Why Do People Regulate Their Emotions? A Taxonomy of Motives in Emotion Regulation

Evidence for prohedonic motives in emotion regulation

Studies have repeatedly shown that the desirability of emotions varies by valence, such that pleasant emotions are rated as desirable and unpleasant emotions are rated as undesirable (e.g., Barrett, 1996; Kampfe & Mitte, 2009; Rusting & Larsen, 1995; Sommers, 1984; Tsai et al., 2006; Västfjäll, Garling, & Kleiner, 2001). Furthermore, when examining actual regulation attempts, people most frequently report attempts to increase pleasant emotions or decrease unpleasant emotions (e.g., Gross et al., 2006; Riediger et al., 2009).

Such evidence is typically taken as support for the prominence of the prohedonic motive in emotion regulation (e.g., Larsen, 2000). This interpretation is problematic, however, given the risks involved in directly inferring motives from goals (e.g., Martin, 2000). Because emotion goals can serve multiple motives, people might prefer pleasant to unpleasant emotions, but not necessarily to satisfy prohedonic motives. For instance, a person may be motivated to increase happiness to increase immediate pleasure, to view themselves more favorably, or to be more attractive to others. The fact that an instance of emotion regulation yields certain outcomes does not necessarily mean that the person regulated emotions to achieve those outcomes (Fischer et al., 2004). For instance, a person may be motivated to increase happiness to attain social outcomes, even though doing so may result in increased pleasure.

Nonetheless, there are studies that provide direct evidence for prohedonic motives in emotion regulation. For example, Augustine and colleagues (2010) asked participants how they ideally wanted to feel and why. On 50% of the cases in which people tried to regulate their emotions they listed prohedonic motives as underlying these attempts. Thus, there is clear evidence showing that people regulate their emotions to satisfy prohedonic motives.

Evidence for contrahedonic motives in emotion regulation

Although they appear to be rare, there is some evidence for contrahedonic motives in emotion regulation. First, people may prefer to increase unpleasant emotions that are perceived as relatively less painful, if they prevent other unpleasant emotions that are perceived as more painful. According to Borkovec and colleagues (e.g., Borkovec, Alcaine, & Behar, 2004), individuals who suffer from generalized anxiety disorder are often motivated to maintain their worry, in part, because they believe it helps them avoid the far worse subjective experience of fear. Consistent with these ideas, when explicitly asked about the functions of worry, individuals with general anxiety disorder reported that worrying helps prevent and distract them from more emotional things they wish to avoid (Borkovec & Roemer, 1995). This suggests that individuals who suffer from generalized anxiety disorder prefer worry because it is experienced as less painful than fear.

Second, although there is limited empirical evidence to support this possibility, some evidence suggests that people can derive pleasure from certain unpleasant emotions. Specifically, Andrade and Cohen (2007) found that the intensity of fear experienced when watching horror films was positively correlated with the intensity of pleasure they reported deriving from it. Similar arguments have been made with respect to reactions to sad music (e.g., Huron, 2011; Schubert, 1996) or films (e.g., de Wied, Zillman, & Ordman, 1994). In these unique contexts, people appear to be motivated to experience fear or sadness, and the experience of such emotions yields both pain and pleasure (Rozin et al., 2013). Because emotion goals can serve multiple motives, people might prefer unpleasant to pleasant emotions, but not necessarily to satisfy contrahedonic motives. It remains to be tested, therefore, whether people want to experience such unpleasant emotions specifically to derive pleasure from them.

Performance motives in emotion regulation

People want to behave in a way that leads to desirable tangible consequences (Forbes, 2011; Higgins, 2014). Performance motives reflect people’s desire to attain concrete valued outcomes that result from their own activities (see Forbes, 2011). According to functional theories, in turn, emotions evolved to propel action in the service of adaptive goal pursuit (e.g., Ekman, 1994; Frijda, 1988; Levenson, 1999; Nesse, 1990; Tooby & Cosmides, 1990). People want to optimize their performance, and emotions can help them do so, by shaping cognition and behavior. Therefore, people may be motivated to experience emotions to optimize various types of performance, from survival to weight loss.

Given that emotions can influence both cognition and behavior, people may be motivated to experience emotions to influence how they think, which could then shape subsequent behavior, or to directly influence how they behave. Thus, performance motives in emotion regulation could be further divided into cognitive motives (i.e., the desire to experience emotions to alter cognition in a desirable manner) and behavioral motives (i.e., the desire to experience emotions to alter behavior in a desirable manner). For instance, if people want to perform well on a task that requires creative thinking, they may be motivated to experience emotions that promote creativity. Similarly, if people want to win a fight, they may be motivated to experience emotions that promote successful fighting.

