Emotion regulation, which has been conceptualized as the process by which individuals modify their emotions or the situations eliciting emotions in order to respond appropriately to environmental demands (Gross, 1998), is a transdiagnostic factor associated with a range of types of psychopathology (e.g., Aldao & Nolen-Hoeksema, 2010, 2011; Aldao, Nolen-Hoeksema, & Schweizer, 2010; Harvey, Watkins, Mansell, & Shafran, 2004; Kring & Sloan, 2010). Specific emotion regulation strategies have been argued to be either adaptive or maladaptive based on their immediate effects on affect, behavior, and cognition, as well as on their relationships to psychopathology (see reviews in Aldao et al., 2010; Gross, 1998; Kring & Sloan, 2010; Nolen-Hoeksema & Watkins, 2011).1
Putatively maladaptive strategies, such as avoidance of emotions and/or situations, hiding or suppressing the expression or experience of emotions, worrying or ruminating, and self-criticism, have been found to produce detrimental outcomes in experimental studies, including rebounds in negative affect following exposure to emotion-eliciting stimuli (e.g., Campbell-Sills, Barlow, Brown, & Hofmann, 2006), increases (and rebounds) in sympathetic activation (e.g., Gross, 1998; Gross & Levenson, 1993; Wegner, Broome, & Blumberg, 1997), diminished autonomic flexibility (e.g., Hofmann et al., 2005), memory difficulties (e.g., Richards, Butler, & Gross, 2003), and declines in instrumental behavior and social support (e.g., Nolen-Hoeksema, Wisco, & Lyubomirsky, 2008). Moreover, self-reports of the use of these strategies have been associated with the development and maintenance of a wide range of mental disorders, including depression (e.g., Nolen-Hoeksema et al., 2008), anxiety disorders (e.g., Mennin, Holaway, Fresco, Moore, & Heimberg, 2007; Salters-Pedneault, Roemer, Tull, Rucker, & Mennin, 2006; Werner, Goldin, Ball, Heimberg, & Gross, 2011), eating disorders (e.g., Evers, Stok, & de Ridder, 2010; Nolen-Hoeksema, Stice, Wade, & Bohon, 2007), and borderline personality disorder (e.g., Dixon-Gordon, Chapman, Lovasz, & Walters, 2011; Lynch, Trost, Salsman, & Linehan, 2007; Neasciu, Rizvi, & Linehan, 2010).
Conversely, putatively adaptive strategies, such as acceptance, problem solving, and cognitive reappraisal (i.e., thinking differently about a situation in order to downregulate the amount of emotion felt; Gross, 1998) have been shown in experimental studies to lead to beneficial outcomes, including reductions in the experience of negative affect (e.g., Goldin, McRae, Rame, & Gross, 2007), increased pain tolerance (e.g., Hayes, Bissett, et al., 1999), effective interpersonal functioning (e.g., Richards & Gross, 2000), and diminished cardiac reactivity (e.g., Campbell-Sills et al., 2006). In self-report studies, they have also been associated with low levels of symptoms of psychopathology (e.g., Aldao et al., 2010). Thus, adaptive and maladaptive regulation strategies have been associated with symptoms of psychopathology, albeit in different directions.
Notably, the putatively maladaptive strategies have shown a larger magnitude in their relationship to psychopathology than adaptive strategies (e.g., Aldao & Nolen-Hoeksema, 2010, 2011; Aldao et al., 2010). The weak inverse association between adaptive strategies and psychopathology is particularly noteworthy, as adaptive strategies are important components of a variety of treatment modalities, ranging from traditional CBT to newer, third-wave approaches (e.g., Beck, 1976; Hayes, 2008; Hofmann & Asmundson, 2008; Linehan, 1993; Roemer, Orsillo, & Salters-Pedeneault, 2008; Segal, Williams, & Teasdale, 2001).
