Final Report Summary - EMBER (Embodied Emotion Regulation)
Effectively managing one’s emotions is vital to physical and mental health. How do people accomplish this important task? Traditional approaches have emphasized mental strategies in emotion regulation, such as seeking distraction or change how one thinks about an emotional event. However, emotions do not just exist in people’s heads, but also in their bodies. In our ERC-funded project, we investigate how people may use the body in managing their emotions. To address this question, our team conducted a series of experiments in which we manipulated people’s bodily states (e.g. seating postures, hand movements) or perceptual experiences (e.g. ambient lighting) and then examine how these influence people’s ability to self-regulate their emotions. Our findings confirm that the body plays a key role in emotion regulation. For instance, we have found that getting rid of sad feelings is easier for people who are sitting upright than for people who are sitting in a stooped posture. In a related vein, we have observed that people may inhibit anger, as an approach-oriented emotion, by making avoidance movements (e.g. leaning backwards). We have further found that embodied strategies of emotion regulation may be especially helpful for people who are unable to control their emotions with mental strategies. For instance, gentle touch seems to alleviate existential anxiety especially among people who are struggling to find meaning in life. Likewise, avoidance movements are especially effective in down-regulating anger among people with chronic anger management problems. Taken together, our findings inform basic theories of emotion regulation and point to new ways of treating people with emotion regulation difficulties.