This chapter provides a conceptual foundation for answering questions as they arise in developmental and adult literatures relevant to emotion regulation. Because a discussion of emotion regulation presupposes an understanding of what emotion is, we first consider emotion in the context of the larger family of affective processes to which it belongs. Next, we distinguish emotion regulation from other major forms of self-regulation. This prepares the way for our presentation of the framework we use to organize the many different types of emotion regulation. Using this framework, we review findings from child developmental and adult literatures. In the last section, we highlight some of the biggest challenges–and opportunities–for those interested in emotion and emotion regulation.
Topics include: emotions and related processes (core features of emotion, the modal model of emotion), emotion regulation and related processes (core features of emotion regulation, emotion regulation and related constructs), emotion regulation strategies (situation selection, situation modification, attentional deployment, cognitive change, response modulation), and elaborations and complications (time and feedback, antecedent-focused versus response-focused regulation, from one process to many)