Emotion Regulation
Comparing and Contrasting Views of Emotion Regulation
Everyone regulates their emotions and some better than others. A majority of the time we do not even realize we are doing so because of a very powerful unconscious. Emotion regulation is a relatively new section of psychology because it has yet to be extensively researched. Such unexplored areas tend to be even a little fuzzy to even the most understanding of researchers. James J. Gross of Stanford University is one of the comparatively few researchers in this field and has written many psychologically recognized papers on different aspects of emotion regulation. A significant article about the ideas of emotion regulation that also states many conducted experiments is titled “Emotion regulation: Affective, cognitive, and social consequences.” Many of his articles and ideas closely relate to the ideas contained within Benedict Carey’s New York Times article entitled “Mind-Polishing Tools for Your Fuse Box of Emotions.” While these two articles by Gross and Carey both narrowly focus on a small portion of today’s psychological knowledge, there is a sharp contrast in their views of the topic. Perhaps by preferences of the author or what may be lack of knowledge on the author’s behalf, it is more than pure scientific evidence that produced such similar articles that differ on so many levels at the same time. Both written materials of course have an audience, but the audiences to which they appeal are entire opposites. Both authors tend to also have slightly differing views it seems but it is apparent in what they have written that they both coincide on the idea that poor emotion suppression plays its largest role in the social environment. However, even though suppression is a main focus for both, Carey’s article tends to drift towards seeing suppression in a mostly negative light. The New York Times, the source of Carey’s popular press article, is more directly aimed toward the
Everyone regulates their emotions and some better than others. A majority of the time we do not even realize we are doing so because of a very powerful unconscious. Emotion regulation is a relatively new section of psychology because it has yet to be extensively researched. Such unexplored areas tend to be even a little fuzzy to even the most understanding of researchers. James J. Gross of Stanford University is one of the comparatively few researchers in this field and has written many psychologically recognized papers on different aspects of emotion regulation. A significant article about the ideas of emotion regulation that also states many conducted experiments is titled “Emotion regulation: Affective, cognitive, and social consequences.” Many of his articles and ideas closely relate to the ideas contained within Benedict Carey’s New York Times article entitled “Mind-Polishing Tools for Your Fuse Box of Emotions.” While these two articles by Gross and Carey both narrowly focus on a small portion of today’s psychological knowledge, there is a sharp contrast in their views of the topic. Perhaps by preferences of the author or what may be lack of knowledge on the author’s behalf, it is more than pure scientific evidence that produced such similar articles that differ on so many levels at the same time. Both written materials of course have an audience, but the audiences to which they appeal are entire opposites. Both authors tend to also have slightly differing views it seems but it is apparent in what they have written that they both coincide on the idea that poor emotion suppression plays its largest role in the social environment. However, even though suppression is a main focus for both, Carey’s article tends to drift towards seeing suppression in a mostly negative light. The New York Times, the source of Carey’s popular press article, is more directly aimed toward the
References: Carey, B. (2010, July 5). Mind-Polishing Tools for Your Fuse Box of Emotions. The New York Times. Gross, J. J. (2002). Emotion regulation: Affective, cognitive, and social consequences. Cambridge University Press, 39, 281-291.