The process model of emotion regulation

Why a process model

Before the late 1990s, research on how people manage their emotions was scattered across coping research, defence mechanisms, psychophysiology and clinical practice. James Gross’s integrative review proposed a common framework: emotion regulation refers to the processes by which people influence which emotions they have, when they have them, and how they experience and express them (Gross, 1998). The key move was to treat emotion as a process that unfolds over time, rather than as a state that is either present or absent. If emotion unfolds, then regulation can intervene at different points, and strategies can be compared by when they act.

That idea is simple, but it changed the question that catharsis research had been asking. The discharge model offered a binary: express or hold in. The process model asks instead which strategy, applied at which point, changes which component of an emotion, and at what cost. Emotion regulation becomes a family of different operations rather than a single choice.

The modal model of emotion

The process model rests on a simplified description of how an emotion arises, often called the modal model. A situation (external, or internal such as a memory) is attended to; it is appraised in relation to the person’s goals; and the appraisal gives rise to a response that involves experience, behaviour and physiology. The response can change the situation, which starts the cycle again.

This sequence is a working assumption rather than a finding. It draws on appraisal theories (Theory 03), and its authors describe it as a deliberately simplified picture. Its function is to provide places where regulation can act.

The five families of strategies

Each family corresponds to a point in the modal sequence (Gross, 1998; Gross, 2015).

Situation selection acts before a situation arises: choosing to approach or avoid people, places or activities according to the emotions they are expected to bring. Declining an invitation to a gathering where a painful encounter is likely is situation selection. So is deliberately seeking out a friend who usually improves one’s mood. See the glossary entry on situation selection.

Situation modification changes a situation once one is in it: asking a colleague to lower their voice, moving a difficult conversation to a private room, or solving the practical problem that is producing frustration. Situation modification is the family most directly connected to resolution in the everyday sense, because it can change the source of the emotion.

Attentional deployment changes which aspects of a situation receive attention. Distraction directs attention away; concentration directs it towards. Rumination, repeatedly focusing on a distressing event and its causes, can be understood as a persistent and often unintended form of attentional deployment (attentional deployment).

Cognitive change alters the meaning a situation has for the person. The best-studied form is reappraisal: reinterpreting what happened (“the reply was short because she was busy, not because she was dismissive”) or changing one’s goals in relation to it. Because it acts on the appraisal that generates the emotion, cognitive change can alter the emotion at its source.

Response modulation acts once an emotion is under way, on its experiential, behavioural or physiological expression. Expressive suppression, keeping the face and voice neutral while feeling strongly, is the most studied example. So are slowing one’s breathing, drinking alcohol, or exercising to change bodily state (response modulation).

The first four families are sometimes grouped as antecedent-focused, because they act before the emotional response is fully generated, and the fifth as response-focused. The model predicts that antecedent-focused strategies, especially cognitive change, should alter the whole emotional response more efficiently, whereas response-focused strategies change the output while the generating appraisal continues.

What the evidence shows

Experimental evidence across families

The most comprehensive test of the families is a meta-analysis of experiments in which participants were instructed to use a particular strategy after an emotion induction (Webb, Miles, & Sheeran, 2012). Its findings distinguish sharply between strategies that the model groups together or apart:

• Cognitive change had a small-to-medium effect on emotional outcomes.
• Distraction, a form of attentional deployment, was effective; concentrating on one’s feelings, another form, was not.
• Response modulation was mixed: suppressing the expression of emotion had some effect on behaviour, but suppressing the experience of emotion was ineffective.

These results come from short laboratory inductions, mostly with film clips, pictures or recalled events, and effects varied with moderators. They support the model’s central premise that strategies differ, and they show that differences within a family can be as important as differences between families.

Individual differences

Studies of habitual strategy use measure how often people tend to reappraise or suppress. People who report habitually reappraising experience and express more positive and less negative emotion and report better interpersonal functioning than those who habitually suppress (Gross & John, 2003). The design is correlational, so it cannot show that reappraisal causes these outcomes; people who find reappraisal easy may differ in other ways. It is consistent with the experimental pattern.

Choosing a strategy

People do not use one strategy for everything. In three laboratory experiments with emotional pictures or unpredictable electric stimulation, participants relatively preferred reappraisal in low-intensity negative situations and distraction in high-intensity ones (Sheppes et al., 2011). The authors’ interpretation is that reappraisal requires engaging with the emotional meaning, which is feasible at low intensity, whereas distraction blocks processing early, before an intense emotion gathers force. The finding concerns choice, not long-term consequences.

The extended process model

The original model describes what strategies do. The extended process model addresses how regulation happens at all (Gross, 2015). It treats emotion regulation as a form of valuation: a system that evaluates the emotion itself as good or bad for the person’s goals and acts to change it. Three stages are distinguished.

