Regulating Self-Conscious Negative Emotions by Matched Positive Emotions

Self-conscious emotions (i.e., guilt, shame, embarrassment, and pride) are experienced when people evaluate themselves in relation to identity goals. Self-conscious emotions are prevalent in daily life and serve important functions, like pro-social behavior and self-control. Despite their benefits, the experience of negative self-conscious emotions is painful and correlated with detrimental effects, such as low self-esteem and social avoidance. Therefore, understanding the processes that allow the regulation of negative self-conscious emotions is highly important. Yet, despite their adaptive value and clinical significance, and the flourishing research on emotion regulation, research and theory on the regulation of self-conscious emotions is scarce. 

People experience self-conscious emotions when they evaluate their behavior in relation to long-term identity goals and to broad social norms and moral principles. Extensive research shows that when feeling bad, people attempt to modify their negative emotions with positive emotions. Yet, this past research has not addressed the abundant differences that exist between self-conscious and non-self-conscious emotions. Because the experience of pride follows an inference about achieving long-term identity goals, such an inference would be effective in counteracting inferences about failing to achieve long-term identity goals that are associated with negative self-conscious emotions. In contrast, the experience of a positive emotion that does not share an underlying goal with the negative self-conscious emotion does not address the eliciting factor of the negative emotion and is therefore less likely to attenuate its intensity. 

I propose a novel theoretical framework for understanding the regulation of negative self-conscious emotions through positive emotions that match (vs. not) the appraisals underlying their experience. The research program is designed to examine two predictions: Prediction 1 is about the effectiveness of a positive emotion in regulating a negative self-conscious emotion that matches (vs. not) its underlying goal. Studies 1-3 will test the prediction that a negative self-conscious emotion will be more successfully attenuated by a positive self-conscious emotion (pride) than by a non-self-conscious positive emotion (joy). Prediction 2 is about people’s choice of emotion-regulation strategies. While Studies 4-7 will test participants’ choice of a positive emotion for regulating a self-conscious negative emotion when there is an explicit goal to repair their negative experience, Studies 8 and 9 will further test which positive-emotion based regulation strategy individuals choose when there is no explicit emotion regulation goal. If people spontaneously choose to regulate their negative self-conscious emotion by thoughts and actions related to a positive emotion that matches (vs. not) in the underlying goal, then I expect that experiencing a negative self-conscious emotion will lead people to choose pride vs. joy memories and experience greater motivation to engage in pride-eliciting activities. Study 10 will test whether the findings from the lab studies replicate in a natural setting where emotions occur spontaneously, using experience-sampling.

The goal of the current research project is to provide a novel theoretical framework for understanding the regulation of negative self-conscious emotions, a unique and important type of emotion whose regulation has been empirically neglected. The proposed research may have important applied implications. Supporting evidence for the matching goals mechanism may provide individuals with tools for managing their feelings, as well as inform clinicians and educators on how to choose effective interventions for their clients.