How to Pursue and Achieve Goals Part 10A – Emotion Regulation

“Emotions give meaning to events; without emotions, those events would be mere facts. Emotions help coordinate interpersonal relationships. And emotions play an important role in the cultural functioning of keeping human societies together” (Hwang & Matsumoto, 2024).

By Kenneth Ukoh, Updated February 15, 2026 

In Part 10 of our articles on goal pursuit, we discuss emotion regulation and explain strategies that facilitate success in goal pursuit. It is divided into five Parts:

• Part 10A – Categories and components of emotions
• Part 10B – Emotional Intelligence.
• Part 10C – The Process Model of Emotion Regulation.
• PART10D – Emotion and Self-Determination Theory (SDT).
• Part 10E – Emotion Regulation and Mental Health.

What Is an Emotion?

What Is an Emotion?

Emotions are crucial to life. Although humans can live without them, a condition known as “alexithymia” (Hogeveen and Grafman, 2021, maybe living without emotions would make life easier or worse because we would behave like machines without feelings and consideration for others.

Emotion comes under a broad scientific field known as affective science. It involves the study of emotion, emotion regulation, mood disorders, and affective neuroscience (Texas A&M University, n.d.). According to Gross (2015), affect is an umbrella term that covers psychological states involving valuation. Valuation “…refers to the process of assigning values to states and actions based on the animal’s (human or non–human) current representation of the environment” (Hélie et al.,2017). The affective states include (Scherer, 1984):

1. “Stress responses occasioned by highly taxing circumstances.”
2. “Emotions such as anger, amusement, and sadness.”
3. “Moods such as feeling grumpy, down, or great”.

Emotion is a complex concept. For this reason, it is difficult to reach a consensus on its precise definition.  For this reason, researchers have not unanimously agreed on its definition (Cabanac, 2002). “Emotion” is certainly a keyword in modern psychology, but it is a keyword in crisis. Indeed, as I shall suggest below, it has been in crisis, from a definitional and conceptual point of view, ever since its adoption as a psychological category in the 19th century” (Dixon, 2012). However, the APA Dictionary of Psychology defines it as “a complex reaction pattern, involving experiential, behavioural, and physiological elements, by which an individual attempts to deal with a personally significant matter or event. The specific quality of the emotion (e.g., fear, shame) is determined by the specific significance of the event. For example, if the significance involves threat, fear is likely to be generated; if the significance involves disapproval from another, shame is likely to be generated. Emotion typically involves feeling but differs from feeling in having an overt or implicit engagement with the world” (APA Dictionary of Psychology, n.d.).

Categories and Emotions

Emotions are generally divided into two groups: basic and complex emotions (Brogaard, 2018).

• Basic emotions. Basic emotions are “…emotions that are common across cultures and selected by nature because of their high survival factors. Commonly accepted basic emotions are happy, sad, fear, anger, surprise, and disgust” (Khosrowabadi, 2018). Their facial expressions are universally recognisable. For example, in disgust, a raised upper lip, a wrinkled nose bridge, and raised cheeks are common facial expressions (Brogaard, 2018).
• Complex emotions. A complex emotion is “any emotion that is an aggregate of two or more others. For example, hate may be considered a fusion of anger, fear, and disgust, whereas love blends tenderness, pleasure, devotion, and passion (APA Dictionary of Psychology, 2018). Complex emotions may appear different because they may consist of two or more emotions. Consequently, they may not be as easily recognisable.

Though there is no agreement on the sequence of emotions, the APA definition above highlights three main elements of an emotion: “experiential, behavioural, and physiological”. They correspond to the three core features of emotion: the “situation, the subjective aspect and response” (Gross & Thompson, 2007) and the three components of emotion: “subjective experiences, physiological responses and behavioural responses” (University of West Alabama Online, 2019), which are discussed below.

Basic Emotions

Dr Paul Ekman, an emotional psychologist, identified six basic emotions that could be observed through facial expressions. These are sadness, happiness, fear, anger, surprise and disgust. It is the most widely accepted theory of basic emotions (Ekman, 2019). From his research, a seventh emotion, “contempt“, has been added. However, Plutchik has proposed eight primary emotions: anger, fear, sadness, disgust, surprise, anticipation, trust, and joy, and arranged them in a colour wheel (Winter, 2019). He suggests that these emotions are in four pairs of opposites and depicts them on a wheel as follows:

• Joy opposes sadness,
• Trust opposes disgust,
• Fear opposes anger, and
• Surprise opposes anticipation.

