James G. Gross, Ph.D.
Professor of Psychology
Stanford University

Topic:  “Emotion Regulation:  What Is It and Why Does It Matter?”

Abstract:

Emotions are at once a source of our most sublime pleasures and our most dreaded agonies. For millennia, people have wondered how they might have more of the former and less of the latter.  Today, this question animates the new and rapidly growing field of emotion regulation.  Based on work from dozens of laboratories around the world, we now know that emotion regulation plays a crucial role in determining a wide range of affective, cognitive, and social outcomes. In this talk, I will do three things. In the first part of the talk, I will define emotion and emotion regulation, and describe a framework for understanding the role of emotion regulation in healthy adaptation. In the second part of the talk, I will review key research findings which suggest that specific forms of emotion regulation have different consequences for affective, cognitive, and social functioning.  In the third part of the talk, I will say why I think this work matters, and consider several interesting puzzles that must be addressed by this field.

Web Sites:  https://profiles.stanford.edu/james-gross

                    http://spl.stanford.edu/index.html

 Contact:  Matt Nock – nock@wjh.harvard.edu