ABSTRACT
These are just a few examples of the good intentions concerning our emotional behavior that Bridget Jones and many of the rest of us make. Emotions are continuously subjected to regulation in daily life. We suppress our anger if we understand that our colleague only made a mistake, we exaggerate our enthusiasm when we know that this will help our child to perform better, we
hide our envy, because we know this is a detestable emotion, and we don’t try to stop our tears when watching a tearjerker, because we enjoy being engulfed in sentimentality. Emotion regulation refers to those processes by which “individuals influence which emotions they have, when they have them, and how they experience and express these emotions” (Gross, 1999, p. 557). In other words, individuals do something with their emotions. They like them or hate them, they judge them as appropriate or inappropriate, or as effective or ineffective, and they adjust them accordingly.