A recent study by the University of Glasgow has challenged that study. That research suggests four basic emotions: happiness, sadness, fear/surprise and anger/disgust (Jack et al., 2014). Another study by Gu et al (2019) identifies four kinds of basic emotions: happiness, sadness, fear, and anger, which are differently associated with three core emotions: reward (happiness), punishment (sadness), and stress (fear and anger). These core emotions are also known as the “Three Primary Colour Model of Basic Emotions” (Gu et al., 2019), because they can be likened to the three primary colours: red, yellow, and blue, and can be combined in various proportions to result in more complex “higher order” emotions, such as love and aesthetic emotion (Gu et al., 2019).

Basic Emotions Disagreement

The discrepancy in the number of basic emotions is caused by scientists’ lack of a common definition of an emotion.

Additionally, the concept of emotion is rooted in evolutionary theory, which views basic emotions as having evolved to help humans handle fundamental life tasks such as fear, anger, etc. and to aid survival by alerting an organism to flee for safety or fight to defend itself. However, modern researchers differentiate between anger and disgust and fear and surprise. For instance, a recent study found that disgust and anger shared display wrinkled noses, while fear and surprise shared raised eyebrows (Jack et al., 2014). The differences between anger, disgust, fear, and surprise are thought to have developed later for social functions rather than for survival (Mansourian et al., 2016). As such, Jack et al. (2014) proposed that humans have four basic emotions: fear, anger, joy, and sadness.

Components of Emotions

Subjective Experience.

Subjective Experience.

According to Desender, Van Opstal & Van den Bussche (2017), human cognition is characterised by subjective experiences and actions. However, the nature and stability of these experiences are largely unclear. Emotion is a subjective experience. It can be reactions to internal stimuli, such as thoughts, memories or events. Ledoux & Hofmann (2018) argue that subjective emotional experience, the feeling, is the essence of an emotion and that objective manifestations in behaviour and the body or brain physiology are indirect indicators of these inner experiences.

Physiological Responses

The physiological response results from the reaction of the autonomic nervous system to the emotional experience. It is caused by the autonomic nervous system, which controls our involuntary bodily responses and regulates our fight-or-flight response. According to many psychologists, our physiological responses are likely how emotions helped us evolve and survive as humans throughout history.

People respond to emotions after emotional appraisals, the processes by which individuals’ thoughts about events determine their emotional reactions. Reappraisal involves altering our perceptions about events and how they affect us, which may alter our emotional reactions.

This emotional response involves three components:

• The desire to perform specific actions.
• The expression of emotions on the face, voice and body, etc. For example, shouting when someone is angry.
• Physical changes in the body. For example, shaking or a faster heartbeat to show anger. Interestingly, studies show that autonomic physiological responses are strongest when a person’s facial expressions most closely resemble the emotion experienced. In other words, facial expressions play an important role in our physical responses to an emotion.

Behavioural Responses

The behavioural response to an emotion is the actual expression of the emotion. Such responses are important because they show others how we feel and are vital to our well-being (University of West Alabama Online, 2019). This can be expressed in different ways. For example, by face, a voice through the language used, or nonverbal behaviour such as smiling or laughing.

Emotions affect our whole demeanour and our health. Furthermore, our ability to understand others’ behavioural responses shows emotional intelligence, which will be discussed in more detail in another article. The physiological and behavioural responses associated with emotions illustrate that emotion is much more than a mental state (University of West Alabama Online, 2019).

Emotions, Feelings and Moods

Emotions are often confused with feelings and moods, but they are different. Feelings arise from an emotional experience. Since people are conscious of feelings, they are in the same category as hunger or pain. Feelings may be influenced by memories, beliefs, and other factors (The University of West Alabama Online, 2019).

 Mood differs from emotions because they have no stimuli and a clear starting point. The APA Dictionary of Psychology defines mood as a short-lived emotional state, usually of low intensity (American Psychological Association, 2018). Emotions are more intense and do not last as long as moods, which can last several hours.

Duration of Emotions

The duration of emotions varies, ranging from a few seconds to several hours or even longer (Verduyn et al., 2015). According to Psychology Today (Morgan, 2023):

• Emotions such as disgust, shame, humiliation, fear, compassion, irritation, and anger are short-lived, typically lasting about half an hour.
• Emotions such as anxiety, hope, desperation, joy, hatred, and sadness can last for five days.
• Some emotions that pair together have opposite effects. For example, fear has a brief duration, while anxiety can last for typically 24 hours. Shame goes away quickly and lasts 30 minutes compared to guilt, which lasts 3 1/2 hours.

In a study by Verduyn and Lavrijsen (2015), sadness lasted the longest out of 27 emotions. Shame, surprise, fear, disgust, boredom, being touched, irritation, and relief were the shortest emotions. According to the study, the appraisal and self-regulation strategy used accounted for half of the variation in the duration of emotions. Also, compared to short emotions, persistent emotions are typically triggered by events of high importance and are associated with high levels of rumination. 

Dr Jill Bolte Taylor, a Harvard-trained neuroanatomist, coined the “90-Second Rule” (Dr Jill Bolte Taylor, n.d.). According to this principle, the physiological response to an emotion lasts for approximately 90 seconds. After this period, longer emotional states are caused by our thoughts and interpretations of the event.

