What are the methods of emotion regulation? Multiple choice questions

The conventional correct options for this question are cognitive reappraisal, reasonable venting, attention shifting, and relaxation training. Common incorrect interference items are mostly suppressing emotions, indiscriminate external attribution and blaming others, and excessive rumination of emotional details.

When I was doing grassroots psychological services in the street, I encountered many residents who regarded "holding back an attack" as "emotional stability." This is a very common misunderstanding. The cognitive reappraisal mentioned here is not a self-PUA that forces you to be "generous" or "don't worry about it". To put it bluntly, it is to dismantle the things that make you upset from another angle. For example, a little girl who works in operations came to me last week and said that she was so angry that she wanted to quit after the client rejected the third version of the plan. I accompanied her to review the customer's comments and found that the points she raised just made up for the usage habits of elderly users that she had not considered. After changing her mind, she felt that it was fortunate that the customer had mentioned it early, otherwise there would have been big problems when it went online. This is the most down-to-earth cognitive reappraisal.

Speaking of this, I have to mention the misunderstanding that many people have about reasonable venting. They always think that venting means catching the people around you to vent your anger. In fact, this is not the case at all. You can take a detour from get off work and run two kilometers in the park to break a sweat, or you can find a stairwell where no one is and roar, or even sit at home and watch a sad movie and cry for half an hour. As long as you don't hurt yourself or others, and you can let out the stuffy air stuck in your chest, it is considered reasonable venting, but it is much better than stuffing it into a knot in your heart.

It doesn’t matter if you really can’t change your thoughts at the moment. Diverting your attention is a very useful emergency method. A young couple came to me for mediation before. As soon as they sat down, they stared at each other. I handed them two glasses of iced drinks and exchanged a few words. In the recently popular short drama, it is much more efficient to wait for the two people to calm down before talking about the conflict than to argue with each other right after the quarrel. To put it bluntly, don’t get into trouble when the emotions are at their peak, jump out and do something else first, and then deal with the problem after the situation has calmed down.

If you encounter physiological reactions such as fast heartbeat, sweaty palms, and blank mind when you are emotional, relaxation training can directly take effect. Last time I went to high school for pre-exam psychological counseling, a little girl was so nervous about the mock exam that her hands shook and she couldn't hold the pen. I led her to do abdominal breathing for 3 minutes, plus the gradual relaxation of the shoulders and neck. After a while, she was able to answer the questions normally. This method is also simple to operate. You can find tutorials by searching online. You can also practice a few sentences when fishing at work.

Of course, there are also a lot of related disputes in academic circles and practical circles. For example, whether methods such as mindfulness meditation and emotion writing, which have become popular in recent years, are considered standard emotion regulation options. Some scholars believe that these two types are extended branches of cognitive reappraisal and rational catharsis. Some studies believe that they are independent regulation techniques. Therefore, if such options appear in formal examinations, as long as the question is not limited to "traditional classic emotion regulation methods," it can basically be judged as correct. If you use it on your own, you don’t have to worry about categorization. As long as it can help you get through emotional fluctuations smoothly without harming others, it is a good method.