ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the mindfulness and emotion regulation, a comprehensive contemporary model of emotion regulation processes and discusses how mindfulness may impact these emotion regulation processes. Additional downstream emotion regulation processes that may be impacted by the effects of mindfulness on attentional deployment include the feedback and repertoire components of emotion regulation flexibility. There are several initial studies suggesting that mindfulness can foster more effective use of emotion regulation strategies and buffer social threat responses. J. J. Gross delineates the processes that must occur to successfully regulate one’s emotions over time, moving from situation selection to situation modification, attentional deployment, cognitive change, and response modulation. Attentional deployment is the emotion regulation process of directing attention toward or away from specific stimuli in order to influence emotional responding. When confronted with a threatening situation, such as giving a presentation or being interviewed for a job, one may either deploy attention towards feelings of stress and anxiety or away from them.
