Running head: EMOTION CONTROL BELIEFS AND EMOTION REGULATION

Emotion Control Beliefs and Emotion Regulation Strategies in Response to Daily Negative
Events
Pia Pennekamp

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Abstract
Being able to control emotions is associated with better mental health, well-being, and
psychosocial functioning (De Castella et al., 2013; Bonanno & Burton, 2013; Aldao & NolenHoeksema, 2010, 2012). Research has shown that emotion control beliefs (the extent to which
one believes emotions are fixed or can be changed) influence choices of specific emotion
regulation strategies, such as reappraisal (Kneeland et al., 2016b). As part of a larger study on the
predictors of emotion regulation in everyday life, I assessed the role of emotion control beliefs in
the choice of several emotion regulation strategies across multiple events over multiple days.
Ninety-seven participants completed a questionnaire assessing malleability beliefs before
responding to 7-10 days of assessments on their mobile device (up to 6 assessments a day). Each
assessment comprised 30 items, including items assessing how much participants engaged in
each of eight emotion regulation strategies in response to a recent negative event. I found no
overall associations between emotion control beliefs and the use of adaptive and maladaptive
strategies. I failed to replicate previous findings of an association between emotion control
beliefs and reappraisal and cognitive change. Analyses of individual strategies indicated that the
more participants believed they could change their emotions, the more likely they were to use
distraction and the less likely they were to use learned helplessness. These findings highlight the
importance of considering how emotion control beliefs interact with other predictors to predict
emotion regulation.

Keywords: emotion regulation; emotion malleability beliefs

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Emotion Control Beliefs and Emotion Regulation Strategies in Response to Daily Negative
Events
You have a very important meeting with your boss. As you are walking up to the office,
you trip and spill coffee all over your shirt. You are angry at yourself and find yourself fuming
about it for the rest of the day. No matter what you do, you never seem to be able to control your
emotions. Believing that emotions are changeable has implications for how we choose to
regulate them. In turn, choosing appropriate emotion regulation strategies to react to
environmental and social demands has been linked to better mental health, well-being, and
psychosocial functioning (De Castella, Goldin, Jazaieri, Ziv, Dweck & Gross, 2013; Bonanno &
Burton, 2013; Aldao & Nolen-Hoeksema, 2010, 2012; Gross & Thompson, 2007). In the current
study, I proposed to examine the relation between beliefs about emotion control and the use of
emotion regulation strategies in response to emotional events in everyday life.
Emotion regulation refers to the strategies that people use to decrease, maintain, or
increase their emotions (Gross & Thompson, 2007). Over 20 strategies have been identified and
widely studied in response to positive and negative events (Heiy & Cheavens, 2014). Overall,
strategies can be categorized as adaptive or maladaptive, depending on their effectiveness and
their outcomes for immediate and long-term well-being (Heiy & Cheavens, 2014). Specifically,
strategies such as acceptance (accepting one’s feelings), benefit-finding (thinking about what one
can learn from a situation), perspective-taking (reminding oneself that things could be worse)
and cognitive reappraisal (e.g. thinking about the event in a different way) have been associated
with adaptive outcomes because they are associated with better mental health and tend to reduce
the experience of negative affect in the short- and/or long-term (Aldao & Nolen-Hoeksema,
2010; Goldin, McRae, Ramel & Gross, 2007). Benefit-finding, perspective-taking and cognitive

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reappraisal are all types of cognitive change strategies and have been shown to be effortful and
active strategies (Goldin et al., 2007). On the other hand, some strategies may alleviate negative
affect in the short-term (e.g. substance use) but may have severe consequences for long-term
well-being and mental health (Heiy & Cheavens, 2014). Yet other strategies, like rumination
(repetitive thinking about the situation), expression suppression (trying to hide one’s feelings),
and learned helplessness (thoughts about being unable to do anything about a situation) have
been linked to negative outcomes such as impaired memory for the emotional event and worse
mental health (Richards, Butler, & Gross, 2003; Hofman et al., 2005; Aldao & Nolen-Hoeksema,
2010). Even though strategies have been associated with different outcomes, there is more to
emotion regulation than simply classifying each strategy as either adaptive or maladaptive. For
example, it would not be a good idea to just use reappraisal all the time. Research has shown that
reappraisal may be adaptive when the circumstances are uncontrollable but maladaptive when
the person can change the situation (Troy, Shallcross, & Mauss, 2013). In order to cope
successfully with everyday situations, previous work has demonstrated that flexibility in
employing strategies may be most adaptive (Bonnano & Burton, 2013).
Given the broad array of different strategies, how do people choose one strategy over
another? It is crucial to gain a better understanding of why people to choose to regulate their
emotions in different ways since effective emotion regulation contributes to improved mental
health and overall well-being (Bonanno & Burton, 2013). There are multiple predictors of
emotion regulation. People may employ different strategies depending on several contextual
variables, including individual goals (e.g. performing well on a task or wanting to feel better in
the long run) and characteristics of the event itself (e.g. event intensity) (Richards et al., 2003;