Epistemic motives in emotion regulation

People want to know what is real about the world and about themselves (Forbes, 2011; Higgins, 2014; Kruglanski, 1980). Kunda (1990) distinguished between two types of epistemic motives. Accuracy motives reflect the desire to know what is true and accurate. Examples include the rewarding nature of learning and acquiring knowledge. Directional motives reflect the desire to arrive at particular conclusions or to attain specific knowledge that confirms the persons’ goals, values, or beliefs.

Many theories, in turn, propose that emotions provide us with information and serve important epistemic functions (e.g., Barrett & Gross, 2001; Clore, 1994). Given that people seek certain information and given that emotions provide information, when guided by epistemic motives people may be motivated to experience emotions to attain desirable information. People may be motivated to experience emotions to attain information about themselves (i.e., self-focused epistemic motives). For instance, if happiness signals success, people may wish to feel happiness as a signal of personal success. People may also be motivated to experience emotions to gain information about the social or non-social world (i.e., world-focused epistemic motives). For instance, if happiness signals safety in the environment, people may be motivated to feel happy as a signal that the world is safe.

Emotions can provide information that sheds a more positive light on the self or on the world. Because people are motivated to attain positive information about the self (Sedikides & Gregg, 2008), they may be motivated to experience emotions that reflect positively on the self (i.e., epistemic enhancement motives). For example, if the experience of pride provides positive information about the self, people may be motivated to experience pride as a source of positive information about themselves.

Emotions can also provide information that verifies existing self- and worldviews. Because people are motivated to verify their beliefs about the self and the world (Epstein, 1973; Swann, 1987), they may be motivated to experience emotions that provide self- or belief-consistent information (i.e., epistemic verification motives), whether such beliefs are positive or negative (see Jansz & Timmers, 2002). For example, people who assign positive value to themselves may be more motivated than others to experience pride, whereas the opposite may be true for people who assign negative value to themselves.

Social motives in emotion regulation

People want to create and maintain positive social relationships (e.g., Deci & Ryan, 1991; Fiske, 2003; Maslow, 1943; McClelland, 1951; H. A. Murray, 1938). In dyadic contexts, people seek intimate, supportive, and safe relations with others (e.g., Bowlby, 1969). In group contexts, people want to belong to supportive and cohesive social networks (e.g., Baumeister & Leary, 1995). In cultural contexts, people seek common grounds, as expressed by shared values, beliefs, goals, and customs (e.g., Adams & Markus, 2004; Triandis, 2007). Although social attachment is typically pleasant and social rejection is typically painful (e.g., Eisenberger, Lieberman, & Williams, 2003), social incentives are conceptually distinct from immediate hedonic ones (e.g., Young & Alexander, 2012).

Emotions, in turn, have social implications at the dyadic, group, and cultural levels (for reviews, see Frijda & Mesquita, 1994; Keltner & Haidt, 1999; Niedenthal & Brauer, 2012). People may be motivated to experience emotions to attain desired social benefits (Clark et al., 1996; Fischer et al., 2004; Goldenberg, Halperin, van Zomeren, & Gross, in press; Thompson, 1994). Such motives vary as a function of the target of social influence. People may be motivated to experience emotions to influence close relationships, group relations, or cultural processes (e.g., Keltner & Haidt, 1999; Niedenthal & Brauer, 2012). For instance, to the extent that happy people are more socially attractive (e.g., Diener, Wolsic, & Fujita, 1995; Mathes & Kahn, 1975), people may be motivated to experience happiness to attract a potential partner. To the extent that love brings people together, whereas hate tears people apart, people may be motivated to love members of their group and hate members of the outgroup (Allport, 1954; Brewer, 1979; Tajfel & Turner, 1979). Finally, to the extent that emotions reflect underlying values and concerns, members of different cultures may be motivated to experience emotions that reinforce values of their culture (Mesquita, De Leersnyder, & Albert, 2014). In each of these examples, people may be motivated to experience emotions to shape their social relationships at the dyadic, group, and cultural levels, respectively.