1. Identification. Is the emotion something to regulate? This depends on noticing it and on valuing a change.
2. Selection. Which strategy family, and which specific tactic, should be used?
3. Implementation. How is the chosen tactic carried out in this situation?

Each stage is monitored and can fail. A person may not notice rising anger (identification failure), may habitually choose a strategy that does not fit the situation (selection failure), or may try to reappraise but produce thoughts that increase distress (implementation failure). The extended model gives a vocabulary for regulation difficulties that is more specific than “poor coping” (extended process model).

Recent work has also widened the notion of reappraisal. Rather than one strategy, it is described as a family of tactics that differ, for example, in whether they reconstrue the situation or repurpose the goals it bears on, and in whether they act on the object of the emotion or on the emotion itself (Uusberg et al., 2023). This conceptual map is proposed, not yet tested as a whole.

Where venting and reappraisal sit

The process model was not built to classify venting, and its authors do not do so in these terms. Placing venting within it is this site’s interpretation, recorded as such in the ledger. The placement is nonetheless informative.

Venting, as typically studied, involves two operations. It expresses the emotion outwardly, often with high arousal, which is response modulation. And it directs attention to the provocation and to the feeling, which is attentional deployment of the concentrating kind. Neither operation acts on the appraisal that generates the emotion. The meta-analytic finding that concentrating on feelings was not effective, and the experimental finding that venting while thinking about the provoker increased anger and aggression (Bushman, 2002), are both consistent with this placement. So is the meta-analytic finding that arousal-decreasing activities reduced anger, while arousal-increasing activities were not effective overall (Kjærvik & Bushman, 2024): if an activity works at the response level, lowering arousal is more plausible than raising it. Research note 02 covers the studies.

Reappraisal sits earlier. It changes what the situation means, so the emotion that follows is different, not merely expressed differently. That is why it is the model’s candidate for change that lasts beyond the episode. It is not, however, automatically resolution. Reappraisal changes meaning; if the situation itself should change, meaning alone may not be enough. Situation modification remains the family that acts directly on circumstances.

A useful way to state the relation to catharsis, again as interpretation:

• Response modulation can change how an emotion feels or looks now. It is the natural home of relief.
• Attentional deployment can shorten or lengthen an episode, depending on whether attention moves away or stays.
• Cognitive change can change the emotion that a situation produces, now and on later encounters.
• Situation selection and modification can change whether the situation occurs at all.

Some forms of expression combine these. Talking a problem through with someone who helps reconsider it involves cognitive change, and structured writing that builds an account may too. The label “venting” does not tell us which operations are taking place, which is one reason studies of expression disagree.

Criticisms and open questions

Is regulation separable from generation? The model assumes that emotion generation and emotion regulation are distinct processes. From a constructionist perspective, in which emotions are constructed from ongoing predictions and conceptualisation, this distinction may not hold; regulation may simply be part of how an emotion is constructed. Gross and Barrett argued that whether the two can be usefully distinguished depends on one’s theoretical view of emotion, and that making those perspectives explicit is more productive than declaring one correct (Gross & Feldman Barrett, 2011). The debate concerns framing; it does not invalidate the experimental findings, but it limits how literally the modal sequence should be read (Theory 04).

Families overlap in practice. Leaving a room is situation selection, modification and attentional deployment at once. The families are heuristic categories, and real regulation is often a blend.

Effectiveness depends on context. A strategy that reduces negative emotion in a laboratory task may not be adaptive in life. Distraction is effective in the short term but, used habitually to avoid a problem that needs attention, it may maintain the problem. Reappraisal may be less helpful when a situation can and should be changed. Research on regulatory flexibility asks whether matching strategies to situations matters more than using any particular strategy; that literature is not reviewed here.

Laboratory to life. Most experiments induce mild, brief emotions in healthy adults. Transfer to intense, prolonged or clinical distress is uncertain. For clinical applications, see Research note on clinical perspectives.

Outcomes differ. “Effective” usually means lower self-reported negative emotion shortly after an induction. Physiological, social and long-term outcomes can diverge from that measure.

What this essay concludes

The process model’s contribution is to replace a binary with a map. Once strategies are sorted by when they act, the question “does expressing an emotion help?” becomes “which operation does this form of expression perform?” The experimental evidence supports the view that strategies differ and that acting on meaning is, on average, more effective than concentrating on feelings or suppressing experience. Within that map, venting acts late and on the surface of an emotion, while reappraisal and situation change act on what produces it. That is the model’s version of the distinction between relief and resolution, and it is a conceptual lens, not a verdict on any individual’s way of coping.