Cognitive Emotion Regulation and Rumination (CER)

Cognitive emotion regulation (CER) refers to the “conscious, mental strategies individuals use to cope with the intake of emotionally arousing information” (Extremera et al., 2019). Garnefski & Kraaij (2007) have identified four maladaptive and five adaptive strategies for managing cognitive emotions.  

The four maladaptive CER strategies are rumination, self-blame, blaming others, and catastrophising. These strategies can lead to psychological and emotional problems such as depression, anxiety or risky behaviours. By contrast, positive refocusing on planning, acceptance, putting into perspective and reappraisal are the five adaptive strategies for better mental health and well-being (Extremera et al., 2019).

According to Psychology Today, rumination determines how long an emotion lasts (Morgan, 2023). Rumination is “ a detrimental psychological process characterised by perseverative thinking around negative content that generates emotional discomfort” (Sansone and Sansone, 2012). This definition includes the thought process (thought disorder or excessive thinking) and the thought content (negative thinking). “The repetitive, negative aspect of rumination can contribute to the development of depression or anxiety and can worsen existing conditions”

Research has found that past traumatic life experiences can lead to depression or anxiety through rumination, where people blame themselves for the problem (American Psychiatric Association, 2020).

Components Of Rumination

Two components of rumination have been identified (Lask, Moyal and Henik, 2021): reflective pondering and brooding

• According to Gibb et al. (2012), reflective pondering is “a purposeful turning inward to engage in cognitive problem-solving to alleviate one’s depressive symptoms” (Treynor et al., 2003, p. 256).” It is done purposely to adapt thoughts to find solutions to problems and has been shown to improve mental health (Demnitz-King et al., 2020).
• In contrast, brooding is “a passive comparison of one’s current situation with some unachieved standard”. It is a maladaptive component of rumination that is strongly associated with depression and suicide attempts (Gibb et al., 2012).

It is suggested that a high tendency to ruminate reflects deficient emotion regulation (Aldao et al., 2010).

Research has shown that people with a high tendency to ruminate are deficient in emotion regulation. There is substantial evidence from research that links clinical depression and suicidal thoughts to rumination. It has also been identified as an important feature that is present in many other mental health disorders. (Tamm, Koster & Hoorelbeke, 2024).

Emotional Regulation (ER)

Emotional self-regulation is also known as emotional regulation or emotion regulation.

The importance of regulating emotions need not be overemphasised, as it is essential for adapting to life challenges to achieve a high quality of life. Ineffective emotional regulation or dysregulation can adversely affect a person’s well-being.

According to Buhle et al. (2014), understanding how to regulate our emotions requires knowing how they are generated. In theory, the process develops over time:

• First, emotions are triggered when a person responds to a stimulus. Often, these may be thoughts because changing our thoughts about the same thing can produce different emotions (Smith, Alkozei, and Killgore, 2017).
• The individual appraises the stimulus leading to affective, physiological, and behavioural response (Buhle et al., 2014).

Scientists have discovered that the thoughts that cause emotions usually pertain to these types of questions (Smith, Alkozei and Killgore, 2017):

1. What happened? Is it unexpected?
2. What happened? Is it enjoyable?
3. Will what happened make things easier or harder?
4. Can I control it? In this case, you can change what you do not like. If you like it, you can maintain it. What happens next?
5. Will I be able to cope with what happened? Cope means finding a way to live with something and adapting without feeling worse.
6. Does what happened match with what I think is right and wrong?
7. Is what happened my fault or someone else’s?

Defining Emotional Regulation

There is no unanimously accepted definition of emotion. For this reason, there are different emotion regulation strategies. People can regulate their emotions differently. However, the most well-known and widely accepted by scholars is the process model proposed by James J. Gross, PhD, professor of Psychology at Stanford University and director of the Stanford Psychophysiology Laboratory, renowned for his research in emotions and emotion regulation.

Gross (1998) describes emotion regulation as the processes of influencing which emotions we have, when we have them, and how we experience and express them.

A few things stand out in the definition:

• Emotion regulation is a process designed to influence the response to an emotion (Gross, 1998).
• Emotion regulation is not the same as coping because emotion regulation changes the emotions, while coping focuses on reducing negative emotions. (Geisler M, Buratti S, Allwood, 2019).
• Emotion regulation involves using appropriate strategies to deal with emotions (Aday, Rizer & Carlson, 2017). This means that a person can select what emotion to experience, its intensity, its duration and quality and how it is experienced (Peña-Sarrionandia, Mikolajczak and Gross, 2015).
• The goal of emotion regulation is to monitor, evaluate, and modify emotions to attain a goal, the desired end state (Eldesouky and Gross, 2019).
•  The regulation may be automatic or effortful, conscious or unconscious. It occurs each time the goal to influence the process of emotion is activated (Peña-Sarrionandia, Mikolajczak and Gross, 2015).

