title: An expectancy-value model of emotion regulation: implications for motivation, emotional experience, and decision making.
abstract: According to expectancy-value models of self-regulation, people are motivated to act in ways they expect to be useful to them. For instance, people are motivated to run when they believe running is useful, even when they have nothing to run away from. Similarly, we propose an expectancy-value model of emotion regulation, according to which people are motivated to emote in ways they expect to be useful to them, regardless of immediate contextual demands. For instance, people may be motivated to get angry when they believe anger is useful, even when there is nothing to be angry about. In 5 studies, we demonstrate that leading people to expect an emotion to be useful increased their motivation to experience that emotion (Studies 1-5), led them to up-regulate the experience of that emotion (Studies 3-4), and led to emotion-consistent behavior (Study 4). Our hypotheses were supported when we manipulated the expected value of anxiety (Study 1) and anger (Studies 2-5), both consciously (Studies 1-4) and unconsciously (Study 5). We discuss the theoretical and pragmatic implications of the proposed model.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
authors.forename: Maya
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Tamir
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
authors.forename: Yochanan E
authors.initials: YE
authors.lastname: Bigman
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Boston College.
authors.forename: Emily
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Rhodes
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Boston College.
authors.forename: James
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Salerno
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Boston College.
authors.forename: Jenna
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Schreier
mesh_terms: D000786:Anger; D001007:Anxiety / Q000523:psychology; D003657:Decision Making; D004644:Emotions; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008960:Models, Psychological; D009042:Motivation; D012727:Sex Characteristics; D012737:Sex Factors; D012927:Social Control, Informal; D055815:Young Adult