Put Your Oxygen Mask on First: When Regulators Feel Worse, They are Less Effective at Interpersonal Emotion Regulation

How do our emotional reactions to an event affect our ability to make others feel better about that event? In interpersonal emotion regulation, regulators try to help targets feel better, but they are not always successful. As regulators’ unpleasant emotions can make it harder for them to exert effort, we expected interpersonal emotion regulation to be less successful when regulators have more intense negative reactions. We tested our hypothesis in a correlational study targeting strangers (n_dyads=64) and an experimental study targeting partners in closer relationships (n_dyads=110). In these studies, regulators rated their emotional reactions to stimuli that induced emotions in targets, and tried to regulate targets’ emotions. In both studies, when regulators had more intense emotional reactions, they were less successful in making targets feel better. Also, when regulators had more intense emotional reactions they used fewer strategies to make the target feel better, suggesting they may have exerted less effort. Thus, when regulators react more strongly to an event that upsets another, they should perhaps control their own emotions and then engage in interpersonal emotion regulation.