Social motives in emotion regulation are also likely to vary as a function of the target mechanism of influence (Clark et al., 1996; Fischer et al., 2004; Manstead & Fischer, 2000; Niedenthal & Brauer, 2012). Given that emotions influence social relations by communicating information, facilitating social influence, and forming identities, people may target each of these mechanisms when regulating their emotions. First, people may want to experience emotions that communicate important information to others. For instance, a person may be motivated to experience fear in a threatening context, to inform another about the threat. Similarly, a person may be motivated to experience empathy as a form of impression management, to be perceived as kind by others. Second, people may be motivated to experience emotions to influence the behavior of others. For instance, if happy people are more attractive, people may be motivated to experience happiness to appear attractive to others. Finally, given that emotions reflect personal values, people may be motivated to experience emotions that reflect shared values, to promote a sense of social identity.

Eudaimonic motives in emotion regulation

According to self-determination theory, in addition to their desire to relate, people desire autonomy and competence (e.g., Ryan & Deci, 2000). Autonomy reflects the desire to be in control (e.g., deCharms, 1968), whereas competence reflects the desire to develop internal resources and potential (Fromm, 1976). Attaining autonomy and competence, in turn, may lead to eudaimonia (Ryan & Deci, 2001; Waterman, 1993). Some have argued, in turn, that emotions carry eudaimonic benefits, contributing to a sense of autonomy (e.g., Pavey, Greitemeyer, & Sparks, 2012) and mastery (Rozin et al., 2013). To the extent that emotions reflect free will, people may be motivated to experience emotions to cultivate a sense of autonomy. Similarly, to the extent that emotions cultivate certain mental competencies, people may be motivated to experience emotions to develop and sustain certain skills or to satisfy their intellectual curiosity (Parrott, 1993). Finally, to the extent that emotions identify and highlight what is personally meaningful, people may be motivated to experience emotions to reinforce a sense of meaning in life. These motives comprise eudaimonic motives in emotion regulation.

Single motives

Once a goal is selected, people begin striving toward that goal (Gollwitzer, 1990). Motives should influence not only which goals people select but also the intensity with which people strive to attain them (Gollwitzer et al., 2012). For example, deliberating on the desirability of a chosen goal increases goal commitment (Nenkov & Gollwitzer, 2012). Similarly, stronger motives in emotion regulation are likely to increase commitment to selected emotion goals. The more people are committed to a particular emotion goal, the more likely they are to attain it. Indeed, when people were financially incentivized to increase their experience of anger, they effectively increased their anger, as indicated by both self-report and physiological indices (Meshulam, Winter, Ben Shakar, & Aharon, 2012). Such findings demonstrate that desired outcomes set emotion goals and that emotion goals can be pursued effectively, even when doing so involves increasing unpleasant emotions. Another important implication of the proposed taxonomy, therefore, is that how effectively people regulate their emotions may depend on the motives they pursue. In particular, it is likely that the stronger the motivation driving emotion regulation, the harder people would try to regulate.

Motives in emotion regulation alter the desirability of emotional experiences, which in turn influences how people actively regulate their emotions and how they feel, as a consequence. Manipulating the salience of instrumental motives, by asking people to maximize personal gain in a negotiation, increased the desirability of anger, leading people to select more anger-inducing activities and ultimately to experience anger more intensely (Tamir & Ford, 2012). In contrast, manipulating the salience of social motives, by asking people to maintain a good relationship with their negotiation partner, decreased the desirability of anger, leading people to select less anger-inducing activities and ultimately to experience anger less intensely. In another study, leading people to expect anger to be useful increased the desirability of anger, leading people to increase their anger and experience it more intensely (Tamir, Bigman, et al., 2015). Similarly, when helping was costly, individuals who wanted to decrease their compassion experienced less compassion, to the extent that they were efficient at emotion regulation (Cameron & Payne, 2011).

As with other types of motives, it is likely that stronger motives lead people to persist in the pursuit of emotion goals, even in the face of obstacles. Consistent with this idea, the emotions Israeli participants wanted to feel in the context of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict predicted how they actually felt even in response to emotion-incongruent events (Porat et al., 2015). Participants who wanted to feel more empathy in the context of the conflict experienced more empathy even in response to missile attacks on Israel, whereas participants who wanted to feel more anger experienced more anger even after hearing about the renewal of the peace process. Such associations held when controlling for pre-existing emotional experiences and for political ideology. These findings suggest that motives can influence emotion regulation and emotional experiences by directing and energizing the process of emotion regulation.

