framework for examining this behavior in social media contexts among adolescents, particularly as by the teen years individuals may be seen as having attained a relatively sophisticated mode of emotion regulation (Cole, 2014).

Two general classes of strategies within this model are referred to as antecedent-focused and response-focused (see Gross et al., 2006). The former strategies are presumably enacted prior to the complete activation of a given emotion that has ramifications for the type of behavior in which an individual may engage and the future expression of emotional responses. Thus, after receiving an unexpectedly low grade on an assignment, a student might resist the angry urge to post an incendiary comment about his instructor on Rate My Professor and reframe the situation to more calmly consider whether his performance may warrant enhanced effort on future assignments. Response-focused strategies, by comparison, refer to actions taken once an emotion trajectory has unfolded. Thus, our same student may remain angered by the instructor's grade yet adopt a pleasant demeanor when asking for clarification of the grade during office hours.

Strategies identified by Gross (1998, 2001) as included in antecedent-focused emotion regulation are situation selection, which entails either approaching or avoiding situations in anticipation of a given emotional outcome (ie, avoiding visiting an instructor whose grade has angered you); situational modification, which entails altering the physical aspects of situations to allow for altering an anticipated emotional outcome (ie, avoiding sitting in the front of the lecture hall immediately after receiving the poor grade); attentional deployment, which entails focusing on select aspects of the situation so as to control an expected emotional response (ie, concentrating on how the instructor's feedback might provide insight about the grade received); and cognitive change, which entails an internalized version of situational modification (ie, construing one's anger as an opportunity to focus more on the value of the instructor's course content). A response-focused strategy, by comparison, is response modulation, which entails either upregulating or downregulating an expressive response. According to Gross (1998, 2001), this strategy also may involve modification of a physiological or experiential response. Thus, our student may, as noted above, tone down his anger when meeting with the instructor during office hours to discuss his grade on the assignment.

The question remains how these strategies might be reflected and studied within the context of social media use among adolescents. A necessary precursor to examining this question concerns what is known about emotional regulation in media contexts more generally.

3.1 Conceptual framework

Accumulating evidence, showing that the implementation of regulatory strategies that prove adaptive in some contexts are maladaptive in other contexts, suggests that the “good & bad” distinction represents a fundamental fallacy (Bonanno & Burton, 2013 for a review). Accordingly, a growing consensus calls for a nuanced yin & yang understanding of regulatory strategy implementation efficacy (e.g., Aldao, 2013; Aldao, Sheppes, & Gross, 2015; Bonanno & Burton, 2013; Folkman & Moskowitz, 2004; Gross, 2014; Sheppes & Gross, 2011; Troy & Mauss, 2011).

Our conceptual efforts to transcend the “good & bad” distinction emphasize that understanding the underlying mechanisms of implemented regulatory options yields a clear differential cost-benefit strategy profile (Sheppes & Gross, 2011, 2012). This account focuses on the aforementioned engagement-disengagement regulatory strategy distinction (Parkinson & Totterdell, 1999; Roth & Cohen, 1986), with a special emphasis on cognitive regulatory strategies (McRae, 2016; Ochsner & Gross, 2005 for reviews).

To explain underlying mechanisms, our account draws from major information processing theories (e.g., Hubner, Steinhauser, & Lehle, 2010; Pashler, 1998) and the process model of emotion regulation (Gross & Thompson, 2007). Specifically, we suggest that the implementation of disengagement and engagement cognitive regulatory strategies (Parkinson & Totterdell, 1999) involves recruiting differential executive control mechanisms that modify emotional information processing at two central sequential cognitive stages: attentional selection and semantic meaning.

The underlying mechanisms of a first family of cognitive regulatory strategies involves early attentional disengagement from emotional information processing before information is represented in working memory and undergoes elaborated meaning processing. A classic early selection disengagement strategy is attentional distraction. Distraction involves diverting attention from emotional information processing by producing neutral thoughts that are independent from, and not in conflict with, emotional information (e.g., van Dillen & Koole, 2007). For example, distracting via focusing attention on ones' daily chores provides early attentional disengagement that is semantically independent from an emotional image of a crying baby.

The underlying mechanisms of a second family of cognitive regulatory strategies involves early engagement with emotional information that includes attending to emotional information, representing it in working memory and appraising it affectively, prior to a late modulation at a semantic meaning stage (Sheppes & Gross, 2011). A classic engagement meaning change regulation strategy is reappraisal (Gross, 1998). In reappraisal, the early attentional engagement with and appraisal of emotional information, function as the building blocks of the neutral reinterpretation of emotional information that follows. Specifically, one has to attend and appraise a crying baby as such, in order to form a neutral reinterpretation that crying is a vital communication signal for caregivers to provide help. Accordingly, in reappraisal neutral reinterpretations are by definition semantically dependent and in direct conflict with the original emotional information.

