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It’s human to feel emotions. That probably doesn’t strike you as controversial, right? Likewise, you’d probably agree that emotions come in an assortment of different shapes and sizes…well, okay, not literally. There’s sadness, happiness, anger, fear, surprise, and a host of others. But we don’t just feel our emotions. Whether we realize it or not, there are tales we tell ourselves about feelings. These are known as “emotion beliefs.” For example, we can have ideas about whether it’s all right to have emotions at all, whether it’s possible to manage feelings, how long or how strongly we think we’re allowed to feel an emotion, whether it’s okay to show a feeling, and the emotion rules we set for ourselves versus others (e.g., “Other people can feel sad but I can’t.”).
In a recent study, a team of researchers looked at whether there’s a connection between a specific type of emotion belief and how people feel, how they try to manage their emotional world, and their stress and depression levels. More specifically, they focused on the belief that it’s possible (or impossible) to modify and shift feelings. In other words, are they adjustable or are they inflexible? They also considered what individuals believe about their own capacity to influence their emotions versus what they think other folks are able to do. Across two studies, the researchers first explored this connection among students on a college campus, and then among members of the general population living in the same general region.
The findings of the research revealed that the extent to which individuals thought other people could modulate emotions more than they themselves could, the more they struggled emotionally. This idea was linked to feeling more stressed and down, feeling less upbeat, tending to brood more, and being less inclined to look at an issue in a different, more useful light. Moreover, one month down the road, this belief was also connected to brooding and feeling down. On the other hand, people who saw themselves as more able to modulate their feelings compared to others were more apt to try looking at their circumstances through a more helpful lens one month later.
It’s worth mentioning that although there were broad results the two studies had in common, the findings we’re talking about weren’t exactly the same across the two studies. Also, this research only allows us to speak to the connections between this particular emotion belief and how we may be apt to feel and respond to our emotions. It doesn’t tell us that this belief actually causes us to feel or react in the ways we’re discussing. And it will be valuable to explore this question with more diverse participants. These boundary conditions around the study and what it can tell us deserve to be acknowledged, and the researchers certainly do that. Still, the results are an invitation to pay attention to the story we tell ourselves about our ability to influence our emotions after they show up, and how we stack up against other people’s capacity to do the same.
