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Dealing With Feeling: A Meta-Analysis of the Effectiveness of StrategiesDerived From the Process Model of Emotion Regulation

Thomas L. Webb, Eleanor Miles, and Paschal SheeranUniversity of Sheffield

The present meta-analysis investigated the effectiveness of strategies derived from the process model of emotion regulation in modifying emotional outcomes as indexed by experiential, behavioral, and physiolog-ical measures. A systematic search of the literature identified 306 experimental comparisons of differentemotion regulation (ER) strategies. ER instructions were coded according to a new taxonomy, and meta-analysis was used to evaluate the effectiveness of each strategy across studies. The findings revealeddifferences in effectiveness between ER processes: Attentional deployment had no effect on emotionaloutcomes ( d 0.00), response modulation had a small effect ( d 0.16), and cognitive change had asmall-to-medium effect ( d 0.36). There were also important within-process differences. We identified 7types of attentional deployment, 4 types of cognitive change, and 4 types of response modulation, and thesedistinctions had a substantial influence on effectiveness. Whereas distraction was an effective way to regulateemotions ( d 0.27), concentration was not ( d 0.26). Similarly, suppressing the expression of emotionproved effective ( d 0.32), but suppressing the experience of emotion or suppressing thoughts of theemotion-eliciting event did not ( d 0.04 and 0.12, respectively). Finally, reappraising the emotionalresponse proved less effective ( d 0.23) than reappraising the emotional stimulus ( d 0.36) or usingperspective taking ( d 0.45). The review also identified several moderators of strategy effectivenessincluding factors related to the (a) to-be-regulated emotion, (b) frequency of use and intended purpose of theER strategy, (c) study design, and (d) study characteristics.

Keywords: emotion regulation, reappraisal, suppression, distraction, concentration

Emotion regulation is the set of automatic and controlled pro-cesses involved in the initiation, maintenance, and modification of the occurrence, intensity, and duration of feeling states (Eisenberg,

Fabes, Guthrie, & Reiser, 2000; Gross & Thompson, 2007). Itrefers to the processes by which people stifle laughter whenwitnessing another’s misfortune, try to contextualize a disturbingscene in a film, keep calm when provoked, appear enthusiasticabout a business opportunity, and so on. Emotion regulation is avibrant research field, and evidence concerning the impact of different forms of emotion regulation for emotional experience,expression, and physiology has burgeoned over the past decade(for reviews, see Gross & Thompson, 2007; Koole, 2009). As aconsequence, it has become increasingly important to find ways to

organize, integrate, and understand the rapidly accumulating find-ings and insights.

A number of frameworks for conceptualizing the different ways

that people can regulate their emotions have been proposed (see,e.g., Koole, 2009; Larsen, 2000; Parkinson & Totterdell, 1999;Thayer, Newman, & McClain, 1994). However, the process modelof emotion regulation (Gross, 1998a, 1998b) is perhaps the mostwidely used model to date. 1 The model distinguishes five emotionregulation processes on a temporal dimension that indicates wheneach one is deployed (see Figure 1; for a review, see Gross &Thompson, 2007). Antecedent-focused processes occur before ap-praisals give rise to a full-blown emotional response. This categoryincludes situation selection, situation modification, attentional de-ployment, and cognitive change. Although correlational studieshave investigated how people modify or avoid situations as a wayof coping (e.g., Belzer, D’Zurilla, & Maydeu-Olivares, 2002;D’Zurilla, Chang, Nottingham, & Faccini, 1998; D’Zurilla, Chang,& Sanna, 2003; Jaffee & D’Zurilla, 2003) and there is research on

1 Gross’ (1998b) paper describing the process model of emotion regu-lation (published in Journal of Personality and Social Psychology ) hasbeen cited 1,028 times to date (source Google Scholar, December 7, 2011;http://scholar.google.co.uk/), and Gross’ (1998a) paper in Review of Gen-eral Psychology has been cited 1,347 times. Alternative frameworks, suchas Parkinson and Totterdell’s (1999) classification of emotion regulationstrategies, Larsen’s (2000) model of mood regulation, Thayer et al.’s(1994) paper on the self-regulation of mood, and Koole’s (2009) classifi-cation, have been cited less often (163, 321, 366, and 88 times, respec-tively), though it should be noted that Koole’s classification is more recent.

This article was published Online First May 14, 2012.Thomas L. Webb, Eleanor Miles, and Paschal Sheeran, Department of

Psychology, University of Sheffield, Western Bank, Sheffield, UnitedKingdom.

The research was supported by Economic and Social Research CouncilGrant RES-060-25-0044 (emotion regulation of others and self [EROS]).All authors contributed equally to this research. We thank Kendra Arkleyand Philip Powell for help coding study characteristics and members of theEROS research team (http://www.erosresearch.org/) for useful discussionsand comments on the ideas in the article.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to ThomasL. Webb, Eleanor Miles, or Paschal Sheeran, Department of Psychology,University of Sheffield, Western Bank, Sheffield S10 2TN, United King-dom. E-mail: [email protected] or [email protected] [email protected]

Psychological Bulletin © 2012 American Psychological Association2012, Vol. 138, No. 4, 775– 808 0033-2909/12/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/a0027600

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how adult caregivers alter the situations of their offspring in anattempt to modify the offspring’s emotional experience (e.g.,Nachmias, Gunnar, Mangelsdorf, Parritz, & Buss, 1996; for areview, see Eisenberg, Cumberland, & Spinrad, 1998), experi-ments have rarely been used to test how people regulate their ownemotions using situation selection or modification. In contrast, asubstantial literature has developed on the effects of attentionaldeployment and cognitive change. That is, most studies of antecedent-focused emotion regulation processes start from the

position that people have been unable to avoid or change theemotion-eliciting situation and so need to find a way to deal withthe experience—either by (a) directing attention toward or awayfrom particular aspects of the situation (attentional deployment) orby (b) changing the interpretation of a situation so as to alter itsemotional impact (cognitive change). For example, Kalisch,Wiech, Herrmann, and Dolan (2006) asked participants to “quicklythink of something else” (p. 1268) in order to deal with the anxietyassociated with an impending electric shock. Gross (1998a) askedparticipants to “try to think about what you are seeing objectively,in terms of the technical aspects of the events you observe” (p.227), in order to deal with three films depicting medical proce-dures. Response-focused processes, on the other hand, occur afterthe emotional responses are generated. This category includesresponse modulation, which typically refers to efforts to suppressthe expression or experience of emotion. For example, a secondgroup of participants in Gross’ (1998a) experiment were asked to“try to behave in such a way that a person watching you would notknow you were feeling anything” (p. 227). In summary, the pro-cess model distinguishes five emotion regulation processes thatencompass specific strategies (cognitive or behavioral techniques)that people can use to gain control over their emotions.

Koole (2009) provided an alternative way to classify and think about different emotion regulation strategies by considering thetarget and function of the regulation. The target of the regulationis divided into three types of emotional responses: (a) attention

(e.g., what aspects of a situation people look at), (b) knowledge(e.g., cognitive appraisals), and (c) embodiments (e.g., facial ex-pressions, psycho-physiological responses). Similarly, emotionregulation strategies are divided into serving one or more of thefollowing functions: (a) hedonic needs (e.g., promoting pleasure,avoiding pain), (b) goal-orientated functions (e.g., up-regulatenegative affect to promote performance; Tamir, 2009; Tamir,Chiu, & Gross, 2007; Tamir & Ford, 2009; Tamir, Mitchell, &Gross, 2008), and (c) person-orientated functions (e.g., adjusting

information processing to suit the demands of the task; Rother-mund, Voss, & Wentura, 2008). The resulting target by functionclassification provides nine cells into which different emotionregulation strategies can be organized. Like the process model,Koole’s framework distinguishes cognitive reappraisal from ex-pressive suppression. Although both are viewed as goal-orientedstrategies, they have different targets, with reappraisal targetingemotion-related knowledge and expressive suppression targetingbodily responses. There are also differences between the twoframeworks. In particular, considering the function of the regula-tory effort allows Koole’s framework to distinguish a number of different emotion regulation strategies that would all fall under thecategory of attentional deployment according to the processmodel—namely, attentional avoidance (Derakshan, Eysenck, &Myers, 2007), effortful distraction (Van Dillen & Koole, 2007),and attentional counterregulation (Rothermund et al., 2008), thatare hypothesized to serve need-oriented, goal-oriented, andperson-oriented functions, respectively.

Two recent meta-analyses have attempted to estimate the aver-age effect of emotion regulation strategies on emotional experi-ence and related outcomes. Augustine and Hemenover (2009) usedParkinson and Totterdell’s (1999) taxonomy to classify differentaffect regulation strategies. This taxonomy was developed byasking participants to sort 162 strategies into meaningful catego-ries. The primary distinction emerging from this analysis wasbetween cognitive and behavioral strategies (i.e., between strate-

Figure 1. The process model of emotion regulation. Adapted from “Emotion Regulation: Conceptual Foun-dations,” by J. J. Gross and R. A. Thompson, in J. J. Gross (Ed.), Handbook of Emotion Regulation (p. 10), 2007,New York, NY: Guilford Press. Copyright 2007 by Guilford Press. Adapted with permission.

776 WEBB, MILES, AND SHEERAN



gies involving physical action and those involving thought). Au-gustine and Hemenover computed the sample-weighted averageeffect of strategies across 34 studies. Behavioral strategies provedmore effective in repairing affect ( d 0.54) than did cognitivestrategies ( d 0.33). In terms of the specific strategies describedby Gross’ (1998a, 1998b) process model, reappraisal and distraction

led to relatively large-sized hedonic shifts in affect ( d 0.65 and0.46, respectively). Suppression (termed “inhibition”) had a very largeeffect on self-reported emotions ( d 2.02), though this effect sizewas based on just two tests (both from the same study).

Aldao, Nolen-Hoeksema, and Schweizer (2010) examined theeffects of six emotion regulation strategies (acceptance, avoidance,problem solving, reappraisal, rumination, and suppression) onpsychopathology. Avoidance and rumination were found to bepositively associated with psychopathological symptoms ( r 0.38 and 0.49, equivalent to d 0.82 and 1.12, respectively).Acceptance and problem solving were negatively associated withpsychopathological symptoms like anxiety, depression, eating, andsubstance-related disorders ( r 0.19 and 0.31, equivalent tod 0.39 and 0.65, respectively). Of the strategies described byGross’ (1998a, 1998b) process model, suppression was found to bepositively associated with psychopathological symptoms ( r 0.34,equivalent to d 0.72), whereas reappraisal was negatively asso-ciated with these symptoms ( r 0.14, equivalent to d

0.28).Further tests of the effectiveness of emotion regulation strate-

gies are desirable, however, in order to resolve two outstandingissues. The first is a taxonomic issue and has to do with the factthat empirical research defines and implements ostensibly similaremotion regulation strategies in different ways. For example, twostudies that both aimed to measure the effect of emotional sup-pression on responses to film clips provided participants with quitedifferent instructions. Gross (1998a) asked participants to “try to

behave in such a way that a person watching you would not knowyou were feeling anything” (p. 227). In contrast, Hofmann, Rauch,and Gawronksi (2007) asked participants to “remain completelyneutral by suppressing any feelings that come up while watching”(p. 499). As these examples illustrate, “suppression” can some-times mean asking participants to suppress the expression of emotion, whereas in other instances it means asking participants tosuppress the subjective experience of the emotion.

Testing the effectiveness of different emotion regulation strat-egies requires that one identify an underlying order to thosestrategies. Top-down (theoretical) approaches such as Gross’ pro-cess model of emotion regulation and Koole’s (2009) framework are valuable in this regard. However, a rigorous approach todeveloping such a taxonomy would combine top-down (theoreti-cal) and bottom-up (empirical) approaches (for discussion, seeKoole, 2009; Skinner, Edge, Altman, & Sherwood, 2003). Thiscombined approach could bridge the gap between the specificstrategies that people use to gain control over their feelings inparticular studies and the broader theoretical literature on theconceptual structure underlying efforts at emotion regulation.

In the present research, we implement this combined approach byintegrating the conceptual framework provided by the process modelwith careful coding of the emotion regulation instructions that partic-ipants receive in empirical studies (rather than assuming that studiesfocusing on, say, “suppression” are all testing the same emotionregulation strategy). Although the process model is used as the over-

arching framework, a number of other classification systems (notably,Koole’s 2009 framework and Parkinson & Totterdell’s 1999 taxon-omy) and theoretical perspectives (notably, research on rumination,mindfulness, and self-immersed vs. self-distanced processing) werealso drawn upon in order to make within-process distinctions betweendifferent emotion regulation strategies. The outcome is a taxonomy

that maps the relationship between broad families of emotion regu-lation processes and the specific strategies and strategy subtypes thatfall within these processes (see Table 1).

The second issue concerns comprehensiveness. Reviews to datehave used selective inclusion criteria and focused on a relativelylimited set of outcomes. For example, Aldao et al.’s (2010) reviewwas restricted to correlational studies that investigated the relationshipbetween self-reported use of emotion regulation strategies and symp-toms of psychopathology. Correlational designs leave open questionsabout the direction of effects (e.g., could the emotional experiencehave influenced the choice of regulation strategy?) and do not rule outthe possibility that a third, unmeasured variable (e.g., conscientious-ness, executive function) influenced both the use of emotion regula-tion strategies and emotional outcomes. Augustine and Hemenover’s(2009) meta-analysis was restricted to studies where affect was mea-sured both beforeandafter emotion regulation instructions (inorder todetermine the extent to which emotion regulation led to a within-person change in experienced affect). However, this inclusion crite-rion meant that a large number of studies that randomly allocatedparticipants to emotion regulation versus control instructions and thencompared the emotional responses of the two conditions were ex-cluded. Consequently, Augustine and Hemenover’s review included just two tests of suppression and two tests of reappraisal. This inclu-sion criterion also seems overly restrictive because random allocationof participants to conditions should control for differences in baselineaffect.

Previous reviews of the impact of emotion regulation have alsobeen limited by their focus only on experiential (self-report) mea-sures of affect. Gross’ (1998a, 1998b) process model draws adistinction between the targets of emotion experience, emotionexpression, and physiological responding. Similarly, Koole’s(2009) framework is clear that emotion regulation strategies cantarget attention, knowledge, and embodiments, each of which maybe differentially amenable to self-report. Furthermore, both phys-iological measures (in particular, autonomic nervous system mea-sures) and measures of expressive behavior have been shown todiscriminate between negative and positive emotional states, withsome measures discriminating between specific emotions (for re-views, see Bradley & Lang, 2000; Mauss & Robinson, 2009). Insummary, no review to date has integrated the large number of

experimental tests of the impact of emotion regulation processeson a comprehensive set of emotional outcomes. Without such areview, questions about the effectiveness of different emotionregulation strategies remain unanswered.

Distinctions Within Emotion Regulation Processes

Below, we outline our taxonomy, which maps the relationshipbetween emotion regulation processes and specific emotion regu-lation strategies and strategy subtypes (depicted in Table 1), andconsider a number of potential moderators of the relation betweenstrategy use and emotional outcomes.

777META-ANALYSIS OF EMOTION REGULATION STRATEGIES



Table 1 A Taxonomy for Linking Emotion Regulation Processes With Specific Strategies and Strategy Subtypes

Process Strategy Subtype Definition

Attentional deployment Distraction Active positive distraction (D1) The instructions explicitly direct participants to think aboutsomething positive that is unrelated to the focal emotion

or emotional stimulus, in order to distract themselves.Passive positive distraction (D2) Participants are provided with emotionally positive materialsor a task that is positive and unrelated to the focalemotion or emotional stimulus; participants are given noexplicit instructions to distract themselves.

Active neutral distraction (D3) The instructions explicitly direct participants to think aboutsomething neutral that is unrelated to the focal emotion oremotional stimulus, in order to distract themselves.

Passive neutral distraction (D4) Participants are provided with materials or a task that isneutral and unrelated to the focal emotion or emotionalstimulus; participants are given no explicit instructions todistract themselves.

Concentration Concentrate on feelings (C1) The instructions direct participants to attend to, focus on,make judgments about, or relive their emotionalexperience.

