Welcome to the Motivation and Emotion Lab
Our lab focuses on the definition, antecedents, and outcomes of adaptive emotion regulation. We are tracing the behavioral and social outcomes of different emotion regulation styles and investigating variables that may predict adaptive and non-adaptive regulation. The research is anchored in Self-Determination Theory (Ryan & Deci, 2017) and defines adaptive regulation as integrative regulation of emotions, which involves taking an interest in emotional experiences.
Research into the outcomes of emotion regulation focuses specifically on situations that evoke negative emotions since they present greater challenges for regulation. The studies are diverse and include the following topics, among others:
- Coping with stress and anxiety.
- Learning from failures in general and from academic failures in particular.
- Quality of social relationships and the associations between emotion regulation styles and empathic ability.
- Quality of intimate relationships.
- Flexible regulation versus rigid regulation.
Research on the antecedents of adaptive emotion regulation has focused on socialization, and specifically on relationships between parents and children, as well as relationships between teachers and students. This line of research includes the following topics:
- Autonomy-supportive and suppressive socialization practices as predictors of children's emotion regulation styles.
- Parents' unconditional love for children as an antecedent the development of adaptive emotion regulation.
- Perceptions of children's negative emotions by parents and teachers and their relations to parental behavior and the child's regulation.
