Motivational Intensity in Emotion Regulation.

Publication date: Sep 11, 2024

Changing how we feel can be adaptive, but it is also difficult and may require effort. There is research on what people want to achieve in emotion regulation (motivational content), but there is little research on how intensely people pursue what they want to achieve (motivational intensity). We tested the role of motivational intensity in emotion regulation, by assessing (Studies 1-2, Ns = 160 and 157) and manipulating (Study 3, N = 250) it in daily life. As predicted, when people were more motivated to make themselves feel better, they engaged more intensely in emotion-regulatory behaviors, experienced more desirable emotional experiences, and reported better psychological health. Furthermore, motivating people to make themselves feel better, increased their emotion-regulatory behaviors and led to better psychological health during COVID-19. Motivational intensity, therefore, may be an understudied factor facilitating emotional well-being.

Concepts Keywords
Covid COVID-19
Daily emotion regulation
Health motivation
Motivational psychological health
well-being

Semantics

Type Source Name
disease IDO role
drug DRUGBANK Tropicamide
disease MESH COVID-19

Original Article

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