ABSTRACT
Emotion regulation is the process by which individuals influence which emotions they have, when they have them, and how they experience and express them. Emotions exist because they serve an evolutionary purpose; they have some kind of adaptive value. Emotions help to deal with life tasks and help in species survive; this is the reason why they share certain characteristics and common elements despite individual and cultural differences. Common sense would suggest that positive emotions are beneficial while negative emotions are detrimental, and a great deal of research has centred on this vey assumption. Psychologist Reinhard Pekrun rejects the view that must approach emotions as either positive or negative. He suggests that it is the circumstances in which the emotion arises that are important rather than any positive or negative label choose to give them. While understanding of the role emotions play in learning lags behind more cognitive-based approaches, research is beginning to increase significantly in this area.
