I Will Listen to Your Emotions, But I Will Hide My Own: People’s Different Strategies to Regulate Their Own Versus Others’ Emotions

Abstract: We can regulate our own and other people's emotions, but it is not clear whether we use the same strategies to regulate others’ emotions as we do to regulate our own. In three preregistered studies, we compared participants’ preferences for eight different emotion regulation strategies as a function of target identity. Study 1 ( N = 119) compared regulating oneself versus a friend and found that direct action, distraction, suppression, and downward comparison were all used significantly more on oneself compared to a friend, while humor, valuing, and receptive listening were all used more on a friend compared to oneself. Study 2 ( N = 120) then examined the role of closeness in emotion regulation strategy choice by comparing strategy preference for regulating oneself versus a close friend versus an acquaintance. Humor, valuing, receptive listening, and direct action were used significantly more on friends compared to acquaintances, while there was no significant difference for reappraisal, downward comparison, distraction, or supression. These results suggest that people show a consistent difference in preference for emotion regulation strategies as a function of who the target of the regulation is and that extrinsic and intrinsic emotion regulation may differ markedly in the strategies people choose to use. A third preregistered study ( N = 120) reframed the same comparison in terms of perceived feasibility and found that the strategies participants rated as more feasible to use on themselves, a close friend, or an acquaintance closely mirrored those they reported using, suggesting that perceived feasibility may help explain target-related differences in emotion regulation choice.