ABSTRACT
Emotion regulation involves exercising emotional control through a process of monitoring, assessing, and changing emotional reactions. Successful emotion regulation is conducive to strong interpersonal functioning, collaborative work approaches, and effective communication ability. Adaptive emotion regulation skills are especially important in the context of team sports, an industry whose success is dependent upon team cohesiveness. On-field performance is informed by the individual success and well-being of each team member. If one team member becomes emotionally dysregulated, then the team’s connection and performance may suffer. As such, it is imperative that athletes are equipped with the necessary skills to regulate their emotional responses and to prevent reactions that may interfere with the team’s interpersonal functioning and collaboration. According to Gross’s process model of emotion regulation, these techniques fall into five domains: Situation selection, situation modification, attentional deployment, cognitive change, and response modulation. While research in the area of emotion regulation historically focused on intrapersonal functioning, there is a growing body of literature that emphasizes the interpersonal modes of emotion regulation. As sports teams exist as one entity composed of multiple interrelated individual processes, applying this interpersonal model is critical to improving team functioning. This chapter provides a thorough overview of the multiple factors that contribute to successful emotion regulation in individuals and groups, discusses the implications for interpersonal functioning and team success in sports and performance contexts, and considers implications for the field of sport psychology.