Concentrate on causes andimplications (C2)

The instructions direct participants to think about the causes,meanings, or consequences of or the reasons for theirfeelings.

Concentrate–mixed (C3) The instructions direct participants to concentrate onfeelings, causes, and implications.

Cognitive change Reappraisal Reappraise emotional response (R1) Participants are instructed to interpret the focal emotion in aparticular manner. For example, participants may be toldthat the emotion is normal or that they should accept ornot judge the emotion.

Reappraise emotional stimulus (R2) Participants are instructed to reinterpret the emotionalstimulus (the context or the cause of the emotion). Forexample, participants might be asked to imagine that anegative event had a positive outcome.

Reappraise via perspective taking(R3)

The instructions ask participants to alter the impact of theemotional stimulus by adopting a more or a less objectiveperspective. For example, participants may be asked toimagine themselves in the situation depicted or may beasked to be objective or to view the stimulus as detached

observers.Reappraisal–mixed (R4) The instructions are framed such that the strategy couldinvolve reappraising emotional response and/orreappraising the emotional stimulus and/or reappraisal viaperspective taking.

Response modulation Suppression Suppress the expression of emotion(S1)

Participants are instructed to hide the way that they arefeeling (e.g., not to smile). Participants are told to act insuch a manner that an observer could not guess how theyare feeling.

Suppress the experience of emotion(S2)

Participants are instructed to control their emotionalexperience. Participants are told to control or not allowthemselves to experience the focal emotion.

Suppress thoughts of the emotion-eliciting event (S3)

Participants are instructed to control thoughts of or not allowthemselves to think about the emotion-eliciting event.

Suppression–mixed (S4) Participants are instructed both to hide the focal emotion andto control or not allow themselves to experience thatemotion.

Control conditions No instruction (Cont1) No instructions relating to emotional experience or emotionregulation are given, or participants are told to think orfeel what they like.

Instructions not to regulate in aspecific manner (Cont2)

Participants are told that they should not regulate in a certainmanner (e.g., that they should not reappraise the stimulus).

Instructions to enhance emotions(Cont3)

The instructions direct participants to enhance or maintainthe focal emotion.

Instructions to experience naturally(Cont4)

The instructions direct participants to respond naturally tothe emotional stimulus; participants should let theirfeelings flow without trying to regulate them.

Control–mixed (Cont5) Participants are told to use a combination of the controlinstructions above.




Seven Types of Attentional Deployment

Attentional deployment refers to “how individuals direct theirattention within a given situation so as to influence their emotions”(Gross & Thompson, 2007, p. 13). The two key attentional de-ployment strategies described by the process model are distraction

and concentration . Distraction “focuses attention on different as-pects of the situation or moves attention away from the situationaltogether” and “may also involve changing internal focus, such aswhen individuals invoke thoughts or memories that are inconsis-tent with the undesirable emotional state” (Gross & Thompson,2007, p. 13). Whereas this definition views distraction as an activeprocess in which participants effortfully divert attention from theemotional stimulus, some experimental studies manipulate distrac-tion in a more passive fashion by giving participants a task de-signed to divert their attention from the emotion but withoutexplicitly telling participants to use this task to distract themselves.In other words, studies differ in the extent to which they promoteactive versus passive distraction . Active distraction instructionsexplicitly direct participants to think about something unrelated tothe emotion or emotional stimulus (e.g., Masuda et al., 2010, p. 13,asked participants to think of “something emotionally neutral orless unpleasant” instead of thinking about the emotion-elicitingstimulus). Active distraction strategies are consistent with thenotion of “self-distraction”—that is, “the effort to selectively at-tend to nonemotional (or emotionally less disturbing) aspects of asituation” (Kalisch et al., 2006, p. 1266). In contrast, passivedistraction strategies do not involve giving participants explicitinstructions to distract themselves but rather instruct participants toengage with materials or a task that is unrelated to the emotion oremotional stimulus (e.g., Donaldson & Lam, 2004, asked partici-pants to play Scrabble). Because passive distraction strategiesprovide no explicit instructions that participants should distract

themselves, passive distraction strategies may be less effectivethan active distraction strategies.In addition, distraction strategies can be distinguished according

to whether they ask participants to distract themselves by thinkingabout emotionally neutral or emotionally positive material. Forexample, Dalebroux, Goldstein, and Winner (2008) asked partic-ipants to “draw a picture that depicts happiness” (p. 291), whereasErisman and Roemer (2010) asked participants to listen to twoeducational excerpts from a public radio station. To the extent thatemotionally positive material is likely to be more distinct from theexperienced affect, it may be more distracting than emotionallyneutral material (Shepley, 2006). However, this assumes that theperson is able to bring to mind something positive at the criticalmoment. Therefore, positive distraction might be more effectivethan neutral distraction when operationalized in passive terms(e.g., when an external source provides positive materials or a task)but less so when operationalized in active terms (when the personmust actively think of something positive). In summary, distrac-tion may encompass four distinct emotion regulation strategies thatcross the two dimensions of active versus passive and positiveversus neutral (see Table 1).

Concentration refers to emotion regulation strategies that “drawattention to [the] emotional features of a situation” (Gross &Thompson, 2007, p. 13). Empirical research has operationalizedconcentration in a number of distinct ways. Some studies onconcentration direct participants to attend to, focus on, make

judgments about, or relive their emotional experience. For exam-ple, Ayduk, Mischel, and Downey (2002) asked participants to“focus on the feelings and the visceral responses the event trig-gered” and to “let yourself feel the event as if you were right there,reliving it and reexperiencing it” (p. 445). This self-immersed,directed attention toward feelings and their consequences is often

termed “rumination” (Kross, Ayduk, & Mischel, 2005; Treynor,Gonzalez, & Nolen-Hoeksema, 2003), especially when it is repet-itive and passive (Mor & Winquist, 2002; Nolen-Hoeksema, 2000;Watkins, 2008). Focusing on feelings in this manner activatesrelatively concrete representations of the experienced emotions(e.g., “I felt lonely and dejected”) that are likely to re-immerse theindividual in the recalled experience (Kross et al., 2005). Studiessuggest that focusing on feelings heightens emotion and is thusmaladaptive (e.g., Ayduk & Kross, 2008; Kross et al., 2005;Morrow & Nolen-Hoeksema, 1990; Nolen-Hoeksema, 1991; re-views by Mor & Winquist, 2002; Nolen-Hoeksema, 2000).

Theorists have pointed to a distinction between focusing onfeelings (the “what” of emotion; Kross et al., 2005, or experiential processing ; Watkins, 2004; Watkins & Teasdale, 2004) and fo-cusing on the causes and implications of feelings (the “why” of emotion; Kross et al., 2005, conceptual-evaluative or analytical processing ; Watkins, 2004; Watkins & Teasdale, 2004). In linewith this conceptual distinction, a number of studies direct partic-ipants to concentrate on the causes, meanings, consequences of, orreasons for their feelings. For example, Moberly and Watkins(2006) asked participants to think about the causes, meanings, andimplications of several situations (e.g., “What are your qualities asa dinner party host?” and “What do you think about your cook-ing?” p. 284). There are different predictions about the likelyeffects of concentrating on causes and implications. On the onehand, there is a large literature suggesting that problem-focusedcoping or writing about the effects and implications of emotional

events is beneficial for well-being and health (e.g., Lepore, 1997;Pennebaker, 1997; Spera, Buhrfeind, & Pennebaker, 1994). On theother hand, there are empirical studies which suggest that concen-trating on causes and implications results in higher levels of depressed mood than does experiential processing (e.g., Watkins,2004) but that effects may be moderated by construal level, suchthat concentrating on causes and feelings in an abstract, evaluativeway is problematic whereas concentrating on causes and feelingsin a concrete way is less so (e.g., Watkins, Moberly, & Moulds,2008; for a review, see Watkins, 2008).

A further set of studies combine concentration strategies byasking participants to focus on both their feelings and thecauses and implications of those feelings. For example, Nolen-Hoeksema and Morrow (1993) invited participants to focus onthoughts that were “symptom-focused, emotion-focused, andself-focused,” including “what your feelings might mean” and“the possible consequences of the way you feel” (p. 564). Insummary, concentration as an emotion regulation strategy maysubdivide into three distinct strategies: (a) concentrate on feel-ings , (b) concentrate on causes and implications , or (c) do both(see Table 1).

Four Types of Cognitive Change

Cognitive change refers to “changing how we appraise thesituation we are in to alter its emotional significance, either by




changing how we think about the situation or our capacity tomanage the demands it poses” (Gross & Thompson, 2007, p. 14).However, a distinction has been drawn between strategies thatinvolve reappraisal of the emotional stimulus or situation andstrategies that involve distancing oneself from the stimulus orsituation (Ochsner et al., 2004; Ray et al., 2005). For example,

Hajcak and Nieuwenhuis (2006) asked participants to “come upwith a less negative interpretation of the picture content (e.g., abloody crime scene could be seen as the place where a murderinvestigation was finally solved)” (p. 292). In contrast, Ochsner etal. (2004) instructed participants to “increase their sense of objec-tive distance, viewing pictured events from a detached, third-person perspective” (p. 484). Dunn, Bilotti, Murphy, and Dalgleish(2009) argued that reinterpreting the emotional stimulus is funda-mentally different from perspective taking in the sense that rein-terpretation is the key component of reappraisal as used in thera-peutic contexts.

A number of empirical studies investigate a third form of cognitive change that involves reinterpreting the emotional expe-rience itself. Typically, participants are instructed to accept theexperience as nonproblematic. For example, Kuehner, Huffziger,and Liebsch (2009) told participants “take note of your thoughtsand feelings without judging them” (p. 221). Accepting emotionsin this way is a core part of mindfulness (the nonjudgmentalobservation of the ongoing stream of internal and external stimulias they arise; Baer, 2003; Brown, Ryan, & Cresswell, 2007), andmany studies investigating the effects of acceptance as an emotionregulation strategy do so under the banner of research on mind-fulness (e.g., Broderick, 2005, for a review, see Aldao et al., 2010).We therefore categorized mindfulness-based instructions as direct-ing participants to reinterpret the emotional experience on the basisthat people typically automatically judge and evaluate their expe-riences (e.g., Why do I feel like this? What does this feeling mean

for me? Bargh, Chaiken, Govender, & Pratto, 1992; Fiske, 1982).Thus, being nonjudgmental about one’s emotions essentially re-quires that people appraise their emotions in a new way. Theinstructions used in studies of mindfulness confirm this interpre-tation, as they assume that participants have preexisting negativeappraisals or judgments about their emotions, which participantsare encouraged to overcome. For example, Low, Stanton, andBower (2008) asked participants to “remember that emotions arenormal, healthy, and temporary reactions” (pp. 420–421). Simi-larly, Santos (2008) told participants that “emotions such as sad-ness . . . are simply physiological responses to events. All humansexperience this” (p. 27). Furthermore, a recent review of themechanisms underlying mindfulness suggested that mindfulnessinstructions prompt reappraisal and a change in perspective on theself (Holzel et al., 2011).

Finally, some studies instruct participants to reappraise using amixture of the above strategies. For example, Goldin, Manber-Ball, Hakimi, Canli, and Gross (2009) asked participants to use“strategies including [telling yourself] “This does not involve me,”“This does not influence me,” “This does not impact me,” “Theperson will be okay,” or “The person was not really hurt” (p. 172).In summary, the four types of cognitive change strategies used inthe literature differ in the extent to which they instruct participantsto (a) reappraise the emotional stimulus (e.g., participants mightbe asked to imagine that a negative event had a positive outcome),(b) reappraise via perspective taking (e.g., participants might be

asked to alter the impact of the emotional stimulus by adopting athird-person perspective), (c) reappraise the emotional response(e.g., participants may be told that the emotion is normal or thatthey should accept or not judge the emotion), or (d) reappraiseusing a mixture of the above strategies (see Table 1).

Four Types of Response Modulation

Response modulation refers to “influencing physiological, ex-periential, or behavioral responding . . . after response tendencieshave been initiated” (Gross & Thompson, 2007, p. 15). Again,studies have manipulated this form of emotion regulation in dif-ferent ways. In particular, a distinction has been drawn betweenexpressive suppression, where participants attempt to control thebehavioral component of the emotional response, and experientialsuppression, where participants attempt to control the experienceof emotion (Quartana & Burns, 2007). For example, Gross andLevenson (1993) asked participants to “watch the film clip care-fully, but please try to behave so that someone watching you wouldnot know that you are feeling anything at all” (p. 973). In contrast,Quartana and Burns (2007) told their participants that “it is ex-tremely important that you suppress all of your feelings. That is, donot think about any of your feelings at all; push them out of yourmind” (p. 404). Studies of (emotional) thought suppression employa similar, but distinct, use of the term suppression. Typically,participants are asked to suppress thoughts about an emotion-eliciting event or stimulus. For example, Dalgleish and Yiend(2006) asked participants “to try as hard as possible not to think about the personally distressing event that they had describedearlier” (p. 469). A final set of studies ask participants to suppressboth emotional expression and emotional experience. For example,Vohs and Schmeichel (2003) instructed their participants to “tryyour best not to let any feelings or responses you may have show

on your face, and to the best of your ability, try to keep all of yourinternal reactions suppressed” (p. 220). In summary, it seemsimportant to distinguish between four strategies for response mod-ulation: (a) suppress the expression of emotion (e.g., participantsare instructed to hide how they are feeling or to act in such amanner that an observer could not guess how they are feeling), (b)suppress the experience of emotion (e.g., participants are told tocontrol or not allow themselves to experience the emotion), (c)suppress thoughts of the emotion-eliciting event (e.g., participantsare instructed to control thoughts of or not allow themselves tothink about the emotion-eliciting event), and (d) suppress bothexpression and experience (see Table 1).

Moderators of the Effectiveness of EmotionRegulation Strategies

Any comprehensive review of emotion regulation strategiesrequires consideration not only of the effectiveness of variousstrategies and strategy subtypes (the “what” question; Zanna &Fazio, 1982) but also of the conditions under which strategies areeffective (the “when” question; Zanna & Fazio). Drawing upon thedifferent frameworks for conceptualizing emotion regulation (e.g.,Gross, 1998a, 1998b; Koole, 2009; Parkinson & Totterdell, 1999;Thayer et al., 1994), previous reviews of the literature (e.g., Aldaoet al., 2010; Augustine & Hemenover, 2009), and primary researchstudies that investigate the conditions that influence emotion reg-




ulation, we identified a series of factors that may moderate theeffectiveness of emotion regulation strategies. These can be sub-divided into factors relating to the (a) to-be-regulated emotion, (b)direction and frequency of use of the regulation strategy, (c) studydesign, and (d) study characteristics.

Factors Related to the Emotion to Be Regulated

Nature of the focal emotion. The nature of the focal emotion(i.e., what feeling is being regulated) is likely to influence theeffectiveness of emotion regulation. First, some emotions may beharder to control than others. People typically report that regulat-ing positive affect is easier than regulating negative affect (e.g.,Kim & Hamann, 2007; Mak, Hu, Zhang, Xiao, & Lee, 2009).Research on the natural time course of specific emotions alsosuggests that some emotions tend to last longer than others. Forexample, sadness tends to last longer than anger, which, in turn,tends to last longer than fear (Verduyn, Delvaux, Van Coillie,Tuerlinckx, & Van Mechelen, 2009), suggesting that the regulationof fear might be easier than the regulation of anger and, in turn,sadness. Although these studies assumed (but did not test) thatparticipants were trying to regulate their emotional experience andthat the emotions were experienced at similar intensities (Frijda,Mesquita, Sonnemans, & Van Goozen, 1991), they suggest that thenature of the focal emotion may be an important moderator of theimpact of emotion regulation instructions on emotional outcomes.

