Skip to main content
Go to the home page of the European Commission (opens in new window)
English English
CORDIS - EU research results
CORDIS
Content archived on 2024-06-18

Embodied Emotion Regulation

Objective

In everyday life, people frequently engage in bodily activities to regulate their emotions, such as physical exercise to reduce stress, eating tasty foods to improve one's mood, or practice meditation to achieve deep states of relaxation. In spite of such widespread practices, the wisdom of using the body in emotion regulation is highly contested within psychological science. Some studies have shown that people may successfully control their emotions through bodily exercies such as muscle relaxation or controlled breathing. However, other studies have shown that controlling bodily expressions in emotion regulation is ineffective, cognitively draining, and potentially damaging to one's psychological health. As such, it remains unclear if, when, or why using the body in emotion regulation may be helpful or hurtful. In the proposed research, I propose a new and integrative theoretical approach to the role of the body in emotion regulation. Drawing from modern theories of embodied cognition, I advance a model of EMBodied Emotion Regulation (EMBER). This model assumes that embodied (sensori-motor) processes are likely to exert a pervasive influence on all forms of emotion regulation, even those that are targeted at cognitive systems such as attention or appraisals. From this perspective, recruiting appropriate embodiments may considerably enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of emotion regulation, while neglecting or interfering with embodiments may set people up for emotion-regulatory failure. Key hypotheses of the EMBER model will be tested in four projects, which address potential synergetic effects between embodiments and emotion regulation strategies (Project 1), how embodiments may enhance the efficiency of implementing and learning emotion-regulatory skills (Project 2), how ineffective emotion regulation strategies may lead to interference or neglect of emotion embodiments (Project 3), and the potential therapeutic role of the embodied exchanges between patient and therapist in psychotherapy (Project 4).

Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)

CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: https://op.europa.eu/en/web/eu-vocabularies/euroscivoc.

You need to log in or register to use this function

Topic(s)

Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.

Call for proposal

Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.

ERC-2011-StG_20101124
See other projects for this call

Funding Scheme

Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.

ERC-SG - ERC Starting Grant

Host institution

STICHTING VU
EU contribution
€ 1 487 026,80
Address
DE BOELELAAN 1105
1081 HV Amsterdam
Netherlands

See on map

Activity type
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
Links
Total cost

The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.

No data

Beneficiaries (2)

My booklet 0 0