Coping with Politics: The Benefits and Costs of Emotion Regulation

• Published in: Current opinion in behavioral sciences 2020-08, Vol.34, p.123-128
• Main Authors: Ford, Brett Q., Feinberg, Matthew
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 2352-1546; 2352-1554
• DOI: 10.1016/j.cobeha.2020.02.014

•Politics has become a chronic stressor for many people.•Using effective forms of emotion regulation reduces negative responses to politics.•Protecting emotional well-being from political stressors can come with a cost.•Effective forms of emotion regulation can reduce political action. Politics permeates everyday life, often evoking negative emotions among the public and affecting their well-being. Politics has, in essence, become a chronic stressor for many. Fortunately, people can protect themselves from politics: people commonly employ emotion regulation strategies to help reduce their negative emotional responses to politics and thereby protect emotional well-being. However, this protection may also come at a cost when people lose their affectively-driven motivation to take action aimed at changing the political system that evoked the negative emotions in the first place. Here, we review the recent literature examining emotion regulation and political action, considering both the benefits and costs of emotion regulation. Finally, we outline several important unresolved questions to guide future research.