Citation

Tice DM, Bratslavsky E. Psychol. Inq. 2000; 11(3): 149-159.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2000, Informa - Taylor and Francis Group)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Understanding how emotion regulation is similar to and different from other self-control tasks can advance the understanding of emotion regulation. Emotion regulation has many similarities to other regulatory tasks such as dieting, and abstaining from smoking, drugs, alcohol, ill-advised sexual encounters, gambling, and procrastination, but it differs in a few important respects. Emotion regulation is similar to other kinds of self-regulation in that it consists of three components: standards, monitoring, and strength. Emotion regulation involves overriding one set responses with another, incompatible set, just like with other types of self-control. And like other regulatory tasks, emotion regulation can fail either because of underregulation or because of misregulation. Although emotion regulation is similar in many respects to other regulatory tasks, it is a special case of self-regulation in that it can often undermine attempts at other kinds of self-control. Specifically, focusing on regulating moods and feeling states can lead to a failure of self-control in other areas.