Mixed motives

Motives in emotion regulation may vary in their relative strength, such that a specific motive dominates over others (e.g., Kruglanski et al., 2002). However, similar to other domains of regulation, there may be instances in which motives in emotion regulation are equally strong. In such mixed-motive situations, different motives are likely to interact with each other in shaping emotion regulation. If two motives of equal strength are linked to overlapping emotion goals, people should pursue these goals more effectively. This may often be the case with respect to pleasant emotion goals, because pleasant emotions often serve both hedonic and instrumental motives. For instance, the motivation to experience happiness may be stronger if people want to feel good as well as make new friends. If, however, two motives of equal strength are linked to distinct emotion goals, people should pursue these goals less effectively. For instance, the motivation to experience either happiness or sadness may be weaker if people want to feel good as well as act in accordance with their sad self-image.

Emotion regulation might be similar to other forms of self-regulation

Current models of emotion regulation focus primarily on questions about process (e.g., Gross, 1998). However, the current taxonomy leads to a conceptualization of emotion regulation as a process that can target a broad range of goals that operate in the service of a broad range of motives. This conceptualization situates emotion regulation in a much broader context of motivated behavior and highlights the need for more sophisticated models of emotion regulation. Such models are needed to explain when and why certain emotion goals become active, what determines change in emotion goals, and how goals or motives in emotion regulation operate together to shape the regulation of emotion. To the extent that the operation of emotion regulation follows the same basic principles as other self-regulation systems, researchers can potentially apply existing theories and models of self-regulation to understand emotion regulation, in particular.

Emotion regulation might differ from other forms of self-regulation

To the extent that behavior, cognition, and emotion differ from each other in meaningful ways, their regulation should also differ. Identifying such differences is critical for understanding each form of regulation. For instance, unlike behavior or cognition, emotions are reactions that involve immediate and often intense pleasure or pain. Emotions, therefore, are often experienced as reactions that are beyond the individual’s control (Tamir, John, Srivastava, & Gross, 2007). Whereas people are less likely to go on diets, quit smoking, or try to think analytically without wanting to do so, people are quite likely to experience happiness, sadness, anger, or disgust, whether they want to or not. This implies that the empirical study of emotion regulation as a motivated process is challenging, partly because people experience emotions either as spontaneous reactions or as outcomes of motivated regulation. Indeed, some theorists have argued that, unlike behaviors or cognitions, all emotions are necessarily motivated (e.g., Clore & Robinson, 2000). Whether reactive and regulated emotions refer to distinct conceptual categories or to different ends of one conceptual continuum remains a matter of debate (see Campos, Frankel, & Camras, 2004; Gross & Barrett, 2011).

Another difference is that, unlike behavior or cognition, emotion also serves to index progress toward goal achievement (e.g., Martin, 2000). Pleasant emotions typically signal good progress toward goal attainment, whereas unpleasant emotions typically signal poor progress (e.g., Carver & Scheier, 1998). People rely on their emotional experiences as they monitor their progress in goal pursuit. Such monitoring influences how long people persist in goal-related activities and how intensely they do so. Monitoring goal progress, therefore, may be qualitatively different when pursuing emotion goals, compared with non-emotion goals (Mauss, Tamir, Anderson, & Savino, 2011). When pursuing non-emotion goals, emotional experience serves as an index of goal progress that is independent of the standards for goal achievement. For instance, when a person wishes to lose weight, they might feel happier the more weight they lose. When pursuing emotion goals, however, emotional experience serves as the standard for goal achievement, but does not necessarily index goal progress. For instance, when a person wishes to feel happy, feeling happy becomes the objective itself. This implies that there may be fewer markers of goal progress when pursuing emotion goals, making such pursuits more difficult to monitor, especially in the case of pursuing unpleasant emotion goals. Difficulty in monitoring progress toward goals, in turn, can have negative consequences (Liberman & Dar, 2009; Mauss et al., 2011).

The relative strength of motives in emotion regulation

To the extent that different motives give rise to different emotion goals, the emotions people pursue should be dictated by the motives they are expected to satisfy. Individuals differ in the relative strength or importance of different motives (e.g., McClelland, 1985). Chronic motives are likely to lead people to have stronger general preferences for emotions that are consistent with them.

