Cross-cutting · 1998
The process model of emotion regulation
Emotions can be regulated at different moments of their generative sequence, and the moment of intervention transforms their costs and consequences.
James J. Gross's process model of emotion regulation is a scientific, transdiagnostic framework that organises the many ways of influencing an emotion according to the point in the generative sequence at which they act. It defines emotion regulation as the processes by which a person influences which emotions they have, when they have them and how they experience or express them, and conceives emotion as a person–situation transaction that unfolds through situation, attention, appraisal and response, with experiential, behavioural and physiological components. Its original formulation distinguishes five families of strategies: situation selection, situation modification, attentional deployment, cognitive change and response modulation; the first four act mainly before the emotional response is fully deployed, while the last intervenes on responses already activated. The comparison between cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression showed that strategies located at different moments can produce divergent affective, cognitive, physiological and social profiles. The extended model added the stages of identification, selection, implementation and monitoring, distinguishing whether the person detects the need to regulate, chooses a suitable strategy, executes an effective tactic and maintains, switches or stops its use according to the results. Its clinical application consists in formulating precisely where regulation is failing, widening the repertoire, fitting strategies and tactics to the context, strengthening self-efficacy and promoting regulatory flexibility, without treating any strategy as universally adaptive or maladaptive.
Theory of change
A person changes when they learn to detect the course of the emotion, choose the most suitable point of intervention, execute a workable tactic and review its effects flexibly.
Core ideas
-
Emotion is a dynamic and recursive sequence
Emotion arises in a person–situation transaction that organises attention, appraisal and experiential, behavioural and physiological responses; these responses in turn modify the situation and may begin new iterations. This architecture makes it possible to locate regulatory operations without reducing emotion to an isolated feeling or to a single bodily reaction. (Gross, 1998, The Emerging Field of Emotion Regulation; Gross & Ford, 2024, Handbook of Emotion Regulation).
-
Regulating an emotion means altering its trajectory, not simply reducing it
Emotion regulation can modify which emotion appears, when it begins, how long it lasts, how intensely it is experienced and how it is expressed, and it can also maintain or increase positive or negative emotions. Its function depends on active goals, so decreasing distress represents only one of the possible regulatory directions. (Gross, 1998, The Emerging Field of Emotion Regulation; Gross, 2002, Emotion Regulation: Affective, Cognitive, and Social Consequences).
-
The moment of intervention changes the profile of consequences
Strategies that act before full emotional activation can modify the input, the focus or the meaning that organises the response, whereas late strategies must operate on tendencies already mobilised. This temporal difference helps to predict effort, reach and costs in experience, memory, physiology and behaviour. (Gross, 1998, Antecedent- and Response-Focused Emotion Regulation; Gross, 2001, Emotion Regulation in Adulthood: Timing Is Everything).
-
The five families order a potentially unlimited repertoire
Situation selection, situation modification, attentional deployment, cognitive change and response modulation constitute functional families defined by the point at which an operation exerts its main impact. The classification makes it possible to compare heterogeneous strategies and avoids treating them as equivalent manifestations of a supposed general capacity for emotional control. (Gross, 1998, The Emerging Field of Emotion Regulation).
-
Reappraisal and suppression modify different components
Reappraisal changes the meaning before the response is fully deployed and usually reduces negative experience and expression without impairing memory, whereas suppression acts on the expression of an already active emotion and may leave the experience intact, increase sympathetic arousal and consume cognitive resources. An outward appearance of control does not demonstrate that the emotion has been regulated in all its systems. (Gross, 1998, Antecedent- and Response-Focused Emotion Regulation; Gross, 2002, Emotion Regulation: Affective, Cognitive, and Social Consequences).
-
Expressive suppression also modifies social interaction
Concealing emotional cues reduces the information available to the other person, may diminish responsiveness and support and increases the physiological arousal of interaction partners in certain contexts. Regulation must be evaluated as an interpersonal as well as an intrapersonal process, because a tactic useful for controlling appearance may alter the relationship. (Gross, 2002, Emotion Regulation: Affective, Cognitive, and Social Consequences; Gross & John, 2003, Individual Differences in Two Emotion Regulation Processes).