According to our conceptual framework (Sheppes & Gross, 2011, 2012), the divergent underlying mechanisms of implementing attentional disengagement and engagement meaning change regulatory strategies yield a differential affective, cognitive and motivational cost-benefit tradeoff (see Table 1). Specifically, the benefits of early attentional disengagement from emotional information via non-conflicting contents are strong affective modulation of high intensity emotional information and minimal cognitive resource expenditure. Nevertheless, the motivational long-term cost of early attentional disengagement is that emotional information that is not processed remains unchanged upon reencounter, having a lingering negative influence.

Table 1. Schematic representation of major costs and benefits of Attentional Disengagement (i.e., directing attention away from emotional information) and Engagement Meaning Change (i.e., engaging attention and appraising emotional information, prior to semantic meaning modulation). For each of these regulation options, affective, cognitive and motivational consequences are presented.

The underlying characteristics of engagement meaning change result in a mirror image set of costs and benefits. Specifically, the major costs of attentionally engaging and appraising emotional information prior to a late formation of semantically conflicting reinterpretations are weak affective modulation of high intensity emotional information and substantial cognitive resource expenditure. However, the motivational long-term benefit of engagement meaning change is that the negative influence of reencountered emotional information that has been processed and altered can gradually subside.

Introduction: Overview of attentional deployment as a form of emotion regulation

Information processing models of emotion regulation suggest that the ability to deploy attention in the service of altering one’s emotional experience (i.e., attentional deployment, also described as attentional control) is essential for maintaining psychological well-being (Gross, 1998). Moreover, threat-related attentional impairments predict general emotion dysregulation and increased use of maladaptive emotion regulation strategies (Bardeen & Daniel, 2017a; Bardeen, Daniel, Hinnant, & Orcutt, 2017). In Gross's (2015) process model of emotion regulation, attentional deployment is one of five points in the emotion generative process at which emotions can be regulated. The four other points in Gross’s (2015) model include situation selection, situation modification, cognitive change, and response modulation (Gross & Thompson, 2007). Of these points in the emotion generative process, cognitive change (e.g., cognitive reappraisal) and response modulation (e.g., expressive suppression) have received considerable attention in the extant literature, while regulatory processes occurring earlier in the temporal chain, such as attentional deployment, have received relatively little consideration. This is unfortunate because these earlier processes are thought to require less cognitive resources to enact and, thus, may be more easily altered through psychological intervention (Renna et al., 2018).

Attentional control is distinct from other regulation strategies in that it is present from infancy onward (Rothbart, Sheese, & Posner, 2007). For example, children who disengage and shift their attention from appetitive stimuli (e.g., candy) are more successful at delaying gratification (Mischel, Shoda, & Rodriguez, 1989). The beneficial effects of attentional control have been trumpeted in the extant literature because evidence from a number of studies suggests that attentional control protects those who are vulnerable to maladaptive psychological outcomes, such as posttraumatic stress (Bardeen, Fergus, & Orcutt, 2015), from experiencing such outcomes (Fergus, Bardeen, & Orcutt, 2012; Jones, Fazio, & Vasey, 2012; Richey, Keough, & Schmidt, 2012).

It may be especially important to consider the regulatory role of attentional deployment in the pathogenesis of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) because attention-related abnormalities and deficits have been observed among those with PTSD (Scott et al., 2015). Moreover, hypervigilance toward threatening information is a hallmark symptom of the disorder (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders [DSM-5]; American Psychiatric Association, 2013). Because hypervigilance is a hallmark symptom of PTSD, there has been an emphasis on understanding the attentional processing of threat- and trauma-related information among those with PTSD, with the idea that hypervigilance and facilitated threat detection are synonymous. Following from this logic, individuals with PTSD (vs those without) should preferentially process threat- and trauma-related stimuli (i.e., attentional bias to threat [ABT]), and according to theory, this ABT should promote the development and maintenance of PTSD symptoms (e.g., Beck, Emery, & Greenberg, 1985; Williams, Watts, MacLeod, & Mathews, 1997). Specifically, prolonged attentional engagement with threat information is thought to result in protracted states of distress that decrease the cognitive resources that are available for the emotional processing of threat- and trauma-related information (Foa & Kozak, 1986), thus resulting in the development and/or maintenance of PTSD symptoms.

Findings regarding the degree to which individuals with PTSD exhibit ABT have been mixed, with some suggesting that PTSD-related ABT is a robust phenomenon (e.g., Buckley, Galovski, Blanchard, & Hickling, 2003; Constans, 2005) and other work suggesting that the results used to support PTSD-related ABT are weak at best. In fact a considerable number of null findings have been reported, and failure to replicate significant findings is fairly common in this literature (e.g., Kimble, Frueh, & Marks, 2009; Van Bockstaele et al., 2014). Discrepancies in the extant literature may be the result of failing to consider the role that top-down attentional processes (i.e., controlled, effortful, and goal directed) play in regulating bottom-up reactivity (i.e., sensory driven and automatic).

