title: Looking into the crystal ball of our emotional lives: emotion regulation and the overestimation of future guilt and shame.
abstract: In the present study, we examined the impact of emotion regulation on the intensity bias in guilt and shame. Fifty-two undergraduates either forecasted their emotions and emotion regulation following a guilt- and shame-eliciting situation or reported their actual experienced emotions and employed emotion regulation. Results showed a clear intensity bias, that is, forecasters predicted to experience more guilt and shame than experiencers actually experienced. Furthermore, results showed that forecasters predicted to employ less down-regulating emotion regulation (i.e. less acceptance) and more up-regulating emotion regulation (i.e. more rumination) than experiencers actually employed. Moreover, results showed that the intensity differences between forecasted and experienced guilt and shame could be explained (i.e. were mediated) by the differences between forecasted and actually employed emotion regulation (i.e. acceptance and rumination). These findings provide support for the hypothesis that the intensity bias can-at least in part-be explained by the misprediction of future emotion regulation.
authors.affiliation: a Department of Social and Organizational Psychology , Leiden University , Leiden , The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Wilco W
authors.initials: WW
authors.lastname: van Dijk
authors.affiliation: b Department of Social and Organizational Psychology , Leiden Institute for Brain and Cognition, Leiden University , Leiden , The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Lotte F
authors.initials: LF
authors.lastname: van Dillen
authors.affiliation: c Department of Social Psychology, Amsterdam Brain and Cognition , University of Amsterdam , Amsterdam , The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Mark
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Rotteveel
authors.affiliation: d Department of Social Psychology , University of Amsterdam , Amsterdam , The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Elise C
authors.initials: EC
authors.lastname: Seip
mesh_terms: D000223:Adaptation, Psychological; D004644:Emotions; D005544:Forecasting; D006167:Guilt; D006801:Humans; D012752:Shame
keywords: Affective forecasting; emotion regulation; guilt; intensity bias; shame