Interpersonal emotion regulation is the process of changing the emotional experience of one's self or another person through social interaction. It encompasses both intrinsic emotion regulation (also known as emotional self-regulation), in which one attempts to alter their own feelings by recruiting social resources, as well as extrinsic emotion regulation, in which one deliberately attempts to alter the trajectory of other people's feelings.
History of concept The concept of interpersonal emotion regulation stems from earlier research into emotional self-regulation, which is the within-person process whereby people influence and change their own feelings.Gross, J. J. (1998). The emerging field of emotion regulation: An integrative review. Review of general psychology, 2, 271-299. The field of psychology has traditionally focused on intrapersonal processes in which a person manages their own emotions individually outside of the social context. However, modern theories have expanded the concept of emotion regulation to include interpersonal processes, in which emotion is regulated with or through other people. Interpersonal models emphasize that humans are social creatures who rarely experience emotions in isolation, and instead more commonly share, express, and manage their emotions with the help of others.Hofmann, S. G. & Doan, S. N. (2018). "The social foundations of emotion: Developmental, cultural, and clinical dimensions". Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. .
Concept
Intrinsic interpersonal emotion regulation Intrinsic interpersonal emotion regulation involves managing one's own emotions through social interaction, such as seeking social support or reassurance from others. Examples include calling a friend for advice, venting to a partner about a stressful situation, or engaging in conversation as a distraction from distress. In addition to regulating negative emotions, people also seek to amplify positive emotions by sharing good news with others. As with intrapersonal emotion regulation, people typically attempt to use interpersonal emotion regulation to improve their affective state by decreasing negative emotions or increase positive emotions.
Extrinsic interpersonal emotion regulation Extrinsic interpersonal emotion regulation refers to the deliberate influence of others' feelings. It is one of the many ways how social factors influence an individual's emotions. Examples include trying to cheer up a friend who is upset, trying to make one's partner feel guilty for neglecting oneself, or trying to calm a stressed coworker. These examples illustrate that interpersonal emotion regulation may be used to make others feel better or worse, although making others feel better appears to be far more common.
In groups Many instances of interpersonal emotion regulation, such as those described above, are dyadic; in other words, they involve one person trying to influence the feelings of another person. However, interpersonal emotion regulation can occur between larger social groups. For example, in the workplace a leader might try to influence the feelings of a whole group of followers to make them feel more enthusiastic and motivated. Or in support groups, the whole group might work together to influence the feelings of a member to make the member feel less anxious or depressed.Thoits, P. A. (1996). Managing the emotions of others. Symbolic Interaction, 19, 85-109.
Interpersonal emotion regulation is used in most of the important social relationships that we have. Within the fields of developmental and clinical psychology, researchers have long-recognized that people try to influence others' emotions (e.g., mothers influence the feelings of their babies,Field, T. (1994). The effects of mothers' physical and emotional unavailability on emotion regulation. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 59, 208-227. therapists try to alleviate the sadness of their clients). More recently, social and organizational psychologists have also documented the use of interpersonal emotion regulation within romantic and familial relationships and in a range of work settings (e.g., hospitals, law firms, debt collection agencies,Sutton, R. I. (1991). Maintaining norms about expressed emotions: The case of bill collectors. Administrative Science Quarterly, 36, 245-268. and prisonsNiven, K., Totterdell, P., & Holman, D. (2007). Changing moods and influencing people: The use and effects of emotional influence behaviours at HMP Grendon. Prison Service Journal, 173, 39-45.). Interpersonal emotion regulation may even be used towards complete strangers as a way of making social interactions run more smoothly.
Related processes
Interpersonal emotion regulation overlaps with social support, which involves giving others emotional, informational, or practical support.House, J. S., & Kahn, R. L. (1985). Measures and concepts of social support. In S. Cohen and S. L. Syme (Eds.), Social support and health (pp. 79-108). Orlando, FL: Academic Press. Models of interpersonal emotion regulation specify social support within the framework of regulatory goals to improve the feelings of one's self (by seeking support) or another person (by providing support). Emotion regulation mechanisms of social support include attentional deployment (e.g. distraction away from negative thoughts and toward the conversation) and cognitive change (e.g. encouragement to "look on the bright side" or change one's negative interpretation of a given situation).
