One of the tougher challenges of emotional intelligence is called “emotional regulation.” Of the four primary abilities constituting emotional intelligence, it essentially refers to a person’s ability to manage and ultimately change the emotions we are feeling. Not always an easy or even pleasant task.
Shift: How to manage your emotions so they don’t manage you, by Ethan Kross, is a recent book focusing on the importance of emotional regulation.
An experimental psychologist and director of the Emotion and Self Control Lab at the University of Michigan, Kross reviews a number of studies that highlights the importance emotional regulation plays throughout our lives, which are summarized here and taken from a recent article at New Scientist.
Over 1000 babies born in Dunedin, New Zealand, in 1972 and 1973 were followed from birth and assessed on their emotional regulation, such as the frequency of their tantrums and how well they managed their impulses.
Children who struggled to keep their emotions in check tended to do worse at school. Those with the lowest emotional regulation tended to struggle financially, were about four times more likely to be convicted of a crime and were also at greater risk of substance abuse. Even a faster speed of physical decline was linked to their lower emotional regulation. Impaired emotional regulation is also a common risk factor for many mental health conditions, including depression, anxiety and disordered eating.
It turns out that beliefs matter. Those participants in various studies who believe their emotions are unchangeable tend to have lower well-being and poorer social relationships than those who believed they have conscious control over their feelings. And they are considerably more likely to report feeling anxious, angry, lonely or depressed, for example, and less likely to report feeling happy, proud, loved or stimulated.
As one researcher said, “If you can change how you think about a situation, you can change how you feel.” You can remind yourself that the worst-case scenario is only one of many possible results and you can amplify welcome emotions. A clear connection was found between adolescents’ use of this cognitive reappraisal and their psychological well-being, which included a reduced risk of mental illness and an increase in overall life satisfaction.
You can use music, baking, petting a dog or soaking in a hot bath to quiet sadness, anxiety or anger or you can change your environment, spending time in a natural space rather than walking the streets. Even watching short clips of wildlife documentaries for a week helps participants reduce negative repetitive thinking.
Kross also recognizes that a little discomfort can sometimes be helpful. Jealousy can show us that success is possible, which might spur on your own ambition. Anger might push you to fight for a fairer resolution to a disagreement. People tend to be more satisfied with outcomes when they use their “bad” feelings to their advantage in this way.
Kross also argues that, contrary to some advice, occasionally avoiding emotions can provide short-term relief. Bereaved partners who turned their thoughts away from their grief reported less negative emotion in the long term.
The good news is that those participants in the New Zealand study who improved their emotional regulation as they got older did better in nearly all respects in adulthood.
Kross does not mention an important skill needed for effective emotional regulation. An important pre-condition is being able to identify the emotion we are feeling. If we misidentify those feelings, we may not be as able to improve our emotional state. If we think we are feeling anger, but are really feeling shame or fear, steps to right a perceived unfair treatment may not help, for example. It’s a garbage in/garbage out problem.
This is relevant to lawyers because several studies show emotional perception or identification to be our weakest trait of the four emotional intelligence abilities.
