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Emotion Regulation in Relationships

Broadly defined, emotion regulation refers to the psychological and interpersonal processes through which individuals consciously or unconsciously alter their emotional experiences or expressions. Emotion regulation in relationships refers to these processes as they occur during interactions with relationship partners, such as friends, family members, or spouses. Emotion regulation can occur within any relationship, but it has received the most attention within close relationships because such relationships have particularly strong influences on our immediate and long-term emotional experiences. Processes of emotion regulation in relationships have received increased scientific attention in recent years because they are thought to explain the well-documented influence of social relationships on mental and physical health. Specifically, it is thought that well-functioning relationships foster physical and mental benefits by regularly heightening positive emotionality and dampening negative emotionality. Poorly functioning relationships, in contrast, are thought to hamper physical and mental health by heightening negative emotionality and dampening positive emotionality. This entry discusses different forms of emotion regulation in relationships, their implications for relationship functioning and overall well-being, the different strategies that have been used to study emotion regulation in relationships, and directions for future research.

Basic Mechanisms

Emotion regulation in relationships can occur through conscious and intentional processes or through unconscious and automatic processes. An example of conscious and intentional emotion regulation is social support. When people feel depressed, stressed, or frightened, social partners can help regulate these negative feelings by providing comfort and support, communicating empathy, providing an alternative perspective on problems, or simply distracting a person from his or her troubles. In some cases, people may benefit from these forms of social support without even realizing it. For example, research shows that individuals whose romantic partners have offered them support subsequently experience greater positive and less negative emotion, even when they report no awareness of their partners' support attempts. Moreover, other studies have suggested that even in the absence of specifically supportive interactions, the simple presence of a close relationship partner can amplify positive emotions and alleviate distress, even lowering physiological reactivity to psychological stress. These findings are consistent with the extensive body of research indicating that individuals with close supportive relationships live happier, healthier lives, potentially as a direct result of such sustained stress regulating effects.

In other cases, emotion regulation occurs through automatic processes that are regular features of routine social interactions. For example, individuals tend to unconsciously “catch” and mimic the emotions of social partners, especially when these social partners are close and important. Some researchers have suggested that this “emotion contagion” or “emotional convergence” is an adaptive feature of most relationships that promotes general social functioning by allowing individuals to understand and share the experiences of others. For example, empathic accuracy, or the ability to detect and respond to another person's emotional state, can promote relationship satisfaction and success when the emotions in question are positive and nonthreatening.

Negative Emotions

The same processes of empathic accuracy, emotion contagion, emotional convergence, and even social support can prove maladaptive when the emotions in question are negative (such as anger or sadness), or when they pose a threat to the relationship (such as jealousy or contempt). Studies have found that one of the potentially destructive characteristics of poorly functioning relationships is a tendency for negative emotions to spread from one partner to the other and to rapidly escalate through social interaction. This is particularly likely to occur during conflict, and can make it increasingly difficult for both partners to respond sensitively to each other and to negotiate solutions to their disagreements. There are also negative physiological consequences to patterns of shared and escalating negative emotions within close relationships. Extreme negative emotions and hostility during marital conflict, for example, have been found to trigger heightened cardiovascular reactivity and heightened production of stress hormones. Over many years, these physiological patterns increase both partners' health risks.

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