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Aldao & Nolen-Hoeksema, 2010; Heiy & Cheavens; 2014; Bonnano & Burton, 2013; Scheppes
et al., 2011; Scheppes, Scheibe, Suri & Gross, 2011).
Another predictor of emotion regulation is emotion control beliefs (De Castella et al.,
2013). Emotion control beliefs refer to the beliefs that emotions in general, or one’s own
emotions, specifically, are changeable or unchangeable (De Castella et al., 2013). Some people
believe emotions are fixed and cannot be changed (entity theorists) while others believe
emotions can be changed (incremental theorists). Previous work suggests a relationship between
control beliefs and well-being outcomes of emotion regulation strategy choice (De Castella et al.,
2013). However, beliefs of controllability as a predictor of emotion regulation strategy use
remains relatively unexplored.
A small body of literature has shown that emotion control beliefs are linked to a variety
of emotional, interpersonal, and clinical outcomes (De Castella et al., 2013; Howell, 2017; Ford
et al., 2018; Ford & Gross, in press). Whether or not people believe emotions can be changed is
important for social and emotional functioning and regulatory self-efficacy (De Castella et al.,
2013). Emotion control beliefs also predict the subjective intensity of emotion and psychological
health outcomes (Kappes & Schikowski, 2013; De Castella et al., 2013). For example, believing
emotions are uncontrollable is correlated with worse psychological health, including lower wellbeing, depression and anxiety symptoms (Ford & Gross, in press; Ford et al., 2018, De Castella
et al., 2013). Also, people are less likely to engage in challenging situations when they believe
that emotions cannot be changed (Kneeland et al., 2016b). Overall, these findings indicate that
emotion control beliefs are linked to mental health outcomes and social functioning.
Even though research propositions an association between emotion control beliefs and
well-being, it is unclear how emotion regulation mediates this relationship. Recent research has

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pointed out a connection between emotion controllability beliefs and specific emotion regulation
strategies (Kneeland, Nolen-Hoeksema, Dovidio, & Gruber, 2016; Kneeland et al., 2016b; De
Castella, Platow, Tamir & Gross, 2017). Combined findings suggest that the more someone
believes that emotions can be changed, the more likely they are to engage in active regulation
and to positively evaluate the usefulness of various emotion regulation strategies, such as
reappraisal, acceptance, distraction, problem solving, perspective taking and benefit-finding
(Kneeland et al., 2017; Ford & Gross, 2018). The more likely individuals are to believe emotions
to be changeable, the more likely they are to engage in reappraisal when compared to individuals
who believe emotions to be fixed (Kneeland et al., 2016). Furthermore, higher beliefs about the
controllability of emotions predict increased use of effective strategies, such as cognitive change
and attention reorientation (Ortner & Pennekamp, manuscript submitted for publication). On the
other hand, beliefs about the controllability of emotions are negatively associated with the use of
more maladaptive emotion regulation strategies (e.g. rumination, expression suppression and
learned helplessness) (Kneeland et al., 2016). Some evidence also suggests a bidirectional
relationship between control beliefs and emotion regulation: people holding entity beliefs are less
likely to use reappraisal (thinking about something in a different way to change feelings) in
everyday life, and, in turn, experience a perceived lack of control over emotions (Kneeland et al.,
2016b). This pattern is associated with poorer psychological health and decreases the likeliness
of seeking psychological help (Ford, Gentzler, Hankin & Mauss, 2018; De Castella et al, 2017).
In contrast, people holding incremental beliefs are more likely to use reappraisal and, in turn,
experience lower levels of negative affect and more adaptive outcomes (De Castella et al., 2013;
Aldao & Nolen-Hoeksema, 2012; Kappes & Schikowski, 2013). However, work has also shown