Presence and nature of the emotion induction. The pres-ence versus absence of an emotion induction (a procedure de-signed to induce a particular emotional state) could influence theeffectiveness of emotion regulation efforts. On the one hand,studies that include an emotion induction may find smaller effectsof emotion regulation instructions because participants find itharder to regulate strong emotional experiences. On the other

hand, studies that include an emotion induction may report largereffects because participants have greater scope for change or havea target for their regulation efforts. For example, individuals maydevote greater effort to regulation when there is a discrepancybetween desired and experienced affect (Feldman-Barrett, Gross,Conner Christensen, & Benvenuto, 2001; Larsen, 2000).

When studies include an emotion induction, three aspects of thisinduction may have a bearing on effect sizes: (a) the method of induction, (b) the specificity of the induction, and (c) whether theregulation instructions were given to participants before or afterthe induction. In relation to the first, emotion induction methodscan vary widely (for reviews, see Lench, Flores, & Bench, 2011;Salas, Radovic, & Turnbull, 2011; Westermann, Spies, Stahl, &Hesse, 1996). Indeed, the variety of emotion triggering stimuli isalmost infinite, including pictures (e.g., the International AffectivePicture System; IAPS: Lang, Bradley, & Cuthbert, 2005), film (fora review, see Gross & Levenson, 1995), music (for a review, seeVastfjall, 2002), verbal or written stimuli (e.g., the Velten proce-dure; Velten, 1968; for a review, see Kenealy, 1986), reflectionson past experience or personally relevant thoughts (e.g., autobio-graphical recall, Lerner & Keltner, 2001, Study 4), failure feed-back, or stressful tasks (e.g., the Trier Social Stress Test; Kirsch-baum, Pirke, & Hellhammer, 1993). Although each method canprovide a valid means of inducing emotion (and often the decisionabout which method to use is guided by pragmatic considerations),a key dimension on which methods differ is in their personal

relevance to the participant. Failure feedback and reliving pastexperiences, for example, are more self-relevant than are picturesor videos involving other people. Appraisal theories (e.g., Ells-worth & Scherer, 2003; Lazarus, 1991) predict that the self-relevance of a stimulus partly determines the intensity of theresulting emotion and thus may influence the effectiveness of the

regulation attempt. A recent review by Salas et al. (2011) sup-ported this idea, finding that internal procedures (e.g., recall per-sonal events) generated more negative and mixed blends of emo-tions than did external procedures (e.g., watching film clips).

The specificity of the emotion induction refers to whether theinduction targets a specific emotion (e.g., anger, fear, embarrass-ment) or general positive or negative affect (e.g., mood induc-tions). Emotions and moods are distinguished in part by whetherthere is a specific cause for the experienced affect (Batson, Shaw,& Oleson, 1992). Emotions may thus be easier to regulate thanmoods, as the cause can be more specifically targeted with regu-lation processes like attentional deployment or cognitive change. Itmay be more difficult to apply such regulation strategies to rela-tively diffuse affective states such as moods, leading to smallereffect sizes for general emotion inductions. Finally, whether theregulation instructions were given to participants before or afterthe emotion induction may influence effect sizes. The processmodel predicts that strategies targeting earlier stages of the emo-tional response will tend be more successful than those targetinglater stages of the emotional response (Gross, 1998a, 1998b). Thus,the extent to which the emotional response is allowed to unfold beforea regulation attempt may influence effectiveness. If an antecedent-focused strategy is prepared before the onset of the emotional re-sponse, this may afford the opportunity to prevent the emotionalimpact of a stimulus (rather than merely reduce the impact), thusmaking the strategy more effective.

Factors relating to the regulation process. Although we

expect that the particular strategy used by participants will have thegreatest influence on emotional outcomes, whether the strategy wasdesigned to regulate the focal emotion in a hedonic or contra-hedonicfashion and the number of times that participants attempted to use thestrategy to regulate their emotions may also be influential.

Hedonic versus contra-hedonic affect regulation. Emotionregulation typically refers to the down-regulation of negative af-fect (e.g., keeping calm when provoked, trying to remain positivein the face of bad news) or the up-regulation of positive affect(e.g., being excited, rather than just mildly pleased, about a col-league’s success). However, as Koole’s (2009) framework makesclear, people may regulate their emotions not only for hedonicpurposes but also for goal- or person-oriented reasons. For exam-ple, people may try to make themselves more anxious before animportant examination in order to improve their performance (i.e.,up-regulate negative affect, Tamir, 2009; Tamir et al., 2007, 2008;Tamir & Ford, 2009), or they may down-regulate positive affect insituations where the expression of positive emotion would beinappropriate (e.g., to stifle laughter when witnessing another’smisfortune). There is some preliminary evidence that people findregulating positive affect easier than regulating negative affect(e.g., Kim & Hamann, 2007; Mak et al., 2009). However, fewstudies to date have directly examined whether people are betterable to regulate their emotions hedonically as compared to contra-hedonically. Therefore, we coded whether the strategy involvedhedonic regulation versus contra-hedonic regulation of affect.




Number of regulation attempts. The number of times thatparticipants attempt to regulate their emotions may also influenceeffectiveness. Some studies present multiple emotional stimuli andask participants to apply the same regulation strategy each time(e.g., Deveney & Pizzagalli, 2008), whereas other studies presenta single induction and ask participants to perform a single period

of regulation (e.g., Baumeister, Bratslavsky, Muraven, & Tice,1998). A practice effect might be observed in studies with multipleregulation attempts, whereby repeated attempts increase the par-ticipant’s efficiency in applying the strategy, and thus lead tolarger effect sizes. Practice effects may be especially likely if astrategy is not typically used by the participant and is not alreadywell learned. Conversely, the strength model of self-control(Baumeister, Vohs, & Tice, 2007) suggests that repeated regula-tion attempts might consume limited self-regulatory resources, andso multiple regulation periods could lead to decreased effective-ness and smaller effect sizes. Thus, it is plausible that the numberof regulation attempts could strengthen or weaken the impact of emotion regulation strategies on emotional outcomes.

Design factors. Nature of the comparison condition. The nature of the com-

parison condition may have an important impact on the effect sizeobserved in emotion regulation experiments. Although some stud-ies compare the effectiveness of one emotion regulation strategyagainst an alternative emotion regulation strategy (e.g., Feldner,Zvolensky, Eifert, & Spira, 2003, compared instructions to reap-praise the emotional response with instructions to suppress theemotional response), other studies compare the effectiveness of emotion regulation strategies against control instructions that aretypically designed not to instigate any regulation processes. Care-ful examination of empirical studies reveals that these latter con-trol conditions subdivide into one of five types: (a) no instructionson how to regulate (e.g., Beevers & Scott, 2001), (b) instructions

not to regulate in a specific manner (e.g., Quartana & Burns, 2007,p. 404, told participants in the control condition that “it is ex-tremely important that you deal with your feelings in any mannerthat you want to, just be sure not try to hide or not think about yourfeelings at any time, no matter what”), (c) instructions to enhanceemotions (e.g., Robinson & Demaree, 2009, p. 15, told participantsin the control condition to “facially show the emotion you arefeeling to the utmost”), (d) instructions to experience the emotionsnaturally (e.g., Schmeichel, Volokhov, & Demaree, 2008, p. 1530,told participants in the control condition that if they had anyemotional responses to the film clip they should “express them inwhatever way is natural and comfortable”), or (e) a combination of the above instructions (e.g., Banks, Eddy, Angstadt, Nathan, &Phan, 2007, pp. 304–305, instructed participants “to attend to, beaware of and experience naturally (without trying to change oralter) the emotional state elicited by the pictures; they were told tomaintain the evoked affect for the entire task block”). The differentcontrol conditions employed by empirical studies are indicated inTable 1. Typically, studies that compare interventions to alterna-tive interventions (rather than control interventions) tend to reportsmaller differences (for examples in other domains, see de Bruin etal., 2010; Grissom, 1996; Lipsey & Wilson, 1993; Portnoy, Scott-Sheldon, Johnson, & Carey, 2008; Williams, 2010). However, thiseffect has never been tested with respect to the impact of emotionregulation strategies on emotional outcomes. Furthermore, as ourtaxonomy demonstrates, the content of comparison interventions

varies considerably. The present review is the first to code andinvestigate the impact of different comparison conditions on emo-tion regulation effect sizes.

Within- versus between-participants design. There are twomain ways to evaluate the effect of emotion regulation instructionson emotional outcomes: either (a) randomly allocate one group of

participants to receive instruction X and another group of partic-ipants to receive instruction Y (between-participants design) or (b)provide each participant with instructions X and Y and comparethe emotional outcomes when they are using instruction X versusinstruction Y (within-participants design). On the one hand,within-participants designs control for both individual responsebiases and individual differences in factors such as regulationability. Sampling error is thus reduced, and, as a consequence, theeffect size is potentially increased. On the other hand, studies usingwithin-participant designs could report larger effect sizes becauseof demand characteristics (participants may guess that the re-searcher is comparing instruction X with instruction Y and em-phasize the difference either consciously or unconsciously). Eitherway, study design deserves consideration as a potential moderatorof emotion regulation effectiveness.

Whether participants were informed that they were being observed. Some studies of the effects of emotion regulationinstructions inform participants that they are being observed,whereas others do not. In most studies that measure expressivebehavior, participants are videotaped so that their behavior can becoded, and participants are typically informed of this in advancedue to ethical considerations (e.g., Gross & Levenson, 1993).Studies have shown, however, that being observed alters both theexperience and expression of emotion. For example, people aremore likely to express emotions that conform to social norms whenbeing observed (Ekman, 1972), a phenomenon that may influenceeffect sizes in different ways depending upon the emotion induced

in the study. Knowing that one is being observed could alsoexaggerate the differences between emotion regulation conditionsdue to increased demand characteristics; that is, participants maytry harder to comply with the regulation instructions if they knowthat their compliance with these instructions is being monitored.

Measurement of emotional outcome. The way that emotionaloutcomes (expression and experience) are measured could influ-ence the effectiveness of emotion regulation strategies. Mauss andRobinson (2009) reviewed measures of emotion, dividing theminto experiential (typically, self-reported emotional experience),physiological (e.g., heart rate, EEG), and behavioral (typically,observer ratings of emotional expression) measures. Mauss andRobinson argued that although all of these measures were relevantto understanding emotion, they could not be assumed to be inter-changeable (see also Bradley & Lang, 2000). Given that mostprevious reviews of the impact of emotion regulation focus only onexperiential (self-report) measures of emotional experience, it isimportant to evaluate the impact of different dependent variableson the effectiveness of emotion regulation strategies. With this inmind, we report the sample-weighted average effects of eachemotion regulation strategy on each emotional outcome separately(as well as averaged across emotional outcomes).

Study characteristics.Sample characteristics. The type of sample also has the

potential to influence the effectiveness of emotion regulation.First, a considerable body of research attests to gender differences




in emotionality, with women typically reported to be more emo-tional (or at least to express more emotions) than men (Brebner,2003; for a review, see Brody & Hall, 1993). This difference couldimpact on the effectiveness of emotion regulation in one of twoways. On the one hand, women’s greater emotionality may meanthat women are more practiced at controlling their emotions. In

support of this idea, previous reviews found that women are betterat emotion regulation than men (e.g., Augustine & Hemenover,2009). On the other hand, women’s emotions may more intense(Fujita, Diener, & Sandvik, 1991) and so be more difficult tocontrol. A second sample characteristic that may moderate effectsizes is age. Specifically, there are subtle differences in emotionalexperience and expression between older and younger people(Levenson, Cartensen, Friesen, & Ekman, 1991), which may meanthat the age of the sample influences the effect sizes. In summary,the present review investigates the impact of two sample charac-teristics on the effectiveness of emotion regulation: (a) percentageof women participants and (b) age of the sample.

Publication status. Finally, the publication status of respec-tive studies may influence effect sizes. On the one hand, studieswith large effect sizes may have a better chance of publicationcompared with studies with small or nonsignificant effects (the“file drawer problem”; Rosenthal, 1979). On the other hand, un-published studies may use less rigorous procedures that produceeffect sizes larger than those reported in published research. Giventhese possibilities, it is important to compare effect sizes forpublished versus unpublished studies.

The Present Research

The present research used meta-analysis to quantify differences ineffectiveness between and within emotion regulation processes de-rived from the process model (Gross, 1998a, 1998b). A taxonomy of

emotion regulation processes, strategies, and strategy subtypes wasdeveloped by combining theoretical frameworks with careful exami-nation of the way that empirical studies define and implement theseprocesses in their instructions to participants. By so doing, we wereable to distinguish seven types of attentional deployment, four typesof cognitive change, and four types of response modulation. Weadopted an inclusive approach to the empirical literature by includingvirtually all types of experimental study (e.g., between- and within-participants designs, with and without emotion induction) and inves-tigating the impact of emotion regulation strategies on a comprehen-sive set of emotional outcomes (i.e., experiential, behavioral, andphysiological measures). Our aim was to determine which emotionregulation strategies are most effective and to identify moderators of strategy effectiveness.

Method

Selection of Studies

The sample of studies was generated via three methods: (a) acomputerized search of social scientific databases (via Web of Knowledge, PsycINFO, Dissertation Abstracts International) for arti-cles published before January 1, 2010, using the search terms mood emotion AND reapprais suppress distract ruminat mindful accep-tance (articles had to include respective terms in either the title,abstract or keywords); (b) reference lists in each article were evaluated

for inclusion (ancestry approach; Johnson, 1993); and (c) authors of unpublished theses were contacted and requests were made for data.The literature search identified 12,740 articles and theses.

There were four inclusion criteria for the meta-analysis. First,studies had to employ an experimental design and recruit a human,nonclinical sample. Studies in which participants were selected to

take part on the basis of scoring at a clinical level on a scale or onthe basis of a past mood-related disorder were not eligible becausethere is evidence that emotion regulation processes among clinicalsamples are somewhat different (e.g., rumination is especiallyproblematic when participants are already in a dysphoric mood; fora review, see Watkins, 2008), and such studies have been reviewedelsewhere (Aldao et al., 2010; Kring & Werner, 2004; Southam-Gerow & Kendall, 2002; Taylor & Liberzon, 2007). We did notexplicitly exclude studies focusing on the development of emotionregulation, but only four of the included studies recruited partici-pants with an average age younger than 18 years (Ceschi &Scherer, 2003; Leen-Feldner, Zvolensky, & Feldner 2004;Levesque et al., 2004; Park, Goodyer, & Teasdale, 2004). Devel-

opmental issues pertaining to emotion regulation have also beenreviewed elsewhere (Skinner & Zimmer-Gembeck, 2007;Southam-Gerow & Kendall, 2002).

Second, studies had to manipulate (rather than measure) emo-tion regulation (ER), using a form of attentional deployment,cognitive change, or response modulation. Studies on thoughtsuppression were judged to be relevant if the valence of thethoughts to be suppressed was at issue. For example, studies thatasked participants to suppress a neutral thought such as “whitebears” were excluded (e.g., Wenzlaff, Wegner, & Klein, 1991), butstudies that asked participants to suppress a personally relevantnegative thought (e.g., Borton, 2002) or to suppress thoughts aboutan emotion-inducing stimulus (e.g., Harvey & Bryant, 1998) wereincluded. Due to the relative paucity of research directing partic-ipants to regulate their emotions in an automatic fashion (to ourknowledge, there are just two such studies: Mauss, Cook, & Gross,2007; Williams, Bargh, Nocera, & Gray, 2009), only studies thatinstructed participants to regulate their emotions in a controlledmanner were included in the present review.

Third, the instructions that were provided to participants werereported in the paper, or we were able to obtain the instructionsfrom the authors. This was important because we wanted to codethe nature of the instructions that participants were actually given,rather than the authors’ label for that strategy, as this was a keyconceptual aim of the research. Fourth, a measure of emotionneeded to be taken following the instructions. Acceptable mea-sures were self-reports of emotional state, physiological measures(e.g., cardiovascular measures, skin conductance, or EMG), mea-sures of expressive behavior (including observer-ratings), and im-plicit measures of emotion (e.g., sentence completion tasks). Stud-ies investigating the neural correlates of emotion regulation wereexcluded because it was deemed too difficult to make a principleddecision about which brain regions should be more versus lessactivated for different regulation strategies and different to-be-regulated emotions; in other words, meaningful effect sizes couldnot be computed. However, many neuroimaging studies wereincluded as they also measured non-neural emotional outcomes(e.g., Goldin, McRae, Ramel, & Gross, 2008; Kalisch et al., 2006;Kim & Hamann, 2007; Kross, Davidson, Weber, & Ochsner, 2009;




Ochsner, Bunge, Gross, & Gabrieli, 2002; Ochsner et al., 2004;Urry, van Reekum, Johnstone, & Davidson, 2009).

