I'm curious if there are alternative approaches to studying emotion regulation in a theoretically grounded way. I feel like Carstensen's socioemotional selectivity theory is consistent with Gross, and I'm just not sure who else is prominent in the field. I greatly appreciate any suggestions for reading.
I would take a look at some of the work done by a previous graduate student that worked with James J. Gross and Ian H. Gotlib at Stanford: Jonathan E. Rottenberg at the University of South Florida. A great deal of his work focuses on psychopathology (especially MDD), but he investigates a couple of theories. Take a look a this meta-analysis by Bylmsa, Morris & Rottenberg,
http://uweb.cas.usf.edu/mood/docs/Bylsma_et_al_2008_cpr.pdf
There are many, many, many (especially if you start branching out into specific ages and methods and concepts that feed into emotion regulation, such as self-regulation, attachment, neuroimaging, other biology). I think the most helpful way to learn who the big players are/were is to see who authored the chapters in James Gross "Handbook of Emotion Regulation", and other prominent books such as Allan N. Schore "Affect Regulation and the Origin of the Self", and books/articles by all of those and by Thompson, Panksepp, Baumeister, Rottenberg, Phillips, Feldman-Barrett, etc... the list goes on and on. Many amazing people in the field. A key thing is to not skip over older papers that have been cited many times (e.g., search "emotion regulation" in google scholar). Some articles may be older but often provide the foundation for other details you will learn.
Thank you both so very much!! I appreciate the article and the suggestions.
Good question Chloe. At the risk of being a bit self-promoting, you might have a look at the work conceptualising emotion regulation in terms of tasks, capacities and tactics. This approach is not inconsistent with Gross but suggests that to understand emotion regulation we need to identify the targets of regulation, the resources the organism has to attain them, and the specific tactics they use to regulation given their resources. Several of the papers listed on my page outline this approach, notably in the area of lifespan regulation. I've attached an example and am happy to send through more if its useful.
Hey Chloe !
This is a good question indeed !
I agree with Michelle - I can recommend the Handbook of Emotion Regulation as well, it really is a good starting point !
I attached another paper by Ross A. Thompson putting more emphasis on the development perspective and also taking another perspective on wether emotion regulation can/shoudl be distinguished from emotions.
I also find some research on emotional intelligence interesting considering that some researchers are moving more towards ability based testing in emtion regulation. Emotion regulation is embedded in most EI models and often conceptualized differently than in Gross´ tradition (e.g. Jospeh & Newman, paper attached).
The developmental folks have several different models. NAncy Eisenberg, Anne Asten, Alex Zautra , and myself, for some examples. Check our my chapter and Megan McClelland's in the handbook of lifespan development.
Hi Chloe,
You can examine research on emotional intelligence, as emotional regulation is one of the sub-scales assessed. A lot of people will steer you towards work done by Goleman because he is the pop-culture favorite, but work done by Mayer and Salovey as well as Boyatzis will certainly give you the information you are seeking. You will have to dig, but the information about ewmotional regulation is in there. If you want to take it way back to the gold-standard assessment in EI, examine work done by Dr. Reuven Bar-On. His Bar-On EQi assessment was the foundation from which the EQi 2.0, and the other widely used assessments came from. Goo dluck to you! If I can be of further assistance, please feel free to reach out to me.
Richard A. Mendelson
Thank you everyone - this is such a wonderful resource. I have so many great things to read! Thank you!
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