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that individuals who believe emotions are changeable are more likely to engage in self-blame,
which has been identified to be maladaptive (Kneeland et al., 2016b).
Although the evidence shows a connection between emotion control beliefs and emotion
regulation, the relationship has primarily been considered in laboratory settings or across a
limited number of strategies (e.g., reappraisal and self-blame). There are relatively few studies
that have examined the links between control beliefs and emotion regulation strategy use (Ford
& Gross, in press). The role of emotion control beliefs in predicting choices of a broad range of
emotion regulation strategies in everyday life settings has been understudied. Furthermore, the
direction of the relationship between control beliefs and emotion regulation strategy selection is
not clear. Although there is some experimental evidence suggesting that emotion regulation
control beliefs predict emotion regulation strategy use (Kneeland et al., 2016b), the relationship
may also go the other way: emotion regulation strategy use, and success, may be predictive of
emotion regulation control beliefs.
The present study aimed to extend the current literature by examining participants’
personal beliefs about emotion controllability and their emotion regulation choices in response to
negative events in everyday life across different strategies. Specifically, I tested how beliefs
about the controllability of emotions predict the use of the following strategies: distraction
(shifting one’s attention away from an unpleasant stimulus by changing one’s thoughts or
activity), problem solving (making a plan to make the situation better), cognitive change
(reappraisal, perspective taking, acceptance, and benefit-finding) (thinking about the situation
differently), rumination (repetitive thoughts about the event), learned helplessness, and
expression suppression (suppressing one’s emotional expressions) (Heiy & Cheavens, 2014).
These strategies are widely studied and have been identified as adaptive or maladaptive based on

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their immediate and long-term effects on emotion, behaviour, and cognition (Aldao & NolenHoeksema, 2012). While distraction, problem solving and reappraisal, including perspective
taking, acceptance, and benefit-finding, are considered to be adaptive, rumination, learned
helplessness, and expression suppression are considered to be maladaptive. Additionally, these
specific emotion regulation strategies are often used in everyday life (Heiy & Cheavens, 2014).
I assessed emotion regulation control beliefs both prior to (time 1) and after (time 2)
participants reported on their use of emotion regulation strategies in response to multiple
negative events experienced in daily life, over 7-10 days. Importantly, participants were asked
about their use of multiple emotion regulation strategies several times per day over the course of
several days, allowing me to collect data close in time to the moment of a negative event. I tested
whether emotion regulation control beliefs at time 1 predicted emotion regulation strategy use.
Furthermore, I planned to test whether emotion regulation strategy use predicted emotion
regulation control beliefs at time 2, over and beyond emotion regulation control beliefs at time 1.
Based on previous research, I predicted that the choice of emotion regulation strategies in
everyday life would depend on people’s beliefs about emotion regulation. I expected to find that
the more people believed that emotions could be changed, the more likely they were to use
adaptive emotion regulation strategies and the less likely they were to use maladaptive emotion
regulation strategies. I expected to find that the relationship between emotion regulation strategy
use and emotion regulation control beliefs would be bidirectional. That is, I expected that
emotion control beliefs at time 1 would be predictive of emotion regulation strategies and that
emotion regulation strategies would be predictive of emotion regulation control beliefs at time 2,
over and above emotion control beliefs at time 1.

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Method
Participants
The research project was part of a larger study on the predictors of emotion regulation in
everyday life. Participants were 97 adults (N = 97) aged 18-55 from the community of
Kamloops, BC. Only 94 participants completed a number of 14 assessments and were included
in the study. Participants ranged in age from 18 to 55 (M = 26.07, SD = 8.61) and identified as
predominantly female (70.1%, 28.9% male). Participants were white (87.6%), black (1%), Asian
(4.1%), First Nations (1%), Indian (2.1%), Middle Eastern (2.1%), Hispanic (1%), or other (1%).
The Thompson Rivers University’s Research Ethics Board approved the study. Participants gave
informed consent and received a $30 grocery gift card upon completion of the study (See
Appendix A for informed consent form).
Measures and Procedure
Participants completed an initial survey in the laboratory at Thompson Rivers University.
The initial survey consisted of a battery of measures including, for the purpose of the current
study, beliefs about emotion control. Subsequently, participants commenced 7-10 days of
assessments on their mobile device, with up to six assessments a day.
Initial questionnaire. Participants completed a battery of measures assessing the predictors and
outcomes of emotion regulation in daily life. For the purpose of this project, I focused on the
following measures:
Emotion Control Beliefs (De Castella et al., 2013). Participants rated the extent to which they
agreed with four statements about emotional control (e.g., “I can learn to control my emotions,”
“The truth is, I have very little control over my emotions”), on a scale from 1 (strongly disagree)
to 5 (strongly agree) (See Appendix B). Two of the items were worded for believing emotions