Figure 2 shows the flow of information through the review, and anasterisk precedes each of these reports in the reference list. Of the12,740 articles and theses identified by the search, 207 studies met theinclusion criteria. We were able to compute precise effect sizes for

170 studies (82%) on the basis of information in the report or corre-spondence with authors. For a further 20 studies (10%), we had toestimate some or all values based on summary statistics or the sig-nificance levels reported. Forexample, if theeffect was nonsignificantwe assumed zero difference ( d 0.00). If the effect was significant at p .05 we used the smallest value of d (given the sample size) thatwas significant at this level of alpha (Lipsey & Wilson, 2001). 2 Thefinal 17 studies (for which we could neither compute precise effectsizes nor estimateeffects)were excluded from the review, leaving 190studies included in the meta-analysis.

Selection of Comparisons Within Studies

Two types of comparisons were deemed to provide usefulinformation about the effects of different ER strategies: (a) acomparison between participants who were given regulation in-structions (experimental condition) and participants who weregiven alternative instructions (either another experimental condi-tion or a control condition) or (b) a within-participants comparisonbetween trials where participants were given regulation instruc-tions and trials where participants were given alternative instruc-tions. Where experiments included manipulations of more than oneER strategy or more than one control condition, we included allrelevant comparisons. Where possible, we compared each ERstrategy with each control strategy. However, if no control strategywas included, we compared the experimental strategies with eachother. In this latter instance, comparisons were duplicated so that

they contributed to the effect size calculation for both strategies;the advantage of this approach is that data on the relative effec-tiveness of the second strategy were not lost. For example, Wat-kins, Cruz, Holben, and Kolts (2008) found that reappraising theemotional stimulus led to better emotional outcomes than didconcentrating on feelings. In the present analysis, this effect sizecounted as a positive effect size for reappraising the emotionalstimulus ( d 0.24) and a negative effect size for concentratingon feelings ( d 0.24).

Whenever multiple comparisons from one experiment led to thesame participants being represented in more than one effect size,we adjusted the N for each group accordingly when calculating thestandard error (i.e., if control instructions were compared to bothreappraisal instructions and suppression instructions, we computedeffect sizes for both comparisons but halved the N for the controlgroup when calculating the standard error; see Higgins & Green,2009). In total, the 190 studies provided k 306 separate com-parisons between different affect regulation strategies. Table 2presents the characteristics and effect sizes for each comparison.

Calculation of Effect Sizes From Comparisons

Some ER instructions aimed at improving affect, whereas others wereintended to worsen affect. Thus, wedid not code our effect sizes in termsof hedonic success (i.e., a decrease in negative affect or increase inpositive affect). Instead, we calculated effect sizes in terms of regulation

success according to the strategy’s aims. For example, if a strategy wasintended to reduce anger, the data were coded such that a positive effectsize represented a reduction in the experiential, physiological, or behav-ioral components of anger. If a strategy was intended to increase anger,thedatawerecoded such that a positiveeffectsizerepresented an increasein these components of anger. This coding strategy is consistent with

contemporary frameworks for conceptualizing emotion regulation pro-cesses (e.g., Koole, 2009), which accommodate instances where peoplemay regulate their emotions in a contra-hedonic manner (e.g., to satisfygoal- or person-oriented functions; see also, Tamir, 2009; Tamir et al.,2007, 2008; Tamir & Ford, 2009). 3

The effects of ER instructions were evaluated with respect to threedifferent types of dependentvariables: experiential, physiological, andbehavioral outcomes. If an experiment measured multiple dependentvariables within each category (e.g., more than one experiential vari-able), we used the emotion targeted by the emotion induction in orderto identify which dependent variable provided the best reflection of the effect in question. For example, Quartana and Burns (2007)investigated anger regulation and anxiety regulation in two separate

groups of participants, who were each given separate inductions.However, anger and anxiety were measured in both groups. Thus, wecomputed the effect size for the effect of anger regulation on self-reports of anger and computed the effect size for the effect of anxietyregulation on self-reports of anxiety. 4

The selection of physiological dependent measures was morecomplex, as a wide range of physiological measures was usedacross studies (e.g., electrodermal measures, electomyographi-cal measures [EMG], measures of cardiovascular and auto-nomic nervous system activation) and it was sometimes diffi-

2 Meta-regression suggested that the inclusion versus exclusion of esti-mated effect sizes did not influence the average effect sizes derived from

the empirical studies ( 0.07, SE .11, 95% CI 0.29 to 0.15).3 Consistent with the idea that effect sizes were not unduly influenced by

the decision to code regulation success rather than hedonic success, theoverall effects of emotion regulation strategies on experiential, behavioral,and physiological measures were similar for studies that instructed partic-ipants to regulate in either a hedonic or a counter-hedonic manner ( d 0.25, 0.73, and 0.07; k 282, 62, and 83, respectively) and studies thatused hedonic emotion regulation instructions only ( d 0.25, 0.59, and

0.07; k 263, 50, and 80, respectively).4 To investigate whether our decision to exclude nontarget effects influ-

enced effect size estimates, we examined the effect of including all mea-sures of emotion employed in the primary studies in our effect sizecomputations. Homogeneity analyses showed that the effect size for reg-ulation on experiential and physiological measures ( d 0.25 and 0.07,respectively) was similar when all measures were included ( d 0.22 and

0.04, respectively; Qs 1.75, ps .19). The effect of regulation onbehavioral measures ( d 0.73) showed a trend toward being reducedwhen all measures were included ( d 0.64, Q 3.59, p .06). Theoverall effects of distraction, concentration, cognitive change, and responsemodulation ( d 0.27, 0.26, 0.36, and 0.16, respectively) were alsocomparable when all measures were included ( d 0.23, 0.23, 0.35, and0.13, respectively), and homogeneity analyses showed that effects weresimilar for each strategy ( Qs 0.90, ps .34) regardless of choice of emotional outcomes. In summary, the decision to focus on the effect of regulation on the target emotional outcome (rather than all emotionaloutcomes) did not have a substantial impact on effect sizes. However, wewould argue that the effect of regulation on target emotional outcomesrepresents the most precise estimate of each strategy’s effectiveness.




cult to determine whether the findings reflected success orfailure at ER. As before, where the expected direction of effectwas clearly stated in advance, we used this information todetermine our selection of variables and to code the direction of the effect. However, where hypotheses were not stated in ad-vance, effect sizes were computed on the basis of prior evidenceon the expected direction of effect for the induced emotion(review by Kreibig, 2010). In this way, we ensured that ourcomputed effect sizes represented valid measures of emotionaloutcomes.

Where outcomes were measured at multiple timepoints, weused data from the ER period (e.g., physiological measures of

experience during regulation) or the nearest timepoint after theER period (e.g., self-report measures completed after the reg-ulation attempt). Where there were multiple time points withinthe ER period (e.g., Borton & Casey, 2006) or values werereported for multiple ER periods (e.g., Hunt, 1998), an averageeffect size was computed prior to inclusion in the main data set.

Coding

The first and second author independently coded the ERstrategy employed by the experimental and control conditions.There was a high level of agreement ( 0.86), and disagree-ments were resolved by discussion. The second author and two

independent coders also coded each study for the followingcharacteristics: (a) the sample size for experimental and controlgroups; (b) the emotion being regulated (negative affect, posi-tive affect, amusement, anger, anxiety, disgust, pain, sadness,mixed, other, or none specified); (c) whether the study includedan emotion induction; (d) the nature of the emotion induction,if applicable (pictures, film, verbal or written instructions,failure feedback, past experience or personally relevantthought, pain or shock, stressor task, no manipulation); (e)whether the ER instructions were given to participants before orafter the induction; (f) whether the ER instructions were in-tended to regulate emotion in a hedonic or contra-hedonic

direction; (g) the number of trials of regulation; (h) whether thestudy compared the effect of ER instructions on a within-groupsor between-groups basis; (i) whether participants were informedthat they were being observed; (j) age of participants; and (k)percentage of women participants. To assess interrater reliabil-ity, we calculated Pearson’s r for the continuous variables andcalculated kappa for the categorical variables. Prevalence-adjusted bias-adjusted kappas were used for the dichotomousvariables (Byrt, Bishop, & Carlin, 1993), as these typically hadan unbalanced distribution of values across the two categories.Reliability was good for both measures (mean r .83, range.79–.88; mean 0.90, range 0.68–1.00).

Figure 2. Flow of information through the different phases of the review.




Table 2Characteristics and Effect Sizes for Studies Included in the Meta-Analysis

Study ExperimentEmotioninduction

Experimentalstrategy

Controlstrategy N E N C

Effect sizes included

Experiential Behavioral Physiological

Arch & Craske (2006) 1 Negative affect D4 Cont1 20 20 0.51 0.00Arch & Craske (2006) 1 Negative affect D4 Cont3 20 20 0.73 0.00Ayduk & Kross (2008) 1 Anger R3 C1 39 42 0.74 0.66Ayduk et al. (2002) 1 Negative affect R3 Cont1 88 100 0.44Ayduk et al. (2002) 1 Negative affect C1 Cont1 85 100 0.02Banks et al. (2007) 1 Negative affect R2 Cont5 14 1.83Bates (2007) 1 Negative affect S4 Cont1 19 20 0.16Bates (2007) 1 Negative affect D2 Cont1 19 20 0.20Bates (2007) 1 Negative affect C1 Cont1 19 20 0.31Baumeister et al. (1998) 3 Mixed S4 Cont5 15 15 0.00Beauregard et al. (2001) 1 Sexual arousal R3 Cont4 10 1.83Beevers & Meyer (2008) 1 Negative affect S3 Cont1 16 16 0.00Beevers & Scott (2001) 1 Mixed S3 Cont1 79 79 0.34Blackhart & Kline (2005) 1 Sadness D4 C1 51 40 0.10Blagden & Craske (1996) 1 Anxiety D4 C3 12 10 0.80Bonanno et al. (2004) 1 Mixed S1 Cont4 101 0.00 1.36Bonanno et al. (2004) 1 Mixed S1 Cont3 101 0.00 2.59Borton (2002) 2 Negative affect S3 Cont1 27 25 0.30Borton (2002) 2 Negative affect D1 Cont1 27 25 0.21Borton (2002) 2 Negative affect C1 Cont1 24 25 0.35Borton & Casey (2006) 1 Negative affect S3 Cont1 25 23 0.54Borton et al. (2005) 1 Negative affect S3 Cont1 30 31 0.44Broderick (2005) 1 Sadness D4 C2 61 55 0.67Broderick (2005) 1 Sadness R1 D4 61 61 0.29Broderick (2005) 1 Sadness R1 C2 61 55 0.92Buck et al. (2009) 1 Anxiety R2 Cont1 31 30 0.21Buck et al. (2009) 1 Anxiety D3 Cont1 29 30 0.04Burns (2006) 1 Pain S2 Cont1 26 26 0.19 0.38Burns (2006) 1 Pain D3 Cont1 26 26 0.37 0.07Burns et al. (2008) 1 Disgust S4 Cont1 34 32 0.12Burns et al. (2007) 1 Anger S2 Cont2 31 32 0.28Burns et al. (2007) 1 Anger S1 Cont2 31 32 0.10Burns et al. (2007) 1 Anxiety S2 Cont2 31 32 0.36

Burns et al. (2007) 1 Anxiety S1 Cont2 31 32 0.43Bushman (2002) 1 Anger D4 Cont1 100 100 0.10 0.17Bushman et al. (2005) 1 Anger D4 C2 14 14 1.05Bushman et al. (2005) 1 Anger D2 C2 14 14 1.18Bushman et al. (2005) 1 Anger D2 D4 14 14 0.11Butler et al. (2003) 1 Negative affect R2 Cont1 12 12 0.21 1.02 0.16Butler et al. (2003) 1 Negative affect S1 Cont1 12 12 0.32 1.00 0.09Butler et al. (2007) 2 Negative affect S1 Cont1 29 31 0.54Butler et al. (1995) 1 Negative affect C3 Cont1 11 11 1.18Butler et al. (2006) 1 Negative affect S1 Cont1 33 131 0.03 1.25 0.15Butler et al. (2006) 1 Negative affect R2 Cont1 33 131 0.51 1.53 0.00Ceschi & Scherer (2003) 1 Amusement S1 Cont1 32 32 0.85Chapman et al. (2009) 1 None R1 S4 39 0.47Coats (2008) 1 Sadness R2 Cont1 26 26 0.11Coats (2008) 1 Sadness S3 Cont1 26 26 0.46Colby et al. (1977) 1 Pain S1 Cont4 10 0.11Colby et al. (1977) 1 Pain S1 Cont3 10 0.46Cooney (2007) 1 None D4 C2 14 0.17Dalebroux et al. (2008) 1 Sadness D2 C1 25 25 1.00Dalebroux et al. (2008) 1 Sadness D4 C1 25 25 0.19Dalebroux et al. (2008) 1 Sadness D2 D4 25 25 0.91Dalgleish & Yiend (2006) 1 Negative affect S3 Cont1 11 10 0.24Dalgleish et al. (2009) 1 Negative affect S2 Cont4 16 0.29Dalgleish et al. (2009) 1 Negative affect S2 Cont3 16 0.02Davis et al. (2009) 1 Negative affect S1 Cont1 23 35 0.57 0.50Davis et al. (2009) 1 Negative affect D4 Cont1 23 35 0.05 0.55Degen (2008) 1 Anxiety R1 D4 60 60 0.20Delgado et al. (2008) 1 Anxiety D2 Cont4 12 0.66Demaree, Robinson, et al. (2006) 1 Amusement S1 Cont3 20.5 20.5 0.34 1.62 0.33Demaree, Robinson, et al. (2006) 1 Disgust S1 Cont3 20.5 20.5 0.49 1.40 0.13




Table 2 ( continued )






Demaree, Schmeichel, et al. (2006) 1 Disgust S1 Cont4 20 15 0.06 0.26 0.17Demaree, Schmeichel, et al. (2006) 1 Disgust S1 Cont3 20 17 0.38 1.95 0.19Denson et al. (2009) 1 Anger D4 C1 16 16 0.01Denson et al. (2009) 1 Anger D4 C2 16 16 0.39Denson et al. (2009) 1 Anger C1 C2 16 16 0.36Deveney & Pizzagalli (2008) 1 Negative affect R3 Cont3 26 0.15Deveney & Pizzagalli (2008) 1 Negative affect R2 Cont3 26 0.09Dillon et al. (2007) 1 Negative affect R3 Cont4 37 0.45Dillon et al. (2007) 2 Negative affect S1 Cont4 36 0.09Dillon et al. (2007) 2 Negative affect R3 Cont4 36 0.56Dodrill (2005) 1 Negative affect C3 C1 23 20 0.15 0.02Donaldson & Lam (2004) 1 None D4 C3 18 18 0.53Dunn et al. (2009) 1 Negative affect R1 Cont1 30 30 0.09 0.02Ehring, Fuchs, & Klasener (2009) 1 Negative affect D4 C2 25 26 0.83 0.38Ehring, Szeimies, & Schaffrick (2009) 1 Negative affect D4 C2 27 28 0.69 0.22Eippert et al. (2007) 1 Negative affect R3 Cont4 24 0.30Erisman & Roemer (2010) 1 Negative affect R1 D4 15 15 0.67 0.32Farb et al. (2010) 1 Sadness R1 Cont1 20 16 0.00