Emotion Regulation Goals

Emotion regulation is central to success in goal pursuit. According to Eldesouky and Gross (2019), “Goals are widely understood to be central to the initiation, maintenance, and cessation of emotion regulation (ER).” According to Gross (2015), “The defining feature of emotion regulation is the activation of a goal to influence the emotion trajectory (Gross, Sheppes, & Urry, 2011). So, the reason only about 8% of people who set goals are successful is not difficult to figure out because the most popular method of goal pursuit, the “Smart Goals” method, says nothing about self-regulation.

Emotion regulation is a motivational activity. It has a goal like a conventional goal (Eldesouky and Gross, 2019). From this perspective, emotion is activated to alter the direction of the emotion to move in the direction of the desired state. Goals are referred to as end states. An emotional goal is the “cognitive representation of an individual’s desired emotional state” (Eldesouky, 2015). According to Fishbach & Touré-Tillery (2023), a conventional goal is defined as “The cognitive representation of a desired state, or, in other words, our mental idea of how we’d like things to turn out (Fishbach & Ferguson, 2007; Kruglanski, 1996).”

Goals and motivation work together. Motivation is the powerful driving force behind goal pursuit (Calcott & Berkman, 2013). Motivation may be intrinsic or extrinsic. Intrinsic motivation comes from within the individual and causes the person to carry out an activity because of inner satisfaction and fulfilment. Extrinsic motivation causes an individual to do something because of external rewards or punishments or as an obligation. Similarly, two forms of emotional regulation have been identified (Gross, 2015). Intrinsic emotion regulation occurs when people are interested in regulating their own emotions. This is the primary concern of emotion regulation. Extrinsic emotion regulation occurs when the target is the regulation of others’ emotions.

Self-regulation targets the intrinsic state. So, an emotional goal can be set in conjunction with a conventional goal or merged.

Flexible Emotion Regulation

Traditionally, emotion regulation strategies have been classified as adaptive or maladaptive. However, the concept of flexible emotion regulation has recently been introduced into the emotion regulation literature (Chen, Bi and Han et al., 2024).

Behaviour is adaptive if it helps “individuals and groups invest in activities and seek affordances and pathways that they hope will be nourishing and help them grow, while also trying to avoid stressors, injuries, risks, and damaging costs” (Psychology Today, 2020). “Negative emotions are maladaptive if they are under-regulated, chronically accessible, have low thresholds, and lead to problematic behaviours that increase suffering and impairment” (Henriques, 2015). Maladaptive behaviour is defined by the Encyclopaedia of Autism Spectrum Disorders “as behaviour that interferes with an individual’s activities of daily living or ability to adjust to and participate in particular settings” (Gray, 2013). It ranges from minor, less impairing to more severely impairing behaviours that seriously interfere with an individual’s ability to function, for example, maintaining relationships with others, learning, or engaging in adaptive, age-appropriate activities and settings (Gray, 2013).

Flexibility in psychology refers to the healthy response by people to different situations following their values. Psychological flexibility helps people to adjust to different situations, handle stress properly, and improve their well-being (Hall, 2021). It is shown by how a person (Kashdan and Rottenberg, 2010):

1. Adapts to fluctuating situational demands.
2. Reconfigures mental resources.
3. Shifts perspectives.
4. Balances competing desires, needs, and life domains.

According to Specker, Sheppes and Nickerson (2024), Emotion regulation flexibility, “…refers to the ability to vary one’s regulatory behaviour to match differing situational demands, has been theorised as a central aspect of adaptive emotional responding (Aldao et al., 2015; Bonanno & Burton, 2013)”.

However, despite strong theories of ER flexibility, there is limited empirical evidence to confirm its use.

Components of Emotion Regulation Flexibility

Four components of emotion regulation flexibility have been identified (Battaglini et al., 2022):

• Context sensitivity.  This refers to matching an appropriate ER strategy to the situation.
• Repertoire. The range of strategies an individual utilises across situations enables more adaptive emotional regulation and greater well-being. It is measured by categorical variability (the strategies adopted at a certain point) and temporal variability (ER strategy use over time) (Bonanno & Burton, 2013; Eldesouky & English, 2018).
• Feedback is the ability to monitor the effectiveness of a chosen ER strategy and to adjust strategies as needed.
• Synchronised variation. Emotion regulation variability is defined “as the variation in the use of (one or more) ER strategies across situations”. Emotional regulation flexibility is “the extent to which an individual’s ER strategy use is synchronised with the changes in the environment” (Benson et al., 2019).

Using emotion regulation with flexibility is about using emotion regulation intelligently and is part of emotional intelligence.

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