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are malleable and two of the items were worded for believing emotions are fixed. Items worded
for believing emotions are fixed were reverse scored.
Survey Signal Measures
Participants were asked to respond to six assessments a day, with a minimum of 14 assessments
total over the course of 7-10 days. The assessments comprised items assessing momentary affect,
event specifics, emotion regulation, event implications, immediate and future regulation goals,
and instrumental and hedonic goals. For the purpose of this project, I focused on the following:
Emotion Regulation Items. Participants rated how much they engaged in each emotion strategy
from 0 (not at all) to 5 (very much). Strategies included acceptance (e.g. “Since the previous
assessment I have allowed or accepted my feelings”), distraction (e.g. “… I found an activity or
thought of something else to keep myself busy and distracted”), rumination (e.g. “…I thought
over and over again about the situation or my feelings”), perspective taking (e.g. “…it could be
worse”), benefit finding (e.g. “…I thought about how I could become stronger or learn from
this”), learned helplessness (e.g. “…I can never do anything about my problems so I felt unable
to deal with the situation”), expression suppression (e.g. “…I tried not to show my emotions”),
and cognitive reappraisal (e.g. “…I thought about the situation in a different way”), problem
solving (e.g. “…I made a plan to make the situation better”), social sharing (e.g. “…I talked
about my feelings with someone else”), consequences (e.g. “…I thought about all the different
things in my life that this situation would impact”), positive refocusing (e.g. “…I thought about
something pleasant instead of what happened”), substance use (e.g. “…I smoked a
cigarette/drank alcohol/got high”), denial (e.g. “…I acted like the situation never happened
before), avoidance (e.g. “I avoided focusing on my thoughts or feelings about the situation).
(See Appendix C).

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Final questionnaire
Upon completion of the 14 assessments over the course of 7-10 days, participants returned to the
laboratory to complete a final questionnaire. The final questionnaire comprised the same
measures as the initial questionnaire. For the purpose of this study, I focused on measures of
emotion control beliefs (See Appendix B).
Data analyses
I conducted statistical analyses with SPSS version 24. I was unable to examine control beliefs at
time 1 over and above control beliefs at time 2 because the final questionnaire did not assess
emotion control beliefs. I computed a mean across the four emotion control belief items, as well
as an adaptive strategy use score (mean of acceptance, distraction, problem solving, benefit
finding, cognitive reappraisal, positive refocusing, social sharing, perspective taking) and
maladaptive strategy use score (mean of rumination, expression suppression, consequences,
denial, avoidance, learned helplessness, substance use). I computed means for acceptance,
reappraisal, distraction, rumination, problem solving, benefit finding, expression suppression and
learned helplessness (see Table 1). I also computed individual means for perspective taking,
social sharing, consequences, positive refocusing, substance use, denial and avoidance (see Table
2). Based on previous research, I computed a cognitive change score by computing the mean
across acceptance, perspective taking, benefit finding and reappraisal and for attention
reorientation by grouping distraction and positive refocusing (Goldin et al., 2007). I computed
correlations between emotion control beliefs, and adaptive and maladaptive strategy use using
Pearson’s correlation coefficient. I also computed correlations between emotion control beliefs
mean and cognitive change and attention reorientation. Finally, I computed correlations between

