Regulation of Emotions Under Stress

Stressful life events (SLEs) are frequently associated with a range of deleterious mental and physical health outcomes. However, some individuals exhibit resilience, defined as maintained or even improved health in the wake of SLEs. How and why might this be the case? Given that SLEs give rise to negative emotions, which in turn contribute to mental and physical illness, promising answers to questions about resilience lie in research on people’s ability to manage their emotions, or, emotion regulation. This essay focuses on emerging empirical evidence that suggests that two seemingly opposite emotion regulation strategies, cognitive reappraisal and emotional acceptance, are particularly effective for managing negative emotions, which, in turn, may confer resilience. By integrating theory with extant empirical evidence, we offer a model that aims to reconcile how these two strategies—one that involves minimizing emotions (cognitive reappraisal) and the other that involves engaging with emotions (emotional acceptance)—are each associated with resilience. Specifically, we propose that these strategies are not contradictory, but rather complementary. We additionally discuss broader implications for the links among stress, emotion regulation, and health, as well as key issues for future research at the intersection of social and clinical psychology, medicine, and public health.