حوادث منفی زندگی، تنظیم احساسات شناختی و مشکلات عاطفی

A new questionnaire, named the Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire, has been constructed, measuring nine cognitive coping strategies people tend to use after having experienced negative life events. A test–retest design was used to study the psychometric properties and relationships with measures of depression and anxiety among 547 high school youngsters. Principal component analyses supported the allocation of items to subscales, while alphas of most subscales exceeded 0.80. Cognitive coping strategies were found to play an important role in the relationship between the experience of negative life events and the reporting of symptoms of depression and anxiety. The results suggest that cognitive coping strategies may be a valuable context of prevention and intervention

Emotion regulation is assumed to be an important factor in determining well being and/or successful functioning (Cicchetti et al., 1995 and Thompson, 1991). The general concept of emotion regulation can be understood as “all the extrinsic and intrinsic processes responsible for monitoring, evaluating and modifying emotional reactions, especially their intensive and temporal features, to accomplish one's goals” (Thompson, 1994, p. 27). According to this definition, the concept of emotion regulation is a very broad conceptual rubric encompassing many regulatory processes, such as the regulation of emotions by oneself versus the regulation of emotions by others and the regulation of the emotion itself versus the regulation of its underlying features (Thompson & Calkins, 1996). Emotion regulation, therefore, can refer to a wide range of biological, social, behavioral as well as conscious and unconscious cognitive processes. For example, in a physiological way, emotions are self-regulated by a rapid pulse, increased breathing rate (or shortness of breath), perspiration or other concomitants of emotional arousal. In a social way, emotions are regulated by seeking access to one's interpersonal and material support resources, while in a behavioral way emotions are regulated through a variety of behavioral (coping) responses. Shouting, screaming, crying or withdrawing are examples of behaviors displayed to manage the emotions arisen in response to a stressor. Finally, emotions can also be managed by a range of unconscious cognitive processes, such as selective attention processes, memory distortions, denial, or projection or by more conscious cognitive (coping) processes, such as blaming oneself, blaming others, ruminating or catastrophizing. Although the concept is very useful as a theoretical description or explanation of the emotion system, the total process of emotion regulation is too complex and too broad to enable us to empirically focus on all aspects, mechanisms and processes at once. In this article we will restrict ourselves to the self-regulatory, conscious, cognitive components of emotion regulation. Although not many studies have explicitly been addressed to this aspect of emotion regulation, conscious cognitive components of emotion regulation have generated some interest in the form of research activities focused on coping strategies. Remarkably, however, cross-referencing between studies on emotion regulation and studies on coping, is scarce.