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emotion regulation control beliefs and acceptance, reappraisal, distraction, rumination, problem
solving, benefit finding, expression suppression and learned helplessness (see Table 1).
Results
There were no overall associations between emotion regulation control beliefs and the
use of adaptive and maladaptive strategies, r = .163, n.s. and r = -.047, n.s. Analyses of
individual strategies indicated that the more participants believed they could change their
emotions, the more likely they were to use distraction, r = .222, p = 0.05, and the less likely they
were to use learned helplessness, r = -.339, p = 0.01. All other correlations with specific
strategies were not significant (all p’s < .058) (see Table 1).
Discussion
This study aimed to examine why and how people regulate their emotions across personal
experiences of negative events. I predicted that the more likely people were to believe that
emotions are changeable, the more likely they would be to use adaptive strategies and the less
likely they would be to use maladaptive strategies to regulate emotions. There was limited
support for these predictions.
Contrary to my predictions, there was no overall association between emotion control
beliefs and adaptive or maladaptive strategy use. These findings suggest that people draw on
different regulatory strategies that may depend on the characteristics of the event, rather than
emotional control beliefs predicting the use of adaptive and maladaptive strategies in general.
While my predictions did not include specific projections for individual emotion
regulation strategies, I found that the more people believed they could change their emotions, the
more likely they were to use distraction and the less likely they were to use learned helplessness.
Antecedent-focused strategies like reappraisal have been positively associated with emotion

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regulation control beliefs because they target emotional responses before they unfold (Ortner &
Pennekamp, 2018; Kneeland, Dovidio, Joormann & Clark, 2016c). Distraction has been
identified as having no negative consequences for mental health and is a preferred strategy when
regulating emotions in response to high intensity events (De Castella et al., 2013; Sheppes et al.,
2011). It may be that distraction, given that is generally considered to be adaptive and
antecedent-focused, is positively associated with emotion control beliefs. This study is the first to
demonstrate the relationship of distraction and emotion control beliefs. Learned helplessness,
however, has been identified as a maladaptive strategy due to its negative implications for mental
health (Bonanno & Burton, 2013). The more people believe emotions cannot be changed, the
more likely they are to use learned helplessness (e.g. “I can never do anything about my
problems, so I felt unable to deal with the situation”). The semantic overlap between the
constructs of learned helplessness and fixed emotion control beliefs may explain this correlation.
I failed to replicate previous work that found emotion control beliefs to be a predictor for
reappraisal, rumination and expression suppression (Kneeland et al., 2016; Kneeland et al.,
2016b; De Castella et al., 2017). Given my analyses across a large number of strategies, the
specificity of association between strategies and emotion control beliefs may have been lost.
Previous research has demonstrated that strategy use varies within-person (Brans et al.,
2013). Individuals may use different strategies depending on the context of an event, rather than
consistently relying on one strategy or a set of strategies. It may also be the case that specific
adaptive or maladaptive strategies are more closely associated with emotion control beliefs than
others. Therefore, there is a need to measure people’s use of multiple individual strategies across
multiple events in order to capture how contextual variables influence emotion regulation.

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Previous work has found that intensity and importance of an event together interact with
emotion control beliefs and strategy use (Ortner & Pennekamp, 2018). For example, findings
suggest that as event importance and intensity increase so does use of maladaptive strategies
(Ortner & Pennekamp, 2018). This may explain why there was no relationship between emotion
control beliefs and adaptive and maladaptive emotion regulation strategy use: other predictors,
such as event intensity and importance, might moderate the relationship between emotion control
beliefs and strategy use. In other words, people differing in emotion control beliefs may respond
differently to contextual variables, such as intensity and importance.
Limitations and Future Directions
This study adds to our knowledge as to why and how people regulate their emotions in
response to daily events. However, there are some limitations that future research should address.
First, the current study did not address any possible interactions with contextual variables (like
intensity). I only examined emotional responses to negative events. Further studies should
examine the role of emotion control beliefs in regulating emotions to positive events. Second,
while I suggest that assessments about the event captured participants’ feelings prior to any
regulatory attempts, the experience sampling methodology may have influenced how people
regulated their emotions. That is, drawing awareness to different emotion regulations strategies
may have influenced participants’ regulatory attempts as the event unfolded. Third, I assessed
correlational associations between emotion regulation control beliefs and strategy use. I expected
that emotion control beliefs would predict emotion regulation strategies, but the relationships
may be bi-directional. In other words, it may be that emotion regulation strategy use predicts
emotion control beliefs. Being able to successfully regulate one’s emotions may influence one’s
beliefs about their controllability. Experimental research has found emotion control beliefs to be

