The Importance Of Emotion Regulation

Emotion regulation is the ability reframe and reinterpret one’s emotions. It works through a valuation process that targets the current emotional state, and it assigns that emotional state a positive or negative value. By assigning an emotional state a negative or positive value, it means the emotion is determined to be approachable or avoidable. Emotions are said to be comprised of a four-stage cycle, mainly known as W-PVA. The “W” stands for world. The world is the stimulus; it can act as an internal stimulus (memory) or an external stimulus (spider). Next, the “P” stands for perception. In this stage, the stimulus is taken and passed on for systems to evaluate. Then the “V”, which stands for valuation processes the stimulus and produces

This stage encompasses the result that is activated in the new state of the world that continues into the next W-PVA sequence. An action can be inside someone’s head, such as recovering a memory or creating a mental image, or physical, such as the pupils dilating or starting to run. Multiple sequences can be running at one time, and the cycles give off information to one another also. The main idea of the W-PVA cycle though is that together it produces an emotional response. Being knowledgeable of this cycle would be very beneficial because once studied and learned, one could identify the process that their emotions go though, and one could seek to regulate or reinterpret some of their emotions. Two common emotion regulation strategies are distraction and reappraisal. Distraction occurs at the perception phase of the W-PVA. During distraction, the person creates a diversion for themselves to focus less on the stimulus. This requires a thought replacement. Distraction stands in the way of emotional processing in the earliest stages where the processing is not yet strong. Typically, people choose distraction in high-intensity undesirable situations. On the other hand, reappraisal occurs at the valuation

Someone’s emotional style is dependent on the way they react to stimuli and how they cope with their emotional responses. Everyone’s emotional style is different; it is a part of who we are as a person. The reason everyone’s emotional style is different is because every individual responds differently to different stimuli. There are six different sections of a person’s emotional style, and a person can end up on either side of a specific section or they could be placed somewhere in the middle. A Resilience style measures how fast or how slow someone is to recover from a difficulty. People in general favor being able to recover more quickly from negative experiences so they do not dwell upon them; however, being fast to recover also makes it harder to empathize with people and these people tend to not notice warning signs as much. On the other hand, people who are slow to recover are able to feel and respond to their emotions which is important. Being slow to recover also has a downside though, which is these people find it harder to shake off even little negative events, and they could become trapped in their own emotions. Next, the Outlook style is how a person views themselves and the environment around them. The extremes of this style are positive types or negative types. Positive people are more optimistic and hope-filled; however, they are more likely to engage in risky behaviors, and they find it difficult to delay gratification. People who are too positive