One size does not fit all: Decomposing the implementation and differential benefits of social emotion regulation strategies.

Abstract

Although considerable research has demonstrated the importance of social relationships for well-being, limited work has assessed how people help regulate each other's emotions, a process called social emotion regulation. The present research utilized two experiments in 2020 (N₁ = 50, N₂ = 268) where people shared and responded to personal experiences to examine: (a) the kinds of regulatory support people offered others; (b) how people felt receiving different types of social feedback about their experiences; and (c) whether the support they offered others shaped how they felt receiving different feedback. When providing feedback to a confederate, participants varied in whether they chose to use validation, which affirms someone's feelings, or one of three types of social reappraisals, which help others change how they think about an emotional experience (i.e., temporal distancing: emphasizing how things change over time; positive focus: focusing on the bright side; and perspective taking: considering others' perspectives). Across studies, when participants received feedback about their own experiences, validation was the most comforting and preferred feedback. In Study 2, temporal distancing emerged as the most comforting, helpful, and preferrable type of social reappraisal and was the only reappraisal perceived as no less helpful than validation. Additionally, participants who provided social reappraisal to the confederate benefited most from receiving this type of support from others. Together, these results highlight the variability in how people use social emotion regulation strategies to support others and demonstrate how such differences in implementation, as well as individual differences in those receiving support, can shape social regulatory outcomes. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).