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predictive of specific strategies such as reappraisal and suppression (Kneeland et al, 2016; De
Castella et al., 2017). Future research should build on these findings by assessing a broader array
of strategies or considering moderating variables such as intensity. Experience sampling
methodology allows for momentary and longitudinal assessments of emotion control beliefs. It is
therefore important to consider how emotion control beliefs vary over time and how momentary
emotion control beliefs predict emotion regulation for events. Future research should examine
the variability in malleability beliefs across different occasions and how emotion control beliefs
interact with other predictors to predict emotion regulation. This, in turn, will lead to a broader
understanding of potential approaches to the improvement of mental health and well-being.
Conclusion
I examined emotion control beliefs in relationship to emotion regulation strategies.
Findings suggest that the more people believe that they can change their emotions the more
likely they are to use distraction and the less likely they are to use learned helplessness. I did not
find an overall association between emotion control beliefs and adaptive and maladaptive
emotion regulation strategy use. My findings extend previous research on emotion control beliefs
and emotion regulation to add a more detailed examination of how control beliefs may predict
emotion regulation in daily life. Using experience sampling methodology, I was able to capture
how people regulated their emotions in response to daily negative events. Emotion regulation
control beliefs and emotion regulation strategy use was assessed at the individual level: I
examined how individuals responded across multiple emotional events. Contrary to previous
research and expected results, I did not find an overall association between emotion control
beliefs and use of other strategies such as reappraisal. A more fruitful avenue for future research

EMOTION CONTROL BELIEFS AND EMOTION REGULATION
could be to explore other variables that may interact with emotion control beliefs to predict
emotion regulation strategy choice.

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Psychological Science, 24, 2505-2514. doi:10.1177/0956797615627417

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20

Appendix A
Informed Consent
Dear Participant,
You have been asked by Dr. Catherine Ortner or Pia Pennekamp of the Department of
Psychology, Thompson Rivers University (telephone number 250 828 5497), to participate in a
research project entitled Emotions in Everyday Life, which encompasses the following:
The purpose of the study is to assess how people respond in different emotional situations
and their perceptions of emotional events. It is comprised of three parts:
1. Questionnaires. Today, you will answer some questions about your responses to
emotional events in general and the ways you think about your life and the world.
You will also register on SurveySignal, which is a platform that sends text messages
at pre-determined times, with links to short surveys. This portion of the study will
take approximately 45 minutes.
2. Smartphone Surveys. After registering on SurveySignal on your phone, you will
receive six texts each day, each one with a link to a short survey on SurveyMonkey.
The texts will start any time after 9am, and you will not receive any texts after 9pm.
Each assessment will include items asking you about how you responded to a recent
emotional event and will take a few minutes of your time. This portion of the study
will last for seven to ten days. After you have completed at least seven days and about
21 assessments, you will receive an email inviting you to schedule the final
questionnaires and wrap-up session. (If you have any questions during this time,
please contact the primary researcher, Catherine Ortner, at cortner@tru.ca.)
3. Final Questionnaires and Wrap-up. You will return to the laboratory and answer a
few questions about the way you think about your life. You will then be fully
debriefed about the purpose of the study. A researcher will be able to answer any
questions you may have. You will receive your payment of a $30 grocery store gift
card as thanks for your participation. This portion of the study will take
approximately 20 minutes.
Your responses will help us to find how people prefer to respond to different emotional
situations.
During this study you will be documenting your responses to emotional situations as they
arise. There is no discomfort or distress anticipated from your participation in the study.
No identifying information will be collected in the daily assessments. You will complete
those surveys on SurveyMonkey, which stores the data securely on Canadian servers.
SurveySignal (the platform that sends the text messages) will store your information (email and
telephone number) on their secure servers and never share it with third parties. SurveySignal may
send you email invitations to participate in other studies after this study is completed. You can
choose to unsubscribe to those emails.
All the data collected for this study will remain confidential. No identifying information
will be collected. The data will be used for research purposes only. Data from the study will be
stored on the principal investigator’s computer. The study results may be presented at a
conference or in journal in aggregated form. The raw data from the study may be made publicly
available on TRUSpace or another open access repository, but this will be in a manner that does
not identify you. The study results may also be presented in summary format at conferences
and/or published in scholarly journals.