The process model of emotion regulation

The process model (PM) (Gross, 1998) helped to delineate emotion regulation (ER) research by highlighting the way different ER strategies may affect people’s emotional responses. The original process model has been successively revised and extended. In one reformulation, Gross and Thompson (2007) recognized that “emotion generation is an ongoing process, not a one-shot deal” (p. 16). According to this view, “emotion regulation can also occur in parallel at multiple points in the emotion generative process. Using many forms of emotion regulation might in fact be the modal case” (p. 17). A subsequent update of the process model (Sheppes & Gross, 2011) replaced the notion that ER is more effective when it is instigated early during emotion generation (the “generic timing hypothesis”) with the idea that emotion-generative and emotion-regulatory processes compete with one another at earlier or later stages of information processing (the “process-specific timing hypothesis”). Finally, the process model has recently been extended to explain how ER unfolds dynamically over time (Gross, 2015).

The extended process model (EPM) of ER (Gross, 2015) attempts to describe central regulatory stages and links them to psychopathology. At the core of each stage is a central ER-related decision that needs to be made. Decision failures can be associated with various forms of psychopathologies. Specifically, regulatory decisions and potential failure may be related to an initial decision on (1) whether to regulate (identification stage), (2) which general regulatory category to apply (selection stage), (3) which specific regulatory tactic to actively implement (implementation stage), or (4) whether to stop regulating or to change regulation type following initial implementation (monitoring stage).

Clinical conditions are not necessarily characterized by difficulties at a single ER stage; instead, they may implicate failures at multiple stages. Conditions that relate to difficulties in one stage may not be related to failures in another stage.

The extended process model has important implications for clinical assessment because it moves from a categorical description of mental disorders to a transdiagnostic approach (Insel et al., 2010) and in particular with the major objectives of the Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) (Insel et al., 2010). Application of the extended process model to intervention involves forming treatment protocols that focus on improving the functioning of basic elements associated with various regulatory stages. Recent interventions seem to have advanced in a direction that is following the premises of the extended process model. For example, during novel attentional bias modification (ABM) treatment (Grafton & MacLeod, 2014; Hakamata et al., 2010), patients with various anxiety disorders undergo a general computerized training protocol that modifies their attentional biases to threat, a modification that has been associated with a decrease in clinical symptoms. In conformity to the extended process model, ABM aims at reducing the overrepresentation of threatening information associated with the current emotional state.

Other interventions include emotion regulation therapy (Mennin & Fresco, 2014) and dialectical behavioral therapy (Neacsiu, Bohus, & Linehan, 2013), which involve improving basic regulatory elements in specific clinical disorders. The affect regulation training (Berking & Schwarz, 2013) systematically targets basic elements of several regulatory stages across various clinical conditions. In a study, Kuo, Khoury, Metcalfe, Fitzpatrick, and Goodwill (2015) examined (1) whether frequency of childhood emotional abuse is uniquely associated with borderline personality disorder (BPD) feature severity when controlling for other forms of abuse and (2) whether difficulties with ER account for the relationship between childhood emotional abuse and BPD feature severity.

Koole and Veenstra (2015) propose a new approach that complements traditional goal-directed models of ER (e.g., Gross’s extended model). Specifically, Koole and Veenstra propose a situated cognition approach to ER. According to this approach, ER dynamics is the outcome of the interplay between the personality and characteristics of the situation. A situated cognition approach (SCA) to ER emphasizes bottom-up control processes like emergence and self-organization. In this respect, the approach departs from traditional models of ER that have highlighted top-down control processes of ER.

Emotion regulation

One of the most influential scientists on the topic of emotional (self-) regulation is the American psychologist, James J. Gross. Gross (2001) defines emotion regulation as “all of the conscious and nonconscious strategies we use to increase, maintain, or decrease one or more components of an emotional response.” The process of decreasing components of an emotional response is often called downregulation of an emotion, whereas the opposite process is called upregulation. Although upregulation of one’s emotional state may intuitively seem less useful (especially in case of emotions with a negative valence), there are numerous situations in which people do this intentionally (e.g., athletes often upregulate their state of anger prior to competition, with the aim to increase their performance).

According to Gross (2001), emotion regulation is concerned with three distinct components of the emotional response, namely (1) the experiential component (i.e., the subjective feeling of the emotion), (2) the behavioral component (i.e., behavioral responses), and (3) the physiological component (i.e., responses, such as heart rate and respiration). Human beings use a wide variety of strategies to influence their level of emotional response for a given type of emotion. On the highest level of abstraction, these strategies can be divided into antecedent-focused strategies and response-focused strategies. Antecedent-focused strategies are applied to the process preparing for response tendencies before they are fully activated. Response-focused strategies are applied to the activation of the actual emotional response, when an emotion is already underway.

