Table 3 Strategies identified for the regulation of negative emotion across all transcripts
ER strategy | Definition | Example | Evidence sourcea |
|---|---|---|---|
Problem solve | Taking action to attempt to alter an emotion eliciting situation in order to change its emotional impact. | ‘The last few years of my marriage I was sad that the situation had got where it had…..I tried to make recompense and save the marriage…’ (P30) | H = 46.15 %, L = 62.50 % |
Avoidance | The deliberate attempt to avoid an emotion or situation causing emotion by removal of self, deployment of attention, or emotion escape via substance use. | ‘If I get like really angry like for example in a dispute or argument with a certain person I will prefer to just walk away…’ (P15) | H = 100 %, L = 100 % |
Emotional Expression | The deliberate outward projection of emotion via emotional behaviour, physical exercise or verbal communication. | ‘You feel like the need to express it so for me I for me I would say something to the person that had frustrated me’ (P18) | H = 84.62, L = 87.50 % |
Emotion Suppression | The effortful action of hiding behavioural displays of internal emotional states from others. | ‘I tried to hide it [sadness]. Just I dunno I was trying to be strong’ (P20) | H = 46.15 %, L = 37.50 % |
Rumination | A persistent focus on past negative situations and negative aspects of self and on their possible causes and negative consequences. | ‘I just get angry and I don’t know, just keep thinking about it again and again, it’s kinda like trying to find a solution to a possible problem’ (P8) | H = 46.15 %, L = 50 % |
Reappraisal | Deliberately changing how one thinks about an emotional situation (in the presence of emotion) to alter its emotional impact. | ‘I did look on the bright side of it, to know that they weren’t in pain any more, to know that they weren’t hurting. So I was thankful for that’(P9) | H = 92.31 %, L = 93.75 % |
passive/helpless | The awareness of an emotion whilst making no conscious effort to influence it. | ‘I don’t tend to [regulate negative emotions] I just wait until something better comes along’ (P19) | H = 46.15 %, L = 50 % |