On the benefits and costs of extrinsic emotion regulation to the provider: Toward a neurobehavioral model

Abstract

Emotion regulation often takes place within interpersonal relationships. Prior research has focused mainly on the impact of extrinsic emotion regulation (EER) on the recipient. Yet EER may also have emotional and physical consequences for the provider. Understanding who benefits from helping others regulate their emotions and under what conditions is crucial in understanding the mechanisms that reinforce well-being and social ties. This conceptual review integrates existing literature into an interim working model of the benefits and costs of EER for the provider and of the underlying neural mechanisms. Inspired by a recent framework on the factors that underlie intrinsic emotion regulation, we suggest that the influence of EER on the provider depends on interactions among individual differences in salient psychological characteristics, situational factors and type of the emotion regulation strategy used. We further propose three pathways through which EER may influence the provider—stress regulation, reward and empathy—and connect each pathway to a distinct pattern of neural activation.