-
No strategy is adaptive independently of context
The average effects of reappraisal and suppression do not justify a universal hierarchy. Controllability, intensity, resources, culture, goals and time horizon can make the same strategy useful, insufficient or costly; regulatory competence lies in fit and not in the isolated frequency of a technique. (Gross, 2015, Emotion Regulation: Current Status and Future Prospects; Gross & Ford, 2024, Handbook of Emotion Regulation).
-
Choice depends on intensity and on the kind of processing required
In negative situations of lower intensity, people tend to prefer reappraisal because it allows the meaning to be elaborated, whereas at high intensities the preference for distraction increases, filtering information before it gathers force. Flexibility involves being able to engage with the content or to disengage temporarily according to the demands of the episode. (Sheppes, Scheibe, Suri, & Gross, 2011, Emotion-Regulation Choice).
-
Regulation begins before a technique is implemented
The extended model shows that a person may fail because they do not identify the need to regulate, because they choose badly among the options, or because they do not turn an appropriate strategy into an executable tactic. Clinical intervention gains precision when it locates the disrupted stage instead of attributing every difficulty to a lack of skills. (Gross, 2015, Emotion Regulation: Current Status and Future Prospects; Sheppes, Suri, & Gross, 2015, Emotion Regulation and Psychopathology).
-
Monitoring turns regulation into an adaptable cycle
Regulating requires observing whether the emotion is approaching the goal and deciding whether to maintain, switch or stop the strategy. Perseveration with an ineffective tactic, premature abandonment and disorganised switching constitute distinct regulatory problems that require explicit criteria for follow-up. (Gross, 2015, Emotion Regulation: Current Status and Future Prospects; Gross & Ford, 2024, Handbook of Emotion Regulation).
Influences
- Cognitive psychology
- The transactional model of stress
- Appraisal theories of emotion
- Psychophysiology of emotion
- Response-tendency theories
- Research on psychological defences
- Developmental psychology of self-regulation
- Social psychology of emotion
Key references
- Gross, J. J. (1998). Antecedent- and response-focused emotion regulation: Divergent consequences for experience, expression, and physiology. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74(1), 224–237. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.74.1.224
- Gross, J. J. (1998). The emerging field of emotion regulation: An integrative review. Review of General Psychology, 2(3), 271–299. https://doi.org/10.1037/1089-2680.2.3.271
- Gross, J. J. (2001). Emotion regulation in adulthood: Timing is everything. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 10(6), 214–219. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8721.00152
- Gross, J. J. (2002). Emotion regulation: Affective, cognitive, and social consequences. Psychophysiology, 39(3), 281–291. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0048577201393198
- Gross, J. J., & John, O. P. (2003). Individual differences in two emotion regulation processes: Implications for affect, relationships, and well-being. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85(2), 348–362. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.85.2.348
- John, O. P., & Gross, J. J. (2004). Healthy and unhealthy emotion regulation: Personality processes, individual differences, and life span development. Journal of Personality, 72(6), 1301–1334.
- Gyurak, A., Gross, J. J., & Etkin, A. (2011). Explicit and implicit emotion regulation: A dual-process framework. Cognition and Emotion, 25(3), 400–412. https://doi.org/10.1080/02699931.2010.544160
- Gross, J. J., & Barrett, L. F. (2011). Emotion generation and emotion regulation: One or two depends on your point of view. Emotion Review, 3(1), 8–16. https://doi.org/10.1177/1754073910380974
- Sheppes, G., Scheibe, S., Suri, G., & Gross, J. J. (2011). Emotion-regulation choice. Psychological Science, 22(11), 1391–1396. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797611418350
- Gross, J. J. (2015). Emotion regulation: Current status and future prospects. Psychological Inquiry, 26(1), 1–26. https://doi.org/10.1080/1047840X.2014.940781
- Sheppes, G., Suri, G., & Gross, J. J. (2015). Emotion regulation and psychopathology. Annual Review of Clinical Psychology, 11, 379–405. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-clinpsy-032814-112739
- Gross, J. J., & Ford, B. Q. (Eds.). (2024). Handbook of Emotion Regulation (3rd ed.). Guilford Press.