Interpersonal emotion regulation also shares links with other processes by which people come to influence others' emotions, such as emotional contagion, in which the emotions of one person are 'caught' by another person as a result of mere contact (e.g., if someone was having a terrible day, they might 'infect' their friends with their bad mood). Similarly, the compulsion to tell other people about our emotional experiences (termed the social sharing of emotions) can also result in other people coming to feel what we feel.Rimé, B., Finkenauer, C., Luminet, O., Zech, E., & Philippot, P. (1998). Social sharing of emotion: New evidence and new questions. European review of social psychology, 9, 145-189. The difference between these processes and interpersonal emotion regulation regards the level of processing involved. Interpersonal emotion regulation is a controlled process, whereby a person intentionally tries to change the way others feel. In contrast, emotional contagion is thought to be relatively automatic, engaged without conscious awareness, while social sharing is somewhat more conscious but typically lacks the intent to influence others' emotions.
Interpersonal emotion regulation relates to emotional labor, the regulation of emotion as part of one's job role. In emotional labor, an employee (usually in a service or care role) is required to manage his or her emotions as part of the job (e.g., 'service with a smile'). Because employees can also be required to manage the emotions of their customers or clients as part of their job (e.g., debt collectors are required to elicit anxiety in relaxed debtors to encourage them to make a payment), interpersonal emotion regulation can be performed as a form of emotional labor.Niven, K., Totterdell, P., Holman, D., & Cameron, D. (2012). Emotional labor at the unit-level. In A. Grandey, J. Diefendorff, & D. Rupp (Eds.), Emotional labor in the 21st century: Diverse perspectives on emotion regulation at work. Psychology Press/Routledge.
Another related process is interpersonal influence, which involves trying to change the attitudes and/or behaviors of other people. The key difference here is that interpersonal emotion regulation is primarily concerned with changing other people's feelings; any changes to attitudes or behaviors are secondary to the impact on emotion.
Theories
Social baseline theory Drawing from behavioral ecology, Jim Coan's social baseline theory purports that humans have adapted to function in a social environment.Coan, J., & Maresh, E. L. (2013). Social baseline theory and the social regulation of emotion. In J. Gross (Ed.), Handbook of emotion regulation (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Guilford Press The brain acts under the assumption that proximity to other people is the norm, or baseline condition. As opposed to social isolation, which is associated with stress and poor health, social proximity is associated with attenuated cardiovascular, hormonal, and neural responses to threat, as well as longevity and physical health. The presence of others is theorized to help individuals conserve effort and metabolic resources through the social regulation of emotion.
For example, the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex is less active during the down-regulation of negative affect while the presence of others. Social proximity is hypothesized to confer emotion regulatory benefits through three mechanisms: 1) risk distribution, 2) load sharing, and 3) capitalization. Risk distribution lowers vigilance towards threat because risks seem lower as group size increases. Load sharing involves the knowledge that close others can provide help and resources if needed. Finally, capitalization refers to the intensification of positive emotions when they are shared with others.
Map of interpersonal regulation A prominent model proposed by Jamil Zaki and Craig Williams (2013) conceptualizes different classes of interpersonal emotion regulation along two orthogonal dimensions. The first, intrinsic vs extrinsic, refers to the target of regulatory efforts. Intrinsic regulation involves an attempt to change one's own emotions through social contact, while extrinsic regulation involves trying to change the emotions of another person or group of people. The second dimension, response-dependent vs. response-independent, refers to whether or not the regulatory efforts depend upon the behavior of other people. Processes that rely upon how others respond or behave are considered response-dependent, while strategies that do not depend upon others' behavior are classified as response-independent. This model yields four classes of interpersonal emotion regulation:
Intrinsic response-dependent: An individual tries to change their own affect through interaction with another person, whose feedback impacts the regulatory attempt. Safety behaviors fall into this category. For example, to alleviate anxiety a child might seek comfort from his mother, who responds in a soothing manner. Some forms of social sharing can also be considered an intrinsic response-dependent strategy, insofar as the listener's feedback influences the speaker's affect. For instance, sharing good news can intensify one's positive affect, but only if the listener responds enthusiastically. Intrinsic response-independent: Processes in this category involve attempts to alter one's own emotional experience through social contact, but the regulatory success does not depend upon how others react or behave. Affect labeling, or putting feelings into words, can dampen the intensity of emotional experience and commonly occurs during communication in social contexts without necessarily relying on the response of others. For instance, describing one's emotions through a conversation may result in a more nuanced understanding of one's feelings that facilitates coping. Extrinsic response-dependent: A person acts with the goal of changing another person's emotion, whose feedback plays an important role in indicating the success of the regulatory attempt. Examples include prosocial behavior and related processes such as empathic responding that endeavor to improve other people's affective state. Feedback from the recipient is needed to signal whether or not they were helped.