The Psychology of Emotion Regulation: From Basic Principles to Clinical Applications

URL study guide

https://studiegids.vu.nl/en/courses/2024-2025/P_MPEMREG

Course Objective

a. Acquire knowledge of and insight into modern theories of, and research on, emotion regulation. b. Learn to generate and discuss new questions that may advance emotion regulation research. c. Learn to develop a proposal for original theory-driven empirical research in the area of emotion regulation. d. Learn how to apply insights from emotion regulation research to address clinical problems. e. Develop oral and written presentation skills to communicate effectively within the scientific forum.

Course Content

Unwanted emotions are implicated in virtually all forms of psychopathology throughout the lifespan. It is therefore vital for clinical and developmental psychologists to understand what causes people to fail or succeed at emotion regulation, and how people can be taught to regulate their emotions more effectively. Over the past twenty years, research on emotion regulation has developed into a vibrant and productive scientific discipline. The sheer volume of emotion regulation research is overwhelming, with more than 18,000 articles appearing annually on this topic. Furthermore, the study of emotion regulation is inherently interdisciplinary, and involves vital contributions from developmental psychology, clinical psychology, social and personality psychology, psychophysiology and social-cognitive and affective neuroscience. In this course, we want to help students to get a grasp of the large and complex literature on the science of emotion regulation. In the first part of the course, we address basic issues in emotion regulation theory, including its development across the lifespan, biological foundations, emotion regulation strategies, implicit emotion regulation and social emotion regulation. During the second part of the course, we relate emotion regulation processes to psychopathology and consider the role of emotion regulation in psychotherapy. Finally, in the third part of the course, we consider specific clinical applications of emotion regulation research, covering such topics as anger management, restorative environments, and language as an emotion regulation tool.

Teaching Methods

The format of this course is highly interactive, and includes the following activities:
- Thought questions: For each class, the students will formulate one or more thought questions based on the required readings for that day. This ensures that everyone has thought actively about the readings. During the class, these questions will provide the basis a discussion and lexture.
- Article presentation: Each student will prepare a presentation on a selected article in the area of emotion regulation. The goal of this presentation is to provide a more in-depth examination of emotion regulation research and its major findings.
- Research proposal: At the end of the course, each student will write an innovative research proposal on a topic that is relevant to emotion regulation science. This proposal will receive extensive feedback from the other students and the lecturere,

Method of Assessment

Thought questions (handed in before each class), oral presentations (one per student for the whole course), and written research proposal.

Literature

Selected readings. The selection will be announced two weeks before the start of the course, so that we can include the very latest work in the area. Students who wish to get a sense of the contents of the course may pick up the following paper: Koole, S. L., & Aldao, A. (2016). The self-regulation of emotion: Theoretical and empirical advances. In K. D. Vohs & R. F. Baumeister (Eds.), Handbook of self-regulation (3rd edition, pp. 101-112). New York: Guilford. This article can be downloaded for free via this link: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/277711749_The_Self-Regulation_o (you have to join ResearchGate for the download).

Target Audience

This course is an elective course within the Research Master Clinical and Developmental Psychology. However, emotion regulation is a major topic in many other areas, including social and personality psychology and cognitive neuroscience. The course is hence open to all research masters students. PhD students may enlist after consultation with the coordinator.

Additional Information

This course is taught once every two years. It will be taught in 2022
- 23, but not in 2021-22, and not in 2023-24.

Recommended background knowledge

Because the course builds on a basic understanding of psychopathology and its developmental origins, background knowledge in clinical and development psychology is recommended. However, this background is not strictly compulsory.