Human values, for instance, represent general categories of desirable outcomes that serve as guiding motivational principles (Schwartz, 1992). Schwartz and colleagues (e.g., Schwartz & Bilsky, 1987) have identified specific universal values that can be roughly categorized as involving openness, conservation, self-transcendence, and self-enhancement. If dispositional motives give rise to congruent emotion goals, endorsement of specific types of values may be associated with stronger preferences for theoretically consistent emotional experiences. A recent cross-cultural study found support for this hypothesis (Tamir, Schwartz, et al., 2015). For example, people who endorsed self-transcendence had stronger preferences for socially engaging emotions (e.g., love, compassion), whereas people who endorsed self-enhancement had stronger preferences for socially disengaging emotions (e.g., anger, contempt). These associations replicated across cultures and persisted when controlling for emotional experiences. Such evidence demonstrates that differences in general emotional preferences may be linked to the relative strength of chronic motives.

The strength of motives is also likely to vary as a function of changing contextual demands. Different contexts highlight different motives. Motives that are more salient in a given context are likely to lead people to have stronger temporary preferences for emotions that are consistent with them. For example, threatening situations are likely to prioritize performance motives (i.e., avoid the threat). This implies that, on average, in a threatening context people may be more motivated to pursue emotions that can help them effectively avoid threats (e.g., fear). Consistent with this idea, when participants were led to anticipate a threatening task, they showed increased preferences for fear-inducing stimuli (Tamir & Ford, 2009). Studies in which motives were directly manipulated, as those reviewed earlier, demonstrate that differences in temporary emotional preferences are linked to the relative strength of concurrent motives.

Associations between motives and emotion goals

For a motive to give rise to a specific emotion goal, people must associate the emotion with the desired outcome. People are likely to vary both in the nature and in the strength of associations they form between specific emotional states and desirable or undesirable outcomes. The stronger the associations between an emotion and the outcome, the more likely it is that people would pursue that emotion to satisfy the related motive. For instance, two athletes may be equally motivated to win a competition, but the emotions they pursue to satisfy this motive can differ dramatically depending on which emotion they expect would promote performance (Lane et al., 2011). Similarly, two parents may be equally motivated to promote the well-being of their child, but how they regulate their emotions when their child misbehaves may differ dramatically depending on their beliefs about emotions (e.g., Gottman, Katz, & Hooven, 1997).

Associations between motives and goals can vary across individuals (e.g., Chen, Lee-Chai, & Bargh, 2001). Associations between motives and emotion goals, in particular, may vary in the extent to which they are common across individuals (see Parker et al., 2012). It is possible that some associations are relatively common (e.g., happiness promotes prohedonic motives), others are shared by some people but not all (e.g., anger promotes athletic performance), and yet others are relatively idiosyncratic (e.g., compassion promotes successful cooking). Identifying how people differ in their associations between motives and emotion goals might account for variation in emotion regulation and could prove an important avenue for future research.

Maladaptive motives in emotion regulation

Psychopathology may be related to maladaptive motives in emotion regulation. First, certain motives may lead some people to pursue unhealthy emotion goals. For instance, self-verification motives could lead depressed individuals to seek out sadness, helping to maintain their depression (Millgram et al., in press). If this is the case, helping depressed individuals de-emphasize the importance of self-verification as a motive in emotion regulation might decrease their motivation to sustain sadness and ultimately help in decreasing it. Second, similar to other forms of regulation, motives in emotion regulation may be dysfunctional if people pursue them in an inflexible and context-insensitive manner (e.g., Bonanno & Burton, 2013; Kashdan & Rottenberg, 2010). Consistent with this idea, psychologically healthier people were better able to flexibly adjust their emotion goals to map on to context-dependent motives (M. Y. Kim et al., in press).

Maladaptive associations between motives and emotion goals

Psychopathology may be related to maladaptive associations between motives and emotion goals. In particular, people who cultivate false emotion-outcome expectancies are likely to engage in maladaptive emotion regulation. Such false expectancies may arise, in part, from overgeneralizing associations learned in unique contexts. For example, children whose caretakers provide inconsistent care may come to expect their anxiety to serve their social motives, by recruiting the attention of their caregivers (Mikulincer et al., 2003). Such individuals may later generalize these expectancies to the context of adult romantic relationships, although in such contexts, anxiety can impair rather than strengthen the relationship. Emotion-outcome expectancies that develop in stressful contexts, in particular, may prove unreliable in other contexts, leading to dysfunctional emotion regulation (Thompson, 1994; Thompson & Calkins, 1996). The ability to map emotion goals to motives may relate to emotional intelligence (Mayer & Salovey, 1995) and may prove an important factor in functional emotion regulation.