The emerging field of emotion regulation studies how individuals influence which emotions they have, when they have them, and how they experience and express them. This review takes an evolutionary perspective and characterizes emotion in terms of response tendencies. Emotion regulation is denned and distinguished from coping, mood regulation, defense, and affect regulation. In the increasingly specialized discipline of psychology, the field of emotion regulation cuts across traditional boundaries and provides common ground. According to a process model of emotion regulation, emotion may be regulated at five points in the emotion generative process: (a) selection of the situation, (b) modification of the situation, (c) deployment of attention, (d) change of cognitions, and (e) modulation of responses. The field of emotion regulation promises new insights into age-old questions about how people manage their emotions.

http://www.elaborer.org/cours/A13/lectures/Gross1998.pdf

The emerging field of emotion regulation: An integrative review.

The aim of interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) is to explore in detail how participants are making sense of their personal and social world, and the main currency for an IPA study is the meanings particular experiences, events, states hold for participants. The approach is phenomenological (see Chapter 3) in that it involves detailed examination of the participant’s lifeworld; it attempts to explore personal experience and is concerned with an individual’s personal perception or account of an object or event, as opposed to an attempt to produce an objective statement of the object or event itself. At the same time, IPA also emphasizes that the research exercise is a dynamic process with an active role for the researcher in that process. One is trying to get close to the participant’s personal world, to take, in Conrad’s (1987) words, an ‘insider’s perspective’, but one cannot do this directly or completely. Access depends on, and is complicated by, the researcher’s own conceptions; indeed, these are required in order to make sense of that other personal world through a process of interpretative activity. Thus, a two-stage interpretation process, or a double hermeneutic, is involved. The participants are trying to make sense of their world; the researcher is trying to make sense of the participants trying to make sense of their world. IPA is therefore intellectually connected to hermeneutics and theories of interpretation (Packer and Addison, 1989; Palmer, 1969; Smith, in press; see also Chapter 2 this volume). Different interpretative stances are possible, and IPA combines an empathic hermeneutics with a questioning hermeneutics. Thus, consistent with its phenomenological origins, IPA is concerned with trying to understand what it is like, from the point of view of the participants, to take their side. At the same time, a detailed IPA analysis can also involve asking critical questions of the texts from participants, such as the following: What is the person trying to achieve here? Is something leaking out here that wasn’t intended? Do I have a sense of something going on here that maybe the participants themselves are less aware of?

/pdf/interpretative-phenomenological-analysis-1rd3eyxs1j.pdf

Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis

Emotion and Adaptation

Anxiety often impairs performance of “difficult” tasks (especially under test conditions), but there are numerous exceptions. Theories of anxiety and performance need to address at least two major issues: (1) the complexity and apparent inconsistency of the findings; and (2) the conceptual definition of task difficulty. Some theorists (e.g. Humphreys & Revelle, 1984; Sarason, 1988) argue that anxiety causes worry, and worry always impairs performance on tasks with high attentional or short-term memory demands. According to the processing efficiency theory, worry has two main effects: (1) a reduction in the storage and processing capacity of the working memory system available for a concurrent task; and (2) an increment in on-task effort and activities designed to improve performance. There is a crucial distinction within the theory between performance effectiveness (= quality of performance) and processing efficiency (= performance effectiveness divided by effort). Anxiety characteristically impa...

Anxiety and Performance: The Processing Efficiency Theory

The self-medication hypothesis of addictive disorders derives primarily from clinical observations of patients with substance use disorders. Individuals discover that the specific actions or effects of each class of drugs relieve or change a range of painful affect states. Self-medication factors occur in a context of self-regulation vulnerabilities--primarily difficulties in regulating affects, self-esteem, relationships, and self-care. Persons with substance use disorders suffer in the extreme with their feelings, either being overwhelmed with painful affects or seeming not to feel their emotions at all. Substances of abuse help such individuals to relieve painful affects or to experience or control emotions when they are absent or confusing. Diagnostic studies provide evidence that variously supports and fails to support a self-medication hypothesis of addictive disorders. The cause-consequence controversy involving psychopathology and substance use/abuse is reviewed and critiqued. In contrast, clinical observations and empirical studies that focus on painful affects and subjective states of distress more consistently suggest that such states of suffering are important psychological determinants in using, becoming dependent upon, and relapsing to addictive substances. Subjective states of distress and suffering involved in motives to self-medicate with substances of abuse are considered with respect to nicotine dependence and to schizophrenia and posttraumatic stress disorder comorbid with a substance use disorder.

The Self-medication Hypothesis of Substance Use Disorders: A Reconsideration and Recent Applications

A cluster analysis of responses from more than 1500 college students to 53 potentially angering driving-related situations yielded a 33-item driving anger scale (alpha reliability = .90) with six reliable subscales involving hostile gestures, illegal driving, police presence, slow driving, discourtesy, and traffic obstructions. Subscales all correlated positively, suggesting a general dimension of driving anger as well as anger related to specific driving-related situations. Men were more angered by police presence and slow driving whereas women were more angered by illegal behavior and traffic obstructions, but differences compensated so there were no gender differences on total score. A 14-item short form (alpha reliability = .80) was developed from scores more highly correlated (r = .95) with scores on the long form. Driving anger may have potential value for research on accident prevention and health psychology.

Development of a driving anger scale

Anger, aggression, and risky behavior: a comparison of high and low anger drivers

Eight studies present support for state-trait anger theory. In Studies 1-3, high-anger participants reported (a) greater anger in many different provocations, in their most angering ongoing situations, and in daily life, (b) greater anger-related physiological arousal, (c) greater state anger and dysfunctional coping in response to a visualized provocation, and (d) greater use of suppression and outward negative expression of anger. Only heart rate in the visualized provocation did not support predictions. In Studies 4-5, high-anger individuals suffered more frequent and intense anger consequences. In Studies 6-8, trait anger had higher correlations with dimensions of anger than with other emotions, cognitions, and behaviors. Few gender differences were found across studies. Results were discussed in terms of state-trait theory, convergent and discriminant validity for the Trait Anger Scale, anger expression, gender, and the implications for counseling.

State–Trait Anger Theory and the utility of the Trait Anger Scale.

The driving anger expression inventory: a measure of how people express their anger on the road.

This paper reports on some characteristics of high-anger drivers in comparison with low-anger drivers. A client analogue of angry drivers reported more frequent and intense anger, aggressive and risky behavior, and accidents (mainly minor accidents or near-accidents) than low-anger drivers, but the groups did not differ on major accidents or moving violations. Angry drivers reported more trait anger and anxiety, anger suppression and outward, less-controlled forms of anger expression. Relaxation and cognitive-relaxation interventions lowered driving anger compared with an untreated control. The cognitive-relaxation intervention was superior on risky behavior, while the relaxation intervention was superior on other measures. Interventions did not influence trait anger, anxiety or general anger expression. State-trait anger theory, construct validity of the trait driver anger measure and the feasibility of driving anger reduction are supported by these findings.

Jerry L. Deffenbacher

Papers

Development of a driving anger scale

Anger, aggression, and risky behavior: a comparison of high and low anger drivers

State–Trait Anger Theory and the utility of the Trait Anger Scale.

The driving anger expression inventory: a measure of how people express their anger on the road.

Characteristics and treatment of high-anger drivers