Using Neuroscience to Broaden Emotion Regulation: Theoretical and Methodological Considerations

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Cognitive Psychology
• Affective Science

Background:

• Traditional emotion regulation research emphasizes conscious, deliberate strategies like reappraisal.
• Neuroscience studies have largely mirrored behavioral research, focusing on intentional emotion regulation.
• Advanced neuroimaging techniques enable investigation of automatic, incidental emotion regulation processes.

Purpose of the Study:

• To review neuroscience studies on intentional emotion regulation.
• To identify research gaps and propose future directions in emotion regulation.
• To establish a broad framework encompassing both deliberate and incidental emotion regulation.

Main Methods:

• Literature review of neuroscience studies on intentional emotion regulation.
• Analysis of existing research on incidental emotion regulation.
• Synthesis of findings to propose a unified framework.

Main Results:

• Neuroimaging facilitates the study of automatic emotion regulation, previously difficult to examine.
• A comprehensive framework integrating deliberate and incidental emotion regulation is proposed.
• Insights from incidental emotion regulation can inform existing work on deliberate strategies, and vice versa.

Conclusions:

• Future research should leverage neuroimaging to explore incidental emotion regulation.
• The proposed framework offers a more complete understanding of emotion regulation.
• Integrating deliberate and incidental emotion regulation advances affective neuroscience.