In his process model of emotion regulation, Gross (1998) distinguishes four different types of antecedent-focused emotion regulation strategies, which can be applied at different points in the process of emotion generation: situation selection, situation modification, attentional deployment, and cognitive change. A fifth strategy, response modulation, is a response-focused strategy. See Fig. 13.4 in Gross (1998) for a graphical overview. In the following paragraphs, these five strategies will be explained in more detail (Bosse et al., 2010b).

The first antecedent-focused emotion regulation strategy in the model is situation selection. Someone who applies this strategy chooses to be in a situation that is expected to generate the emotional response level he or she wants to have. For example, a person can stay home instead of going to a party, because he wants to avoid being confronted with an annoying friend. This is an example of downregulating one’s emotion (anger in this case). An example of situation selection to upregulate one’s emotion (excitement in this case) is taking a roller-coaster ride.

The second antecedent-focused emotion regulation strategy in the model is situation modification. When this strategy is applied, a person modifies an existing situation so as to obtain a different level of emotion. For instance, when giving a speech, one could make some jokes to elicit laughter.

The third antecedent-focused emotion regulation strategy is attentional deployment. This strategy refers to shifting your attention toward or away from certain aspects of an emotional situation. Attentional deployment includes a number of substrategies, of which distraction is probably the most famous one (e.g., closing your eyes when you are watching an exciting penalty shoot-out). Other substrategies are rumination (i.e., repetitively focusing your attention on your symptoms of distress), worry, and thought suppression.

The fourth antecedent-focused emotion regulation strategy is cognitive change, which refers to the process of changing how one appraises a situation, with the effect to alter its emotional impact. A specific type of cognitive change, which is typically aimed at downregulating emotion, is reappraisal. This strategy involves a reinterpretation of the meaning of an event; an example is a case when a person loses a tennis match and blames the weather circumstances, instead of his own capacities. Other substrategies of cognitive change are distancing (i.e., taking a third-person perspective when evaluating an emotional situation) and using humor.

The fifth emotion regulation strategy, response modulation, is a response-focused strategy. As opposed to the other four categories, this strategy is applied after the emotion response tendencies have been generated: a person tries to influence the process of response tendencies becoming a behavioral response. A specific type of response modulation, again aimed at downregulation, is suppression. An example of suppression is a person that hides being nervous when giving a presentation. Other substrategies of response modulation are physical activity and drug use.

Emotion regulation strategies are used, both consciously and unconsciously, within a variety of domains, tasks, and situations, including sports (Hanin, 2007), demanding jobs (Grandey et al., 2004) and therapeutic settings (Campbell-Sills and Barlow, 2006). Nevertheless, some strategies are claimed to be more effective than others. For instance, Gross (2001) predicts that early emotion regulation strategies are more effective than the strategies that are applied at a later time point in the process. He provides evidence that reappraisal decreases both experiential and behavioral aspects of emotion, while suppression only decreases behavioral aspects, but fails to reduce the emotional experience. Moreover, in the reported experiment suppression resulted in an impaired memory, and an increased physiological response.

A concept that is similar to, yet slightly different from emotion regulation, is the notion of coping. Lazarus and Folkman (1984) define coping as the “constantly changing cognitive and behavioral efforts to manage specific external and/or internal demands that are appraised as taxing or exceeding the resources of the person.” As can be seen from this definition, the term coping is usually reserved for the process of reducing negative emotions, in particular the emotion of stress. Instead, emotion regulation is assumed to be applicable to a much wider range of situations and emotions, hence covering both up- and downregulation of positive as well as negative emotions. Other differences between coping and emotion regulation are the fact that the latter includes both controlled and automatic processes, and that it includes both intrinsic processes (i.e., regulated by the self) and extrinsic processes (i.e., regulated by an outside factor). Instead, most people see coping as a controlled, volitional process that is performed by the person experiencing stress (Compas et al., 2014).

Nevertheless, also for coping a categorization in different strategies can be made, some of which are close to the emotion regulation strategies introduced by Gross. For example, in Billings and Moos (1984), a distinction is made between problem-focused coping (targeting stressors in the environment), appraisal-focused coping (targeting the agent’s own cognition), and emotion-focused coping (targeting the agent’s own emotional response). Among these categories, problem-focused coping roughly covers Gross’ situation selection and situation modification, appraisal-focused coping roughly corresponds to cognitive change, and emotion-focused coping roughly covers attentional deployment and response modulation. For an extensive description of the distinguishing features between emotion regulation and coping, see Compas et al. (2014).