Feldner et al. (2003) 1 Anxiety R1 S4 24 24 0.03 0.63Feldner et al. (2006) 1 Anxiety R1 S4 40 40 0.34 0.11Gerin et al. (2006) 1 Anger D4 Cont1 60 60 0.01Giuliani et al. (2008) 1 Amusement R2 Cont4 16 1.83 0.79 0.27Glynn et al. (2002) 2 Anxiety D4 Cont1 10 10 0.38Goldin, Manber-Ball, Hakimi, et al. (2009) 1 Negative affect R4 Cont4 17 1.40Goldin, Manber-Ball, Werner, et al. (2009) 1 Anxiety R2 C2 27 1.15Goldin et al. (2008) 1 Disgust R3 Cont1 17 1.24 0.60Goldin et al. (2008) 1 Disgust S1 Cont1 17 1.03 0.70Golub (2003) 1 Anger D4 C3 50 50 0.04Gross (1998a) 1 Disgust R3 Cont1 40 40 0.51 0.88 0.17Gross (1998a) 1 Disgust S1 Cont1 40 40 0.17 1.19 0.49Gross & Levenson (1993) 3 Disgust S1 Cont1 42 43 0.04 0.78 0.37Gross & Levenson (1997) 1 Sadness S1 Cont1 90 90 0.16 0.46 0.20Hagemann et al. (2006) 1 Negative affect S4 Cont1 89 79 0.04 0.46 0.12Hajcak & Nieuwenhuis (2006) 1 Negative affect R2 Cont1 14 0.21Harenski et al. (2009) 2 Negative affect R4 Cont4 10 1.24Harris (2001) 2 Embarrassment S1 Cont1 18 18 0.07 0.09 0.63Harvey & Bryant (1998) 1 Amusement S3 Cont1 12 12 0.15Harvey & Bryant (1998) 1 Negative affect S3 Cont1 12 12 0.19Harvey & Bryant (1999) 1 Negative affect S3 Cont1 48 48 0.48Hatzenbuehler et al. (2009) 2 Negative affect D3 C2 26 27 0.60Henry et al. (2007) 1 Amusement S1 Cont4 30 0.26 0.88Henry et al. (2007) 1 Amusement S1 Cont3 30 0.16 1.37Henry, Green, et al. (2009) 1 Amusement S1 Cont3 27 0.38 1.87Henry, Green, et al. (2009) 1 Amusement S1 Cont4 27 0.38 0.65Henry, Rendell, et al. (2009) 1 Amusement S1 Cont4 20 0.50 1.48Henry, Rendell, et al. (2009) 1 Amusement S1 Cont3 20 0.46 1.85Hofmann et al. (2009) 1 Anxiety R2 Cont4 68 67 0.47 0.33Hofmann et al. (2009) 1 Anxiety S1 Cont4 68 67 0.03 0.08Hofmann et al. (2007) 1 Mixed S2 Cont4 26 24 0.37Hood (2003) 1 Disgust S1 Cont1 25 25 0.01Hood (2003) 1 Disgust S3 Cont1 25 25 0.05Hood (2003) 1 Disgust R3 Cont1 25 25 0.28Hulse et al. (2007) 1 Negative affect D4 Cont1 32 32 0.06Hunt (1998) 1 Negative affect R2 C3 34 36 0.20Hunt (1998) 1 Negative affect D2 C3 34 33 0.12Hunt (1998) 1 Negative affect R2 D2 33 36 0.08Janeck & Calamari (1999) 1 Negative affect S3 Cont1 16 16 0.13Jimenez (2009) 2 None R1 Cont1 61 59 0.16Johns et al. (2008) 3 Anxiety R1 Cont1 19 19 0.40Joorman & Siemer (2004) 1 Negative affect D3 C3 31 29 0.45Joormann et al. (2007) 1 Sadness D2 D4 29 36 0.04Kalisch et al. (2005) 1 Anxiety D1 C1 18 1.72 0.57Kalisch et al. (2006) 1 Anxiety D3 Cont2 15 0.67 0.00

(table continue )










Kao et al. (2006) 1 None D4 C3 15 15 0.95Katz & Bertelson (1993) 1 Sadness D4 C1 32 32 1.79Kavanagh et al. (2001) 1 Negative affect D4 Cont1 18 0.81Kim & Hamann (2007) 1 Negative affect R4 Cont4 10 1.83Kingston et al. (2007) 1 Pain R1 D4 21 21 0.15Koenigsberg et al. (2009) 1 Negative affect R3 Cont3 16 1.74Koster et al. (2003) 1 Anxiety S3 Cont1 17 17 0.00Kross & Ayduk (2008) 1 Sadness R3 C1 48 48 0.46Kross & Ayduk (2008) 1 Sadness R3 D4 48 45 0.15Kross & Ayduk (2008) 1 Sadness D4 C1 45 48 0.61Kross et al. (2005) 1 Anger C1 C2 38 39 0.20Kross et al. (2009) 1 Negative affect R1 C1 24 0.40Kross et al. (2009) 1 Negative affect R1 C2 24 1.27Kross et al. (2009) 1 Negative affect C1 C2 24 0.82Kuehner et al. (2007) 1 Sadness D3 C3 21 21 1.22Kuehner et al. (2009) 1 Sadness R1 D3 20 20 0.43 0.45Kuehner et al. (2009) 1 Sadness D3 C3 20 20 1.00 0.37Kuehner et al. (2009) 1 Sadness R1 C3 20 20 0.26 0.06

Kunzmann et al. (2005) 1 Disgust S1 Cont1 47 0.00 0.71 0.14Kunzmann et al. (2005) 1 Disgust S1 Cont3 47 0.00 1.09 0.03Lauren (2006) 1 Anger D3 C3 15 15 0.37Lauren (2006) 1 Anxiety D3 C3 15 15 0.58Lauren (2006) 1 Sadness D3 C3 15 15 0.45Leen-Feldner et al. (2004) 1 Anxiety R1 S4 48 47 0.56 0.01Levesque et al. (2003) 1 Sadness R3 Cont4 20 1.83Levesque et al. (2004) 1 Sadness R3 Cont4 14 0.79Low et al. (2008) 1 Anxiety R1 C3 25 26 0.25 0.56Low et al. (2008) 1 Anxiety R3 C3 30 26 0.16 0.30Low et al. (2008) 1 Anxiety R3 R1 30 25 0.16 0.30Lu & Stanton (2009) 1 None R4 D4 33 30 0.05Lu & Stanton (2009) 1 None D4 C1 30 30 0.15Lu & Stanton (2009) 1 None R4 C1 33 30 0.09Lyubomirsky & Nolen-Hoeksema (1993) 1 None D4 C3 18 17 0.24Lyubomirsky & Nolen-Hoeksema (1993) 4 None D4 C3 18 18 0.30Lyubomirsky & Nolen-Hoeksema (1995) 1 None D4 C3 18 18 0.34Lyubomirsky et al. (1998) 1 None D4 C3 18 18 0.83Lyubomirsky et al. (1998) 2 None D4 C3 12 12 0.23Lyubomirsky et al. (1998) 3 None D4 C3 17 16 0.62Lyubomirsky et al. (1998) 4 None D4 C3 10 10 0.70Lyubomirsky et al. (2003) 1 None D4 C3 30 16 0.21Lyubomirsky et al. (2003) 2 None D4 C3 13 13 0.40Lyubomirsky et al. (2003) 3 None D4 C3 17 15 0.14Lyubomirsky et al. (2006) 3 Positive affect C1 C2 55 57 0.05Lyubomirsky et al. (1999) 1 None D4 C3 22 23 0.26Lyubomirsky et al. (1999) 3 None D4 C3 13 12 0.06 0.18Magee & Zinbarg (2007) 1 Negative affect S3 Cont1 10 10 0.01 0.13Magee & Zinbarg (2007) 1 Negative affect C1 Cont1 10 10 0.18 1.16Martijn et al. (2002) 1 Disgust S1 Cont1 17 16 0.00Masuda et al. (2010) 1 Negative affect R2 Cont1 31 34 1.12Masuda et al. (2010) 1 Negative affect D3 Cont1 38 34 0.50McCanne & Anderson (1987) 1 Negative affect S1 Cont1 30 0.45McCanne & Anderson (1987) 1 Negative affect S1 Cont3 30 0.07McCanne & Anderson (1987) 1 Positive affect S1 Cont1 30 1.30McCanne & Anderson (1987) 1 Positive affect S1 Cont3 30 0.77McClelland et al. (2009) 1 Anger D4 Cont1 102 0.39 0.01McLaughlin, Borkovec, & Sibrava (2007) 1 Negative affect C1 Cont3 30 30 0.14McLaughlin, Borkovec, & Sibrava (2007) 2 Negative affect C1 Cont3 109 0.31McLaughlin, Mennin, & Farach (2007) 1 Sadness D4 Cont3 15 14 0.13McLaughlin, Mennin, & Farach (2007) 1 Sadness D2 Cont3 15 14 0.06McRae et al. (2010) 1 Negative affect D4 Cont4 18 0.90McRae et al. (2010) 1 Negative affect R2 Cont4 18 1.33McRae et al. (2008) 1 Negative affect R2 Cont1 25 1.44Menchola (2008) 1 Negative affect R3 Cont1 41 40 0.14 0.06Menchola (2008) 1 Negative affect S1 Cont1 41 40 0.72 0.03










Moberly & Watkins (2006) 1 Anxiety C1 C2 27 27 0.25Morrison & O’Connor (2008) 1 Negative affect D4 C1 20 20 0.41Morrison & O’Connor (2008) 1 Positive affect D4 C1 20 20 0.03Morrow & Nolen-Hoeksema (1990) 1 Sadness D4 C2 17 17 1.32Morrow & Nolen-Hoeksema (1990) 1 Sadness D4 C1 17 17 1.46Morrow & Nolen-Hoeksema (1990) 1 Sadness C1 C2 17 17 0.66Moulds et al. (2007) 1 None D4 C3 27 29 0.59Muraven et al. (1998) 1 Negative affect S4 Cont1 20 20 0.00Muraven et al. (1998) 1 Negative affect S4 Cont3 20 20 0.00Najmi et al. (2009) 1 Anxiety R1 S3 20 0.38Najmi et al. (2009) 1 Anxiety S3 D1 20 0.22Najmi et al. (2009) 1 Anxiety R1 D1 20 0.20Nolen-Hoeksema & Morrow (1993) 1 None D3 C3 12 12 0.31Ochsner et al. (2002) 1 Negative affect R4 Cont4 15 1.49Ochsner et al. (2004) 1 Negative affect R2 Cont4 12 0.22Ochsner et al. (2004) 1 Negative affect R3 Cont4 12 1.43Ohira et al. (2006) 1 Negative affect S2 Cont4 10 0.08 0.12Ortner et al. (2007) 2 Negative affect R1 Cont1 21 24 0.66 0.09

Orzech et al. (2009) 1 None R1 Cont1 36 33 0.31Pace et al. (2009) 1 Anxiety R1 Cont1 33 28 1.83 0.18Park et al. (2004) 1 None D4 C3 33 0.30Pendergrass (2005) 1 Negative affect R2 Cont3 30 15 0.40Pendergrass (2005) 1 Negative affect R3 Cont3 30 30 0.04Phillips et al. (2008) 1 Negative affect S1 Cont4 32 32 0.13 0.96Phillips et al. (2008) 1 Negative affect D1 Cont4 31 32 0.88 0.54Pipe et al. (2009) 1 None R1 Cont1 15 17 0.33Purdon (2001) 1 Anxiety S3 Cont2 44 40 0.22Purdon & Clark (2001) 1 Anxiety S3 Cont2 38 35 0.09Purdon & Clark (2001) 1 Positive affect S3 Cont2 36 38 0.17Quartana & Burns (2007) 1 Anger S1 Cont2 35 34 0.21Quartana & Burns (2007) 1 Anger S2 Cont2 35 34 0.10Quartana & Burns (2007) 1 Anxiety S1 Cont2 35 34 0.16Quartana & Burns (2007) 1 Anxiety S2 Cont2 35 34 0.43Quartana et al. (2007) 1 Anger S2 Cont1 26 26 0.00Quartana et al. (2007) 2 Anger S2 Cont1 48 48 0.09Raes et al. (2008) 1 None C1 C2 102 93 0.18Ray et al. (2008) 1 Anger R3 C3 43 34 0.75Ray et al. (2008) 2 Anger R3 C3 55 61 0.64 0.08Richard (2006) 1 None R2 D4 60 60 0.16Richards & Gross (1999) 1 Negative affect S1 Cont1 29 29 0.25 1.75Richards & Gross (1999) 2 Negative affect S1 Cont1 41 44 0.24 1.04 0.17Richards & Gross (2000) 1 Negative affect S1 Cont1 25 28 0.00Richards & Gross (2000) 2 Negative affect R3 Cont1 22 41 0.63 0.55Richards & Gross (2000) 2 Negative affect S1 Cont1 20 41 0.37 0.79Richards & Gross (2006) 2 Negative affect S1 Cont1 40 91 0.34Richards & Gross (2006) 2 Negative affect D3 Cont1 44 91 0.46Richards et al. (2003) 1 Anxiety R2 Cont1 27 31 0.03 0.04Richards et al. (2003) 1 Anxiety S1 Cont1 56 56 0.12 0.78Rimes & Watkins (2005) 1 None C1 C2 15 15 0.24Roberts et al. (2008) 1 Disgust S1 Cont1 81 79 0.07 1.03 0.39Robinson & Demaree (2009) 1 Sadness S1 Cont4 102 0.00 0.03 0.24Robinson & Demaree (2009) 1 Sadness S1 Cont3 102 0.03 0.36 0.07Rohrmann et al. (2009) 1 Disgust R3 Cont1 48 24 0.24 0.19 0.12Rohrmann et al. (2009) 1 Disgust S1 Cont1 48 24 0.14 0.51 0.31Rosenzweig et al. (2003) 1 None R1 Cont1 140 162 0.20Rusting & DeHart (2000) 2 Negative affect R2 Cont1 20 20 0.00Rusting & DeHart (2000) 2 Negative affect C1 Cont1 20 20 0.00Rusting & Nolen-Hoeksema (1998) 3 Anger D4 Cont1 20 20 0.95Rusting & Nolen-Hoeksema (1998) 3 Anger C2 Cont1 20 20 1.18Santos (2008) 1 Negative affect R1 D4 26 61 0.16 0.14Santos (2008) 1 Negative affect R1 C2 26 21 0.13 0.09Santos (2008) 1 Negative affect D4 C2 61 21 0.26 0.21

(table continue )










Schmeichel et al. (2003) 2 Sadness S1 Cont1 18 19 0.23 1.35Schmeichel et al. (2008) 2 Amusement S1 Cont4 25 25 0.10 2.59Schmeichel et al. (2008) 3 Disgust R3 Cont4 35 36 0.48 0.71Sears & Kraus (2009) 1 None R1 Cont1 19 10 0.69Shamosh & Gray (2007) 1 Sadness S4 Cont1 28 29 0.00 0.71Shapiro et al. (1998) 1 None R1 Cont1 37 41 0.50Sheppes & Meiran (2007) 1 Sadness R3 Cont4 30 30 1.33Sheppes & Meiran (2007) 1 Sadness D3 Cont4 30 30 0.81Sheppes & Meiran (2007) 2 Sadness R3 Cont4 40 20 1.75Sheppes & Meiran (2007) 2 Sadness D3 Cont4 20 20 1.83Sheppes & Meiran (2008) 1 Sadness R3 D3 23 22 0.00Sheppes et al. (2009) 1 Sadness R3 Cont5 15 14 1.08 0.63Sheppes et al. (2009) 1 Sadness D3 Cont5 15 14 0.79 0.17Shiota & Levenson (2009) 1 Disgust S1 Cont4 144 0.25 0.58Shiota & Levenson (2009) 1 Negative affect R2 Cont4 76 0.09 0.07Shiota & Levenson (2009) 1 Negative affect R3 Cont4 68 0.39 0.27Smyth et al. (2001) 1 Negative affect C1 C3 39 39 0.07Takagi & Ohira (2004) 1 Negative affect S3 C1 8 8 0.49

