Setting and pursuing goals in emotion regulation

What is it about?

Emotion regulation results from setting emotion goals (e.g., I want to decrease my negative feelings now) and from using effective strategies to attain these goals (e.g., I will think about the situation in a different way). This paper demonstrates that simply setting emotion goals can lead people to behave in ways that promote changes in emotion. The paper highlights the importance of setting healthy emotion goals, above and beyond the strategies used to pursue them.

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Why is it important?

Deciding to change our emotions in a certain way is sometimes sufficient to lead us to act in ways that change how we feel. To facilitate healthy emotion regulation, therefore, we first need to motivate people to change their emotions in healthy directions.