EMOTION CONTROL BELIEFS AND EMOTION REGULATION

21

You may refuse to participate or withdraw your participation in this project at any time
without any negative consequences. You can indicate to the researcher that you do not wish to
continue, and/or uninstall the app from your phone.
You may ask any questions or register any complaint you might have about the project
with either the chief researcher named above or with the Dean of Arts, TRU (250-828-5000). If
you have any questions or issues concerning this project that are not related to the specifics of
the research, you may also contact the Chair of the Research Ethics Board – Human Participants
(250-828-5000).
Copies of the results of this study, upon its completion, may be obtained by emailing the
investigator, Dr. Catherine Ortner at cortner@tru.ca after August 2018.
We appreciate your effort and help in participating.
Your signature on this form indicates that you understand the information regarding this research
project, including all procedures and the personal risks involved, that you voluntarily agree to
participate in this project as a participant, and that you have received a copy of the consent form.
Name: (Please Print) ______________________________________________________

Participant’s signature____________________________________ Date ___________________

Investigator’s
signature_______________________________________________Date___________________

EMOTION CONTROL BELIEFS AND EMOTION REGULATION
Appendix B
Measures (Emotion Control items, Emotion Regulation items)
Emotion control
Please rate the extent to which you agree with each of the following items:
If I want to, I can change the emotions that I have.
1

2

3

4

Strongly
disagree

5
Strongly
agree

No matter how hard I try, I can’t really change the emotions that I have.
1

2

3

4

Strongly
disagree

5
Strongly
agree

I can learn to control my emotions.
1

2

3

4

Strongly
disagree

5
Strongly
agree

The truth is, I have very little control over my emotions.
1
Strongly
disagree

2

3

4

5
Strongly
agree

22

EMOTION CONTROL BELIEFS AND EMOTION REGULATION
Appendix C
5. Emotion regulation
In response to this event… (adapted from Heiys & Cheavens and Brans et al.)
I accepted the situation and/or my emotions
I found an activity or thought of something else to keep myself busy and distracted
I thought over and over again about the situation or my feelings
I made a plan to make the situation better
I reminded myself that things could be worse
I talked about my feelings with someone else
I thought about how I could become stronger or learn from this situation
I thought about all the different things in my life that this situation would impact
I tried not to show my emotions
I thought of something pleasant instead of what happened
I thought about the situation in a different way
I smoked a cigarette/drank alcohol/got high
I acted like the situation had never happened at all
I avoided focusing on my thoughts or feelings about the situation
I can never do anything about my problems so I felt unable to deal with the situation
0
Not at all

1

2

3

4

5
Very much

23

EMOTION CONTROL BELIEFS AND EMOTION REGULATION

24

Appendix D
Debriefing
Thank you for completing the study. Your responses will help us understand how people choose
to respond to different types of emotional situations.
It is really common to use lots of different strategies when trying to control your emotions and
we are interested in finding out why people will choose to use different strategies in different
situations. Previous research has shown that people who think about the future consequences of
their actions choose different ways to regulate their emotions compared to those who do not
think about the future consequences as much. We hope to build on those findings by showing
that thinking about the present and future is an important variable predicting how people regulate
their emotions in real life situations. Using smartphones to collect data allows us to capture this
information much closer to when it happens, so we are not relying as much on people’s
memories of what happened and how they responded.

EMOTION CONTROL BELIEFS AND EMOTION REGULATION
Table 1. Correlations between emotion control beliefs means and emotion regulation strategy
use.
Emotion Regulation Strategy

Emotion Control Beliefs

Acceptance

.193

M

4.22

SD

.89

Distraction

.222*

M

3.29

SD

.95

Rumination

-.139

M

3.01

SD

1.01

Benefit finding

.106

M

2.74

SD

1.21

Problem solving

.097

M

3.29

SD

1.08

Expression Suppression

.048

M

3.31

SD

1.13

Reappraisal

.082

M

2.51

25

EMOTION CONTROL BELIEFS AND EMOTION REGULATION
SD

1.11

Learned Helplessness

-.339**

M

1.82

SD

1.08

*. Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed).
**. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).

26

EMOTION CONTROL BELIEFS AND EMOTION REGULATION
Table 2. Means and standard deviations for other emotion regulation strategies.
Emotion Regulation Strategy
Perspective Taking
M

3.12

SD

1.44

Social Sharing
M

2.42

SD

1.08

Consequences
M

2.93

SD

.99

Positive Refocusing
M

2.42

SD

1.12

Substance Use
M

.95

SD

.72

Denial
M

2.25

SD

.97

Avoidance
M

2.84

SD

.97

27