Trask & Sigmon (1999) 1 Negative affect D4 C2 38 0.51Urry (2001) 1 Disgust R3 Cont1 20 20 1.64 0.20Urry (2001) 1 Disgust S1 Cont1 20 20 0.81 0.03Urry (2009) 1 Negative affect R2 Cont2 41 0.34 0.01Urry (2010) 1 Negative affect R2 Cont4 54 0.29 0.10Urry et al. (2009) 1 Negative affect R2 Cont3 26 0.47Van Dillen & Koole (2007) 1 Negative affect D4 Cont1 38 0.62Van Dillen & Koole (2007) 3 Negative affect D4 Cont1 40 0.26Vassilopoulos (2005) 1 Anxiety D4 C3 40 40 1.06Vassilopoulos (2008) 1 None C1 C2 14 15 0.20Vassilopoulos & Watkins (2009) 1 None C1 C2 21 20 0.37Vickers & Vogeltanz-Holm (2003) 1 None D3 C3 44 42 0.16Vohs & Schmeichel (2003) 1 Sadness S4 Cont4 13 13 0.13 0.32Vohs & Schmeichel (2003) 1 Sadness S4 Cont3 13 13 0.68 1.38Vohs & Schmeichel (2003) 2 Sadness R3 Cont4 17 16 0.15 0.60Vohs & Schmeichel (2003) 2 Sadness S4 Cont4 17 16 0.41 0.78Walser (1999) 1 Negative affect R1 S2 63 63 0.13Watkins (2004) 1 Negative affect C2 C1 35 34 0.16Watkins & Moulds (2005) 1 None C2 C1 20 20 0.21Watkins, Moberly, & Moulds (2008) 1 Negative affect C1 C2 20 20 0.73Watkins, Moberly, & Moulds (2008) 2 Negative affect D4 C2 21 21 0.42Watkins, Moberly, & Moulds (2008) 2 Negative affect D4 C1 21 21 0.36Watkins, Moberly, & Moulds (2008) 2 Negative affect C1 C2 21 21 0.87Watkins, Cruz, et al. (2008) 1 Negative affect R2 C1 51 42 0.24Watson & Purdon (2008) 1 Negative affect D3 Cont1 26 28 0.25Watson & Purdon (2008) 1 Negative affect D1 Cont1 29 28 0.34Williams et al. (2009) 1 Anxiety R3 Cont1 13 13 0.47Williams et al. (2009) 2 Anxiety R3 Cont1 16 16 0.37Wimalaweera & Moulds (2008) 1 Anger C2 C1 15 14 0.85Winters et al. (2009) 1 Amusement R3 Cont4 49 0.67Wong & Moulds (2009) 1 Anxiety D4 C3 23 23 0.36Yartz (2004) 1 Disgust R3 Cont1 28 0.83Yartz (2004) 1 Disgust S1 Cont1 28 0.05Zetsche et al. (2009) 1 Negative affect D4 C2 32 34 0.51Zinner (2009) 3 Negative affect R2 Cont1 28 28 0.24 0.12Zinner (2009) 3 Negative affect S1 Cont1 28 28 0.23 0.15

Note . N E number of participants in the experimental condition; N C number of participants in the control condition; D1 active positive distraction;D2 passive positive distraction; D3 active neutral distraction; D4 passive neutral distraction; C1 concentrate on feelings; C2 concentrate oncauses and implications; C3 concentrate–mixed; R1 reappraise emotional response; R2 reappraise emotional stimulus; R3 reappraise viaperspective taking; R4 reappraisal–mixed; S1 suppress the expression of emotion; S2 suppress the experience of emotion; S3 suppress thoughtsof the emotion-eliciting event; S4 suppression–mixed; Cont1 no instruction; Cont2 instructions not to regulate in a specific manner; Cont3 instructions to enhance emotions; Cont4 instructions to experience naturally; Cont5 control–mixed.




Meta-Analytic Strategy

Computations were undertaken using STATA Version 11 andComprehensive Meta-Analysis Version 2 (Borenstein, Hedges,Higgins, & Rothstein, 2005). Weighted average effect sizes ( d )were based on a random effects model because studies were likelyto be “different from one another in ways too complex to captureby a few simple study characteristics” (Cooper, 1986, p. 526).Within each measurement type (self-reported, behavioral, physio-logical), outlying effect sizes larger or smaller than 3 standarddeviations from the mean were replaced with the next most ex-treme value. Effect sizes were interpreted with Cohen’s (2002)guidelines. According to Cohen, d .20 should be considered a“small” effect size, d .50 is a “medium” effect size, and d .80is a “large” effect size.

The homogeneity Q statistic (Cochran, 1954) was used to eval-uate variability in effect sizes from the primary studies. When Q isstatistically significant the effect sizes are heterogeneous. Thehomogeneity Q statistic was also used to compare effect sizesbetween, for example, different emotion regulation strategies. In

particular, the effect sizes (and associated N ) were entered intoSchwarzer’s (1988) META program, which computed whether theeffect sizes were significantly different (i.e., heterogenous).

We used meta-regression (Thompson & Sharp, 1999) to evalu-ate 15 moderators of the effectiveness of ER strategies. Theadvantage of meta-regression is that continuous moderators (e.g.,age of sample) can be evaluated alongside categorical moderators(e.g., within- versus between-participants designs). For the meta-regressions, is the beta weight or coefficient assigned to thepredictor; t (and the associated p value) tests whether the betaweight is significantly different from zero.

Results

Effectiveness of Emotion Regulation Strategies:Between-Process Effect Sizes

Meta-analysis showed that there were differences in effective-ness between the ER processes defined by the process model (seeTable 3). The sample-weighted average effect of attentional de-ployment was d 0.00 with a 95% confidence interval from

0.07 to 0.07, based on 215 comparisons and a total sample sizeof 5,633. This means that attentional deployment had, on average,no reliable effect on emotional outcomes (the confidence intervalcontained zero). Separate analyses of effects on each type of emotional outcome showed that attentional deployment had noreliable effect on self-report measures ( d 0.00, 95% CI

0.08 to 0.07), physiological measures ( d 0.00, 95% CI .14 to .15), or behavioral measures of emotion ( d 0.12,

95% CI .40 to .16).The average effect of cognitive change on emotional outcomes

was small-to-medium ( d 0.36) with a 95% confidence intervalfrom 0.27 to 0.45, based on 99 comparisons and a total sample sizeof 3,570. Cognitive change had medium-sized effects on self-report (d 0.45, 95% CI 0.35 to 0.56) and behavioralmeasures of emotion ( d 0.55, 95% CI 0.26 to 0.85) but hadno reliable impact on physiological measures ( d 0.05, 95%CI 0.07 to 0.16). The effect of cognitive change on physio-logical measures was significantly smaller than the effects on

self-report, Q(1) 37.47, p .001, or behavioral measures,Q(1) 23.91, p .001. The effect of cognitive change onself-report and behavioral measures did not differ, Q(1) 1.10, p .294.

Finally, the average effect size for response modulation onemotional outcomes was small ( d 0.16) with a 95% confidence

interval from 0.09 to 0.24, based on 102 comparisons and a totalsample size of 4,539. Response modulation had no reliable effecton self-reported emotions ( d 0.03, 95% CI 0.03 to 0.10),a large effect on behavioral measures ( d 0.90, 95% CI 0.73to 1.08), and a small negative effect on physiological measures of emotion ( d 0.19, 95% CI 0.14 to 0.01). Effects on allthree types of measure were significantly different from one an-other: self-report versus physiological, Q(1) 15.93, p .001;self-report versus behavior, Q(1) 251.72, p .001; physiolog-ical versus behavior, Q (1) 282.90, p .001.

Finally, we compared the effectiveness of the three ER pro-cesses defined by the process model. Averaging across all emo-tional outcomes, cognitive change proved more effective thanattentional deployment, Q(1) 70.67, p .001, and responsemodulation, Q(1) 18.67, p .001. Response modulation, inturn, proved more effective than attentional deployment, Q(1) 17.68, p .001. A similar pattern held when the effectiveness of each strategy on self-report measures of emotion was examinedseparately. Cognitive change proved more effective than atten-tional deployment, Q(1) 106.00, p .001, and response mod-ulation, Q (1) 80.48, p .001. However, there was no reliabledifference between attentional deployment and response modula-tion, Q(1) 0.76, p .382. When it came to behavioral measuresof emotional outcomes, response modulation was a more effectivestrategy than cognitive change, Q(1) 10.91, p .001, andattentional deployment, Q(1) 116.15, p .001. Cognitivechange, in turn, proved more effective than attentional deploy-

ment, Q(1) 31.39, p .001. Finally for physiological measures,attentional deployment and cognitive change both had no reliableeffects, Q(1) 0.20, p .654, but both were significantly betterthan response modulation, which had a reliable negative effect,Qs(1) 5.13 and 10.18, ps .05, for the comparison withattentional deployment and cognitive change, respectively.

Effectiveness of Emotion Regulation Strategies:Within-Process Effect Sizes

Meta-analysis showed that there were also substantial differ-ences between ER strategies within the three ER processes spec-ified by the process model (attentional deployment, cognitivechange and response modulation; see Table 3). Within attentionaldeployment, ER strategies using distraction had a positive effecton emotional outcomes ( d 0.27), whereas ER strategies in-volving concentration had a negative effect ( d 0.26), Q(1)97.38, p .001. Whereas concentration had similar effects acrossdifferent types of emotion measures, Qs(1) 0.11, ps .745,distraction had a larger effect on self-report measures ( d 0.31)than on behavioral measures of emotion ( d 0.06), Q(1) 14.37, p .001, although the latter effect is based on only fourcomparisons. The effect of distraction on physiological measuresdid not differ reliably from the other two measurement types,Qs(1) 2.94 and 2.58, ps .09 and .11, for comparisons withself-report and behavioral measures, respectively.




Three of the four distraction strategies had a reliable positiveimpact on emotional outcomes ( d 0.47, 0.38, and 0.23 foractive positive, active neutral, and passive neutral, respectively).Passive positive distraction strategies did not have a reliable effecton emotional outcomes ( d 0.18, 95% CI .14 to .50).Averaging across neutral and positive distraction strategies, active

distraction strategies ( d 0.40, 95% CI 0.24 to 0.45) hadlarger effects than passive distraction strategies ( d 0.22, 95%CI 0.12 to 0.33), Q(1) 5.32, p .05. Averaging across activeand passive distraction strategies, positive distraction strategies(d 0.31, 95% CI 0.07 to 0.55) and neutral distractionstrategies ( d 0.27, 95% CI 0.18 to 0.37) both had reliablepositive effects on emotional outcomes that did not differ reliablyfrom each other, Q(1) 0.12, p .732.

The findings for concentration indicated that all three types of concentration had reliable negative effects on emotional experi-ence. Concentrating on feelings had a smaller negative effect(d 0.14) than concentrating on the causes and implications of feelings ( d 0.34), Q(1) 9.84, p .01, and mixed forms of

concentration ( d 0.36), Q(1) 8.65, p .001. The lattertwo types of concentration did not differ significantly from eachother, Q (1) 0.09, p .762.

Within the process of cognitive change, all types of reappraisalhad reliable positive effects on emotional outcomes. Reappraisingthe emotional response had a small-sized effect on emotionaloutcomes ( d 0.23), whereas reappraising the emotional stim-ulus (d 0.36) and using perspective taking ( d 0.45) bothhad small-to-medium-sized effects. The effect size for perspectivetaking was significantly larger than the effect size for reappraisingthe emotional response, Q(1) 10.67, p .01. The effect size forreappraising the emotional stimulus did not differ significantlyfrom the effect sizes for the other two strategies, Q(1) 3.04, p

.08. Mixed reappraisal strategies had a large effect on emotionaloutcomes ( d .89) that was significantly larger than all threeother types of reappraisal, Qs(1) 4.43, p .05. However, thiseffect size was based on just six studies and N 115 participantsand so should be treated with caution.

Finally, the findings for response modulation strategiesshowed that suppressing the expression of emotion had a small-to-medium-sized effect on emotional outcomes ( d 0.32). Incontrast, suppressing the experience of emotion, suppressingthoughts of the emotion-eliciting event, or suppressing both theexpression and the experience of emotions did not reliablyinfluence emotional outcomes ( d 0.04, 0.12, and 0.11,respectively). Suppressing the expression of emotion proved

more effective than all three of the other types of responsemodulation, Q (1) 6.40, p .05. Suppressing both the expe-rience and the expression of emotion was significantly moreeffective than suppressing thoughts of the emotion-elictingevent, Q(1) 5.58, p .05. None of the other categoriesdiffered significantly from each other, Q(1) 1.79, p .18.Again, the impact of expressive suppression was entirely due toeffects on behavioral measures ( d 0.97, 95% CI 0.73 to1.08). This strategy had only a very small positive effect onexperiential measures ( d 0.10, 95% CI 0.01 to 0.18) andhad a small negative effect on physiological indices of emotion(d 0.22, 95% CI 0.33 to 0.11).

Moderators of the Effectiveness of EmotionRegulation Strategies

We evaluated 15 study characteristics and methodological fac-tors as moderators of the effectiveness of ER strategies (see Table4). The nature of the focal emotion influenced effect sizes in

several ways: Strategies proved more effective in regulating pos-itive affect as compared to regulating neutral or negative affect( 0.29, p .01). This overall finding was driven primarily bystudies involving amusement (ER strategies had a larger effect onamusement than on other emotions, 0.50, p .001). Remov-ing the 12 studies on amusement reduced the effect of regulatingpositive versus nonpositive emotions to nonsignificance (

0.01, SE .16, 95% CI 0.32 to 0.31). ER strategies alsohad a larger effect on sadness than on other emotions ( .22, p .01).

The presence of an emotion induction had a significant bearingon effect sizes. Studies that included an emotion induction reportedlarger effects of ER strategies than studies not including an emo-tion induction ( 0.17, p .05). The nature of the emotioninduction was also influential. Participants were better at regulat-ing their emotional responses to pictures ( 0.25, p .001) andfilms ( 0.12, p .05) than other types of emotion inductionand poorer at regulating their emotional responses to failure feed-back compared to other types of emotion induction ( 0.24, p .01). Use (vs. non-use) of the other forms of emotion induction(film, verbal or written, past experience, stressful task) did notinfluence effect sizes ( s 0.09, ps .170). Whether the emotioninduction targeted a specific emotion or aimed to induce a generalpositive or negative mood did not influence the effectiveness of ER strategies ( 0.08, p .136), indicating that more diffuseemotions were not more difficult to regulate than more specificones. The timing of the ER instructions (before vs. after the

emotion induction) did not influence effect sizes ( 0.04, p.506), indicating that the opportunity to prepare a strategy inadvance was not advantageous for ER.

Both the direction of ER efforts and the number of ER attemptsmoderated effect sizes. First, effect sizes tended to be larger whenparticipants were regulating contra-hedonically (decreasing posi-tive affect or increasing negative affect), rather than when partic-ipants engaged in hedonic ER ( 0.44, p .001). In otherwords, ER was more effective when participants aimed to makethemselves feel worse, rather than better. Second, studies thatrequired participants to make more attempts to regulate theiremotions obtained larger effects than studies that required fewerregulation attempts ( 0.01, p .05).

In terms of design factors, three of the six different types of comparison condition influenced effect sizes. ER strategies tendedto have smaller effects when compared to a control condition givenno instructions ( 0.16, p .01) or instructions not to regulatein a specific manner ( 0.23, p .05) and larger effects whencompared to a control condition given instructions to experiencethe emotions naturally ( 0.35, p .001). The other forms of comparison condition (alternative experimental instructions, in-structions to enhance emotions, and mixed) did not influence effectsizes.

Two other design factors moderated the effect of ER strategieson emotional outcomes: (a) studies that adopted within-participants designs tended to report larger effects of ER strategies




than studies adopting between-participants designs ( 0.23, p .001), and (b) ER strategies had larger effects when partici-pants were informed that they were being observed ( 0.13, p.05). Finally, of the study characteristics, only the percentage of women participants influenced effect sizes ( 0.004, p .05);

studies with a higher proportion of women tended to find largereffects of ER instructions than studies with a higher proportion of men. Age of the sample did not influence effect sizes ( 0.002, p.543).

