Emotion Regulation Strategies Control and Modification Strategies

The essence of the control strategy for emotion regulation is "pre-intervention" - proactively intercepting emotional triggers before the emotional response is fully activated, nipping emotions in the bud.； The correction strategy is "post-intervention" - after the emotion has been aroused and even a behavioral response has been generated, the emotional experience is adjusted and subsequent behavior is modified. There is never an absolute distinction between the two. The differences in applicable scenarios and suitable groups of people are far greater than the so-called "good or bad effects."

Last week, I met a girl who works in Internet operations in the consulting room. She still had a wrinkled Yang Chaoyue prayer pendant hanging on her work badge. The Double Eleven promotion was going on for 12 consecutive days. In the morning, her boss scolded her for 10 minutes in front of the entire department because the pre-sales data did not meet the standard. When she turned to her subordinates to ask about event resources, she called back the plan without even thinking and even made a fuss. After get off work, she sat in the parking lot for half an hour and cried enough before she dared to drive home, fearing that something might happen to her on the road with her emotions. When she reviewed the story afterwards, she said that if the leader had scolded her and gone straight to the tea room for five minutes before returning to her work station, she might not have angered her subordinates. This is a typical control strategy, taking the initiative to escape from the triggering scene. ； Later, she asked me for an emotional review, and she smoothed over the grievances and anger she felt at the time. She even bought her subordinate a cup of milk tea to apologize. This is the role of the correction strategy.

Traditional cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is a loyal advocate of control strategies. Their core logic is that the triggering of emotions actually only has a window period of the first 3 seconds. As long as you can actively make situation selection and shift attention at this stage, you can avoid 90% of subsequent emotional internal consumption. For example, if you know that one-on-one communication with a colleague who likes to argue is prone to quarrels, you can invite a third person to listen in advance, or simply move the communication online and use words to avoid triggering emotions at the root. Many management clients I have met have set a rule for themselves: "Don't make decisions when angry." This is essentially a control strategy - delaying the decision-making until the emotion subsides.

But this idea has also been challenged in recent years by researchers in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). They feel that over-reliance on control strategies will lead to the misunderstanding of "emotional avoidance" - the more afraid you are of a certain emotion, the more deliberately you avoid the trigger, which will amplify the sensitivity of the emotion. For example, if you are always afraid of nervousness when reporting to your boss, you will hide every time you can. The next time you really can't avoid it and have to report, you will be more nervous than before. Your heart will beat faster and your palms will sweat even before you even open your mouth. Interestingly, I met a visitor who was a college teacher last year. Because he was too afraid of being nervous in class, he spent more than 10 hours writing manuscripts word for word for each lesson preparation. In the end, he became so anxious before going on stage that he couldn't eat. To put it bluntly, he overused control strategies and overemphasized the importance of "nervousness".

Talking about the correction strategy, many people misunderstand it as "hindsight is useless", and even think that adjusting after the emotions have come out is just hindsight. However, the survey data of 2,000 working people conducted by the Department of Psychology of Beijing Normal University in 2023 is very illustrative of the problem: 82% of daily emotion regulation scenes are intervened after the emotion has exploded. Among those who use correction strategies, the effective rate can reach 67%, and the burnout rate is 32% lower than those who hold back their emotions without releasing it. A client I met who was doing To B sales found out a small way to correct his mood: always carry mints in his pocket. Whenever he notices that his mood is rising (whether he is angry at a customer or too excited to sign a big order), he chews the mints for 3 minutes. When the cool feeling in his mouth comes, he writes down the first reaction that just came to his mind on a note he carries with him, and then looks it out after get off work. Just such a simple little action helped him avoid almost choking with customers several times, and his performance last year even ranked first in the department. Don't tell me, many times correction strategies don't necessarily require any complicated techniques. Just find a small anchor point that suits you, chewing candy, pinching a stress relief ball, or even going to the bathroom to wash your face.

I have been doing emotional intervention for almost 5 years, and I have seen too many people struggle with "should I use control strategies or correction strategies?" Some people even scolded others for not controlling their emotions, and then turned around and blamed themselves for "poor emotional management skills." This is completely unnecessary. To use an inappropriate analogy, these two strategies are just like when you are driving. Slowing down and braking when you see a red light in advance is control. If you accidentally rear-end the car, asking for insurance to repair the car is correction. You can't say that my ability to predict is good, so I will never encounter emergencies, nor can you say that I have insurance and just drive without looking at the road, right?

And the strategies adapted to different people are inherently different. For example, highly sensitive people can arouse emotions three times faster than ordinary people. Many times by the time you realize "I'm getting emotional," you have already reacted impulsively. It's better to pay more attention to your emotional minefields and use control strategies to avoid them in advance. For example, if you know that you will easily break down after working overtime until 10 o'clock, try not to pile up your work until the evening. There is nothing to be ashamed of. On the contrary, for people who are careless and whose emotions come and go quickly, there is no need to add so many shackles of "I need to control my emotions" to themselves. If they really lose their temper, they can just use correction strategies to make up for it afterwards. It is better than holding in their breath and letting go.

Oh, by the way, there is another common misunderstanding that needs to be clarified: many people think that control strategies are to "suppress emotions", but this is not true. The control strategy is to actively choose whether to be exposed to emotional triggers. For example, if you know that watching short videos and watching other people share their income will make you anxious, you put your phone in the living room before going to bed and do not use it. This is active control. ； If you are obviously worried and still hold it in and continue to browse, then that is depression, don’t get confused.

To put it bluntly, there is no unified standard answer to the matter of emotional regulation. The one that suits you is the best. Don't force yourself to carry all your emotions in order to "be an emotionally stable adult" and end up with a greater psychological burden. That's really putting the cart before the horse.