Publication Bias

We examined the distribution of our observed effect sizes inorder to assess the likelihood that effect sizes are biased due tounpublished studies with small and nonsignificant effect sizes. Thefunnel plot (see Figure 3) did not show signs of asymmetry, and anEgger’s regression (Egger, Davey Smith, Schneider, & Minder,1997) revealed no significant bias ( p .44). Fail-safe N

(Rosenthal, 1979) determined that 9,285 unpublished studies withzero effect sizes would have to exist in order to overturn theconclusion that emotion regulation significantly ( p .05) affectsemotional outcomes. As this number greatly exceeds Rosenthal’srecommended tolerance value of 5 n 10 (where n is the number

of effect sizes), our data appear to be resilient to any publicationbias.

Discussion

We investigated the effectiveness of emotion regulation (ER)strategies in modifying emotional outcomes. The rationale wastwofold: the need for (a) a taxonomy that can link conceptualframeworks with the way that these ER processes are defined andimplemented in empirical research and (b) a comprehensive re-view that incorporates the large number of experimental tests of the impact of ER processes on the full set of emotional outcomes.A systematic search of the literature identified 306 experimental

Table 4 Moderators of the Effectiveness of Emotion Regulation Instructions

ModeratorRegressioncoefficient

Standarderror k n 95% CI I 2 Adjusted R2

Factors relating to the emotion to be regulated

Nature of the focal emotion (absent, present):Any type of negative affect .063 .064 60, 246 2,997, 10,746 .19, .06 29.1% 0.05%Any type of positive affect .287 .106 286, 20 12,975, 768 .08, .50 27.5% 5.89%Anger .137 .086 282, 24 12,183, 1,561 .31, .03 27.7% 4.62%Anxiety .069 .075 269, 37 12,029, 1,714 .22, .08 29.2% 1.22%Sadness .222 .077 263, 43 12,017, 1,726 .07, .37 27.4% 5.13%Disgust .037 .087 282, 24 12,696, 1,047 .13, .21 29.2% 0.95%Amusement .501 .138 294, 12 13,397, 346 .23, .77 25.8% 15.7%

Presence of an emotion induction (absent, present) .174 .083 35, 271 1,890, 11,853 .01, .34 30.4% 3.47%Method of emotion induction (absent, present):

Pictures .250 .077 263, 43 12,316, 1,427 .10, .40 26.8% 8.49%Film .123 .053 216, 90 9,834, 3,901 .02, .23 27.6% 5.56%Verbal or written .036 .104 285, 21 12,861, 882 .17, .24 29.3% 1.88%Past experience or personally relevant thought .088 .064 246, 60 11,023, 2,721 .21, .04 29.0% 0.04%Failure feedback .242 .084 275, 31 12,171, 1,572 .41, .08 26.1% 11.22%Stressful task .088 .108 293, 13 13,024, 719 .30, .13 29.3% 2.09%

Specificity of emotion induction (general, specific emotion) .075 .051 159, 147 7,154, 6,589 .02, .17 29.1% 1.22%Timing of instructions (before induction, after induction) .039 .058 176, 95 7,329, 4,523 .15, .08 34.1% 1.12%Factors relating to the regulation strategyStrategy used to regulate hedonically (no, yes) .436 .106 21, 285 607, 13,136 .64, .23 25.2% 16.7%Number of regulation attempts (range 1–72) .006 .003 306 13,743 .00, .01 28.4% 0.16% Design factorsNature of the comparison condition (absent, present)

Alternative experimental instructions .042 .056 196, 110 8,966, 4,778 .07, .15 29.0% 0.35%No instructions .159 .050 198, 108 7,727, 6,016 .26, .06 26.9% 5.37%Instructions not to regulate in a specific manner .226 .105 293, 13 13,060, 683 .43, .02 28.5% 2.09%Instructions to enhance emotions .092 .101 280, 26 12,974, 769 .11, .29 29.2% 1.49%Instructions to experience the emotions naturally .348 .075 261, 45 12,334, 1,410 .20, .49 24.3% 15.35%Mixed control .075 .277 302, 4 13,655, 88 .47, .62 29.3% 0.83%

Design (within-participant, between-participant) .225 .067 77, 229 1,883, 11,860 .36, .09 27.3% 1.27%Participants informed they were being observed (no, yes) .130 .057 239, 67 10,623, 3,120 .02, .24 27.5% 8.54%Study characteristicsPercentage of women participants (range 0%–100%) .004 .001 300 13,265 .00, .01 27.8% 8.19%

Age of participants (range 8–81 years) .002 .004 232 10,730 .00, .01 35.0% 1.00%

Note. Columns k and n represent number of studies and number of participants, respectively. Where applicable, these are reported separately for each levelof the moderator variable (indicated in parentheses at the end of each moderator name). Where a variable is coded as “absent, present,” absent was codedas 0 and present was coded as 1; thus, a positive regression coefficient indicates that studies in which the variable was present had larger effect sizes, anda negative regression coefficient indicates that studies where that variable was present had smaller effect sizes. p .05. p .01. p .001.




comparisons of ER instructions against comparison instructions.We carefully coded the ER (and comparison) instructions used andlinked these to the ER processes as described by Gross’ (1998a,1998b) process model as well as other theoretical frameworks thatcan help to conceptualize within-process distinctions (e.g., Koole,2009; Mor & Winquist, 2002; Parkinson & Totterdell, 1999;Watkins, 2008). The outcome is a taxonomy (see Table 1) that wehope not only will help to contextualize existing research but alsoto shape the design of subsequent tests of ER strategies. The

taxonomy enabled us to distinguish between seven types of atten-tional deployment (four types of distraction and three types of concentration), four types of cognitive change, and four types of response modulation.

We then used meta-analysis to compare the effectiveness of thethree broad ER processes described by Gross’ (1998a, 1998b)process model. Cognitive change processes (strategies involvingreappraisal) had a small-to-medium sized effect on emotionalresponses ( d 0.36) that proved more effective than strategiesinvolving attentional deployment (distraction or concentration) orresponse modulation, which had no or small-sized effects onemotional responses ( d 0.00 and 0.16, respectively). Thedifferential effectiveness of these three broad families of ERprocesses supports the conceptual distinctions made by the processmodel as well as the distinction between cognitive reappraisal andexpressive suppression drawn by Koole (2009).

The finding that reappraisal is one of the most effective strate-gies for emotion regulation is consistent with the findings of previous reviews. Although Augustine and Hemenover (2009)found a larger effect of reappraisal ( d 0.68) than did thepresent review ( d 0.36), their finding was based on just twostudies, both with self-report measures of emotion. In contrast, oureffect size is based on a much larger number of empirical studies(k 99) and includes experiential, physiological, and behavioralmeasures of emotional outcomes. The effectiveness of reappraisalstrategies is also consistent with the findings of Aldao et al.’s

(2010) meta-analysis, which reported that reappraisal was nega-tively associated with symptoms of psychopathology (see alsoAldao & Nolen-Hoeksema, 2010, 2012). Furthermore, the (abso-lute) size of the effect reported by Aldao et al. ( r .14,equivalent to d 0.28) is similar to the effect that we found(d 0.36)—a finding that seems especially notable given thevery different evidence bases for these two reviews (i.e., correla-tional studies of the impact of trait emotion regulation on symp-toms of psychopathology vs. experimental studies of the impact of

ER instructions on emotional outcomes in nonclinical samples).The small effect of response modulation on emotional outcomes

is consistent with a large body of research attesting to the diffi-culties that people experience in suppressing their emotions andemotion-related thoughts (e.g., Gross & Levenson, 1993; Richards& Gross, 1999). Our findings fall between the (quite different)effects reported for suppression in reviews to date. Augustine andHemenover (2009) reported a very large positive effect of sup-pression (termed “inhibition”; d 2.02), though their estimatewas based on just two tests, both from a single study. In contrast,our effect size is based on a much larger number of empiricalstudies ( k 102). Aldao et al. (2010) quantified more than 50correlational tests of the effects of suppression on symptoms of psychopathology and found the opposite effect. That is, the ten-dency to suppress emotions proved detrimental in that it increasedsymptoms of psychopathology ( r .34, equivalent to d 0.72). In the present review, we argue that the effect of suppressionon emotional outcomes can only be understood by separating theeffect of suppressing the expression , rather than the experience , of emotion and by considering different outcome measures—issuesto which we will shortly return.

The zero effect of attentional deployment was more surprising,as we anticipated that attentional deployment would be an effec-tive way to regulate emotions because it occurs early in theemotion-generative process. Gross and Thompson (2007) suggestthat antecedent-focused strategies (e.g., attentional deployment)

Figure 3. Funnel plot of effect sizes from included studies.




are more effective than response-focused strategies. This unex-pected finding might be explained, however, by frameworks suchas Koole’s (2009) that point to distinctions within ER processes.Specifically, the overall effect size for attentional deployment wasa wash because strategies based on concentration had a negativeeffect whereas distraction strategies had a positive effect; that is,

the strategy subtypes pulled in different directions. Parallel find-ings were observed in relation to response modulation. Here theeffect size was inflated by the finding that people could control theexpression, but not the experience, of emotions. In short, variabil-ity in the effectiveness of strategy subtypes had an importantinfluence on the overall impact of the relevant ER process. Thus,there is value in distinguishing between specific strategies withinthe broader categories of ER processes.

Within the category of attentional deployment the benefits of distraction over concentration are consistent with previous reviews(e.g., Augustine & Hemenover, 2009), empirical studies that di-rectly compared the two strategies (e.g., Nolen-Hoeksema & Mor-row, 1993; Rusting & Nolen-Hoeksema, 1998), and reviews of the(negative) effects of repetitively thinking about emotional events(e.g., Mor & Winquist, 2002; Watkins, 2008; but note that Augus-tine & Hemenover, 2009, found a positive effect of rumination onemotional outcomes). Concentration draws attention to the emo-tional features of a situation and is therefore likely to re-immersethe individual in the recalled experience, heightening emotion (seereviews by Mor & Winquist, 2002; Nolen-Hoeksema, 2000). Ourfindings also point to distinctions between different forms of concentration. Concentrating on the causes and implications of feelings (rather than on feelings themselves) leads to even moresubstantial negative effects. This finding supports the distinctionbetween experiential processing (focusing on feelings) andconceptual-evaluative or analytical processing (focusing on causesand implications), where the latter is proposed to have more

negative effects (Watkins, 2004; Watkins & Teasdale, 2004).The present findings also identified differences between sub-

types of distraction. Specifically, passive distraction strategies(where participants are provided with materials or a task that isunrelated to the emotion or emotional stimulus) had small effectson emotional outcomes ( d 0.18 and 0.23, for passive positiveand passive neutral strategies, respectively), whereas active dis-traction strategies (where the onus is on participants to bring tomind something unrelated to the emotion or emotional stimulus toserve as a distraction) had small-to-medium-sized effects ( d 0.47 and 0.38, for active positive and active neutral strategies,respectively). The implication is that explicitly instructing partic-ipants to think about something unrelated to the emotion is moreeffective than simply providing a distracting task, perhaps becauseproviding a specific goal allows participants to apply self-regulatory effort (Locke & Latham, 1990). As relatively fewstudies investigated the effects of active distraction strategies ( k 6 and 20, for active positive and active neutral strategies respec-tively), especially on behavioral and physiological measures of emotion, this difference is an important avenue for future research.

Within the category of cognitive change, reappraising the emo-tional stimulus or using perspective taking had small-to-medium-sized effects on emotional responses ( d 0.45 and 0.36, respec-tively), and the former proved more effective than trying toreappraise emotional outcomes ( d 0.23). (The difference be-tween reappraising the emotional stimulus and reappraising emo-

tional outcomes did not reach significance.) Although severalauthors have pointed to conceptual distinctions between differentforms of cognitive change (e.g., Dunn et al., 2009; Ochsner et al.,2004; Ray et al., 2005), Augustine and Hemenover (2009) did notseparate different forms of reappraisal. Aldao et al. (2010), on theother hand, separated studies of acceptance from studies of reap-

praisal. Based on careful coding of the instructions given to par-ticipants in the primary research studies, acceptance was construedas a form of reappraising the emotional stimulus in the presentreview. This meant that studies prompting acceptance could beconsidered alongside other studies that invite participants to think about their emotional reaction differently (e.g., Johns, Inzlicht, &Schmader, 2008). The present taxonomy, therefore, provides animportant conceptual refinement to the process model and alsoprovides a means to integrate studies on mindfulness and accep-tance within a broader framework for understanding emotion reg-ulation.

The similar effectiveness of reappraising the emotional stimulusand using perspective taking observed here is consistent withempirical work that directly compared these two types of reap-praisal (e.g., Ochsner et al., 2004). It shows, importantly, that thefindings hold across 26 and 36 tests of reappraising the emotionalstimulus and using perspective taking, respectively. The smallerimpact of reappraising the emotional response may reflect the factthat studies investigating the effects of reappraising emotionaloutcomes typically instruct participants to accept or not to judgethe emotion. These instructions seem designed less to alter theintensity of the emotional experience and more to alter its signif-icance or implications for the person. It is perhaps not surprisingthat reappraising an emotional response has a smaller impact onemotional experience than reappraising the emotional stimulus orone’s relationship to it. Future research might profitably examinewhether reappraising the emotional response has a greater impact

on the duration of the emotional experience and how much emo-tions influence judgments or behavior as compared to the intensityof the feeling. Having said this, the finding that reappraising theemotional response had a small, positive effect on emotions standsin contrast to recent proposals that it may be counterproductive asan ER strategy (Dunn et al., 2009).

Useful distinctions were also drawn between different forms of response modulation. Specifically, whereas suppressing the ex-pression of emotion proved effective ( d 0.32), suppressing theexperience of emotion or thoughts of the emotion-eliciting eventdid not (d 0.04 and 0.12, respectively). These findings areconsistent with conceptual distinctions between expressive sup-pression, thought suppression, and experiential suppression. Koole(2009), for example, suggests that thought suppression and expres-sive suppression both serve goal-oriented functions but affectdifferent emotion-generating systems (attention in the case of thought suppression, the body in the case of expressive suppres-sion). The process model typically defines suppression as inhibit-ing emotion-expressive behavior while one is emotionally aroused(e.g., Gross, 1998a, 1998b; Gross & Levenson, 1993). Our find-ings suggest that this form of suppression is conceptually andempirically distinct from experiential suppression.

The findings for suppression are consistent with a growing bodyof research on the difficulty that people have suppressing thephysiological and experiential components of emotional experi-ence (e.g., Gross & Levenson, 1993; Quartana & Burns, 2007). In




contrast, people do seem able to regulate behavioral expressions of emotion, perhaps because of the importance of such regulation forsocial functioning. Emotions serve important social and commu-nicative functions (Parkinson, Fischer, & Manstead, 2005), and theexpression (and suppression) of emotions is also an important wayin which we attempt to shape the emotions of others (Niven,

Totterdell, & Holman, 2009). Thus, it is often imperative that wecan control our expression of emotion even if we find it difficult toregulate our actual feelings. This is not to say that expressivesuppression is necessarily adaptive. Our findings suggest thatexpressive suppression has a reliable negative effect on physio-logical measures of emotion. For example, Burns, Quartana, andBruehl (2007) found that expressive suppression instructions in-creased blood pressure during a cold pressor task, especially forparticipants who tended to regulate anger through overt expres-sion. Srivastava, Tamir, McGonigal, John, and Gross (2009) foundthat expressive suppression during the transition to college low-ered social support and social satisfaction and led students to feelless close to others. Srivastava et al.’s explanation for these det-rimental effects was that suppression may dissociate the personfrom their interaction partner, be detected by others (due to emo-tional “leakage”; Ekman & Friesen, 1969), or be cognitivelydemanding (Richards & Gross, 2000; Richards, Butler, & Gross,2003). In short, the present review shows that people are effectivein regulating their expression of emotion; how functional expres-sive suppression is for social interactions and what negative effectsthis strategy may have on emotional well-being in the long termwarrant further investigation.

What Factors Moderate the Effectiveness of EmotionRegulation Strategies?

The present review also identified several factors that moderate

the impact of ER strategies on emotional experience. These factorswere grouped into four domains: factors relating to the (a) to-be-regulated emotion, (b) regulation strategy, (c) study design, and (d)study characteristics. With respect to the focal emotion, someemotions proved harder to regulate than others. Effect sizes tendedto be larger when regulating positive rather than neutral or nega-tive affect. This finding was driven primarily by studies involvingamusement, and so further tests are needed to provide more de-finitive conclusions on this issue. Whether the to-be-regulatedemotion was anger, anxiety, or disgust did not influence effectsizes; however, studies that targeted sadness revealed larger effectsof emotion regulation. One interpretation of these findings mightbe that people find it easier to regulate amusement or sadness thanother forms of emotion, perhaps because these emotions are morefrequently encountered and regulated (see Wood & Neal, 2007, fora review on the development of habitual responding).

Studies that included an emotion induction exhibited largereffects of ER strategies than those not including an emotioninduction. This finding is consistent with other reviews (for ex-ample, Augustine & Hemenover, 2009, found that the worseparticipants felt after an affect induction, the more emotion repairwas exhibited). The implication may be that people flexibly stepup efforts as needed (Mischel, Cantor, & Feldman, 1996) and thatthe presence of an emotion induction provides an eliciting stimulusagainst which to direct these regulatory efforts. Without this stim-ulus, people may be less sensitive to the discrepancy between

desired and experienced emotion and so devote less effort toemotion regulation (Custers & Aarts, 2007). The nature of theemotion induction also influenced effect sizes; participants werebetter able to regulate their emotional responses to pictures andfilms but less able to regulate their emotional responses to failurefeedback. This finding supports the idea that emotions that result

from self-relevant information are more intense (Salas et al., 2011)and thus presumably are more difficult to regulate.

The timing of the ER instructions did not influence effect sizes.This finding appears to be inconsistent with the prediction made bythe process model that the effectiveness of regulatory effortsdepends on the extent to which the emotional response is allowedto unfold before the regulation attempt (the “generic timing hy-pothesis”; Gross, 1998a, 1998b, 2001; Gross & Thompson, 2007).Similarly, a recent review by Sheppes and Gross (2011) suggestedthat emotion-generative and emotion-regulatory processes com-pete such that regulation strategies that target early processingstages require minimal effort (because the full-blown emotionalresponse has not yet been triggered), whereas regulation strategies

that target later processing stages require effort that is proportionalto the intensity of the emotional response (referred to as the“process-specific timing hypothesis”).

So why did the timing of the ER instructions not moderate effectsizes in the present review? It is possible that people flexibly stepup their regulation efforts as needed. Cybernetic models of self-regulation, such as control theory (Carver & Scheier, 1982; Pow-ers, 1973), suggest that self-regulatory effort is a direct function of perceived rate of progress toward goals (see also Louro, Pieters, &Zeelenberg, 2007). When an emotional response has been trig-gered it may become clear to people that they are not successfullycontrolling their emotions, and so they are likely to invest addi-tional effort toward the regulatory goal (Gendolla & Silvestrini,2010, 2011; Silvestrini & Gendolla, 2011). Thus, more effort maybe devoted to regulating emotional responses that have alreadydeveloped, rather than responses that are merely anticipated in thefuture. Alternatively, the timing of the ER instructions mightinfluence how much attention participants pay to those instruc-tions. When delivered after an induction, regulation instructionsmay be given greater attention, or it might be clearer to theparticipants how they might use the strategy to deal with theiremotional experience. These two effects (deeper encoding of in-structions, strong belief in the efficacy of the instructions) mightserve to negate any additional difficulties that participants experi-ence implementing regulation strategies later, rather than earlier, inthe process of emotion generation. Each of these explanationswarrants further empirical examination.

In terms of factors relating to the regulation strategy, effect sizestended to be larger when participants were regulating contra-hedonically (decreasing positive affect or increasing negative af-fect) as compared to hedonically. This finding points to the im-portance of considering the function of the regulation inconceptualizing ER strategies. For example, Koole’s (2009)framework distinguishes hedonic needs (e.g., promoting pleasure,avoiding pain) from goal-oriented functions (e.g., up-regulate neg-ative affect to improve performance; Tamir, 2009; Tamir et al.,2007,2008; Tamir & Ford, 2009) and person-oriented functions(e.g., adjusting information processing to suit the demands of thetask; Rothermund et al., 2008). The implication is that greater




consideration of the function of ER strategies may be warranted inGross’ (1998a, 1998b) process model.

The present findings raise the question of why people are betterat contra-hedonic than hedonic regulation. Given that prototypicalexamples of emotion regulation typically involve down-regulatingemotions—keeping calm when provoked, stifling laughter at an-

other’s misfortune—one might have predicted that people wouldbe better able to regulate emotions in a hedonic direction becausethey have greater familiarity with and experience regulating affectin a hedonic direction. However, it may be that the greater novelty of contra-hedonic regulation led participants to exert more regulatoryeffort (Zaccaro & Lowe, 1985). Alternatively, contra-hedonic emo-tion regulation may be easier. Studies of contra-hedonic regulationtypically involve asking participants to down-regulate positiveaffect (16 out of the 21 studies of contra-hedonic regulation in thepresent review). There is evidence to suggest that people find iteasier (Kim & Hamann 2007; Mak et al., 2009) and less effortful(Ochsner et al., 2004) to regulate positive emotions, perhaps be-cause “positive emotion stimuli may be intrinsically more mallea-

ble than reactions to negative emotion stimuli” (Kim & Hamann,2007, p. 794). Niven, Totterdell, Sheeran, Miles, and Webb (2011)provided some preliminary evidence for this assertion, showingthat blood glucose levels (a measure of effort exerted) were moredepleted as a result of trying to improve affect (hedonic regulation)than trying to worsen affect (contra-hedonic regulation), especiallyfor people who have poor emotion control.

Several aspects of the study design also moderated the impact of ER strategies on emotional outcomes. The nature of the compar-ison conditions affected outcomes. We subdivided them into fivedistinct types: those providing (a) no instructions, (b) instructionsnot to regulate in a specific manner, (c) instructions to enhanceemotions, (d) instructions to experience emotions naturally, or (e)mixed control instructions. Three of these control conditions in-fluenced effect sizes. Emotion regulation strategies had smallereffects when compared to a control condition in which participantswere given no instructions or instructions not to regulate in aspecific manner and larger effects when compared to a controlcondition in which participants were given instructions to experi-ence the emotions naturally. Although the latter effect is intuitive(experiencing emotion naturally is the antithesis of regulation), thereason why ER strategies had smaller effects than control condi-tions with no instructions or instructions not to regulate in aspecific manner is less obvious. One possibility is that emotionregulation is so common that in many instances it represents the“default” strategy (cf. the debate over whether emotion generationcan be separated from emotion regulation; Gross & FeldmanBarrett, 2011; Kappas, 2011; Thompson, 2011). That is, whengiven no instructions, many participants may have simply dealtwith the emotional stimulus in their usual manner—by controllingtheir responses. In addition, ironic processes of mental control(Wegner, 1994) might help to explain the smaller effect of ERstrategies than of instructions not to regulate in a specific manner.That is, telling people not to regulate may have ironically pro-moted regulation by (at least some) participants (Wegner, Erber, &Zanakos, 1993). Although the nature of (three of the six) passivecontrol conditions influenced effect sizes, the amount of varianceexplained was relatively small (between 1 and 15%). This isreassuring—the choice of comparison conditions in studies of

emotion regulation does not have the substantial impact that it doesin other fields (e.g., de Bruin et al., 2010; Portnoy et al., 2008).

Other significant moderating effects observed here seem topoint to the importance of minimizing demand characteristics inER studies. Studies using within-participants designs found largereffects of emotion regulation than did studies adopting between-

participants designs. Within-participants designs reduce samplingerror and so potentially increase effect sizes, but such designs mayalso increase the likelihood that participants guess that the re-searcher is comparing the effects of two different ER strategies andact accordingly (Bastardi & Shafir, 1998; Tversky & Kahneman,1983). Thus, researchers using within-participants designs shouldbe especially careful to reduce potential bias by, for example,counterbalancing the order of conditions and minimizing interac-tion between experimenter and participant. Emotion regulationstrategies also had larger effects when participants were informedthat they were being observed, an effect that may again point topotential demand characteristics in such experiments (Kleck et al.,1976).

Finally, consistent with the findings of other reviews (e.g.,Augustine & Hemenover, 2009), studies with a higher proportionof women as participants exhibited larger effects of emotion reg-ulation on emotional experience than studies with a higher pro-portion of men as participants. In contrast to the considerableliterature on age-related changes in the regulation of emotions (fora review, see Charles & Carstensen, 2007), the age of participantsdid not influence effect sizes. However, relatively few studies inthe present review recruited older samples (although the range of reported ages was 8–81 years, the average age was between 18and 30 in 80% of the studies where age was reported), so thisfinding should be taken in the context of a predominance of theyoung, educated, middle-class participant that tends to predomi-nate in psychological research. Longitudinal research is needed to

clarify developmental processes in emotion regulation.

Limitations and Suggestions for Future Research

The strength of the taxonomy developed in the present researchis that it provides a means to organize the burgeoning number of empirical tests of ER strategies on emotional experience. How-ever, the taxonomy also reveals the current gaps in the empiricalliterature. For example, there are relatively few tests of activedistraction strategies, especially the effects of asking participantsto try to think of something positive ( k 6) or of the effects of suppressing feelings ( k 12; compared to k 56 tests of sup-pressing the expression of emotion). There is also a paucity of testsof particular strategies across different emotional outcomes. Lessthan half of the strategies reviewed here have been tested usingexperiential, behavioral, and physiological measures (at least twostudies of the effects of each strategy on each outcome). No studieshave tested the effects of passive positive distraction, active neutraldistraction, concentrating on causes and implications, reappraisingthe emotional response, or suppressing the experience of emotionon behavioral measures of emotion. Primary studies using thesestrategies and outcomes would seem to be a priority. In addition,there is a need for more studies that examine whether some ERstrategies are more effective for particular emotions than for others(the issue of affective specificity; Larsen, 2000). For example,Larsen (2000) suggested that suppression might be “more effective




for controlling affects with clear expressive components, such asangry moods, compared to affects that are not clearly expressive,such as loneliness” (p. 138). We were able to locate only a fewstudies that compared the effectiveness of a particular strategy inregulating different emotions (e.g., Quartana & Burns, 2007; Quar-tana, Yoon, & Burns, 2007), and further tests would be desirable.

Although emotion regulation involves both automatic and con-trolled processes, there were too few studies of automatic orimplicit emotion to permit inclusion in the present review. Auto-matic emotion regulation (AER) is defined as “goal-driven changeto any aspect of one’s emotions without making a consciousdecision to do so, without paying attention to the process of regulating one’s emotions, and without engaging in deliberatecontrol” (Mauss, Bunge, & Gross, 2007, p. 148). The only twostudies of AER that we could locate showed that priming suppres-sion (Mauss, Cook, & Gross, 2007) and reappraisal (Bargh &Williams, 2007) had significant effects on emotional outcomes.Further tests would be desirable both to confirm these findings andto examine whether distraction or concentration can, in similarfashion, be activated outside of participants’ awareness. Discov-ering what stereotypes or environmental stimuli may be effectivein priming emotion regulation is also a worthwhile avenue forfuture research. For example, priming people with the stereotypeof a doctor may help them to deal with videos depicting grislymedical procedures.

AER is likely to be pervasive, but as yet we have only a limitedunderstanding of how AER influences emotional outcomes (forreviews, see Bargh & Williams, 2007; Mauss, Bunge, & Gross,2007). On the one hand, AER may parallel more controlled forms,in much the same way that nonconscious goal activation haseffects similar to conscious goal striving (e.g., Bargh, Gollwitzer,Lee-Chai, Barndollar, & Trotschel, 2001; Chartrand & Bargh,1996; for a review, see Bargh & Morsella, 2010). Mauss, Bunge,

and Gross’ (2007) model of AER is based closely on the processmodel of emotion regulation and is consistent with this idea. Onthe other hand, AER may exhibit distinct features as compared tocontrolled regulation. For example, one of the defining character-istics of an automatic process is efficiency (i.e., multiple opera-tions can take place in parallel; Bargh, 1994; Moors & De Houwer,2006). The implication is that automatic forms of ER could avoidthe cognitive and physiological costs associated with conscious,effortful forms of ER (Richards, 2004; Richards & Gross, 1999,2000). Future research might profitably investigate this hypothesis.

The present review focused on the effectiveness of instructionsto use particular ER strategies on the modulation of emotionaloutcomes. However, in the absence of specific instructions, orwhen simply instructed to control emotional responses, the partic-ipant must decide how best to regulate his or her affect. Ourfindings raise interesting questions about people’s awareness of the effectiveness of different ER strategies (e.g., Do people realizethat suppressing the expression of emotion is effective at conceal-ing one’s feelings from others but does not help to dampen thosefeelings? Are the beneficial effects of perspective taking or reap-praising the emotional stimulus widely recognized?). The per-ceived effectiveness of different strategies is unlikely to be theonly factor that influences the decision to employ a particularstrategy. Classic motivational models (e.g., Ajzen, 1991; Atkinson,1964; Nuttin, 1980) would suggest that the desirability and feasi-bility of particular strategies influence their adoption. Strategy

effectiveness is only one factor that feeds into the assessment of desirability, however, and concerns with impression management,cultural norms, or social appropriateness may be more powerfulconsiderations (Fischer, Manstead, Evers, Timmers, & Valk,2004). Moreover, even if a particular ER strategy is seen asdesirable, that strategy may not be chosen if the person lacks the

skills or confidence to ensure its execution (Tamir & Mauss,2011). Thus, although quantifying the effectiveness of differentER strategies is valuable, further research is needed to understandhow awareness of strategy effectiveness, other desirability consid-erations, and beliefs about feasibility combine to influence thespontaneous selection of particular ER strategies (Egloff,Schmukle, Schwerdtfeger, & Burns, 2006; Volokhov & Demaree,2010).

Finally, it is worth noting that the present review focused on theeffect of using (vs. not using) one particular ER strategy at a time.However, as Gross and Thompson (2007) pointed out, emotionregulation can occur at multiple points in the emotion generationprocess. Thus, much of the time people may employ multipleforms of ER, perhaps simultaneously trying to reappraise a situa-tion and suppress their expression of emotion. There remains apaucity of research on such “coactive” emotion regulation, withmost research to date simply reporting that individuals indeeddeploy a variety of ER strategies (John & Gross, 2007). This issueis important, as recent evidence suggests that ER strategies mayinteract in predicting emotional outcomes. For example, Aldao andNolen-Hoeksema (2012) found that adaptive strategies (reap-praisal and acceptance) were associated with reduced psychopa-thology symptoms predominantly among participants who alsoused maladaptive strategies (rumination, suppression, and avoid-ance). Experimental investigations of the effectiveness of coactiveER strategies are thus a clear avenue for future research.

Conclusion

The present meta-analysis responded to the need for both ataxonomy of ER strategies (because empirical research definedand implemented ostensibly similar ER strategies in differentways) and a comprehensive review (because the broad range of experimental work had not been synthesized). Our taxonomy de-velopment combined a conceptual framework derived from theprocess model and other theories of emotion control with carefulcoding of the ER instructions that participants received in theempirical studies. The resulting taxonomy distinguished seventypes of attentional deployment, four types of cognitive change,and four types of response modulation. A meta-analysis of 306tests on experiential, behavioral, and physiological measures of emotional outcomes provided support for the conceptual distinc-tions. Although the three ER processes proved differentially ef-fective (e.g., cognitive change had a larger effect than responsemodulation, which in turn had a larger effect than attentionaldeployment), these differences were illuminated by consideringdistinct strategies within each process (e.g., the overall effect sizefor attentional deployment was negligible because whereas dis-traction was an effective strategy, strategies based on concentra-tion were counterproductive strategy). In terms of the best way todeal with feeling, then, the findings of the present review point tothe efficacy of reappraising the emotional stimulus, perspectivetaking, and active distraction.




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Received May 20, 2011Revision received December 13, 2011

Accepted January 3, 2012


Psych Bull - Webb Et Al(2012)

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