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REGULATING
EMOTIONS
Culture, Social Necessity, and
Biological Inheritance
EDITED BY Marie Vandekerckhove
Christian von Scheve
Sven Ismer
Susanne Jung
Stefanie Kronast
Praise for Regulating Emotions
“Interdisciplinarity is a concept often claimed in scientific research but
rarely fulfilled. This excellent volume shows that an interdisciplinary approach enriches each discipline’s understanding of how emotions and
their expressions are controlled on a bio-psychological as well a sociocultural level.” Sighard Neckel, University of Vienna
“Emotional regulation is ubiquitous, pervasive and elemental involving
biological, psychological, cultural and behavioural processes. It is fundamental for individual and collective life. Regulating Emotions is an invaluable guide—comprehensive, profound and highly original.” Jack Barbalet,
University of Leicester
“This is a state-of-the-art book on how social and cultural processes can
be utilized to regulate the most basic biological and psychological aspects
of human emotion. Its multidisciplinary perspective is unique and should
be of great interest to anyone interested in how human emotions become
regulated or dysregulated.” Douglas Hollan, UCLA
“An exciting state-of-the-art book, interdisciplinary in its scope, informative and challenging in its contributions, and at the heart of conceptual
construction fitting together the building blocks of emotion regulation
and its significance for human well-being. Working my way through this
intriguing reader gave me stimulating insights into how culture and social
necessities may co-construct emotion regulation—and dysregulation.”
Manfred Holodynski, University of Münster
New Perspectives in Cognitive Psychology
New Perspectives in Cognitive Psychology is a series of works that explore
the latest research, current issues, and hot topics in cognitive psychology.
With a balance of research, applications, and theoretical interpretations,
each book will educate and ignite research and ideas on important topics.
Memory and Emotion: Interdisciplinary Perspectives
Edited by Bob Uttl, Nobuo Ohta, and Amy L. Siegenthaler
Involuntary Memory
Edited by John H. Mace
Regulating Emotions: Culture, Social Necessity, and Biological Inheritance
Edited by Marie Vandekerckhove, Christian von Scheve, Sven Ismer,
Susanne Jung, and Stefanie Kronast
REGULATING
EMOTIONS
Culture, Social Necessity, and
Biological Inheritance
EDITED BY Marie Vandekerckhove
Christian von Scheve
Sven Ismer
Susanne Jung
Stefanie Kronast
© 2008 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd
BLACKWELL PUBLISHING
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The right of Marie Vandekerckhove, Christian von Scheve, Sven Ismer, Susanne Jung, and Stefanie
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First published 2008 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd
1
2008
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Regulating emotions : culture, social necessity, and biological inheritance / edited by Marie
Vandekerckhove . . . [et al.].
p. cm. — (New perspectives in cognitive psychology; 3)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4051-5863-3 (hardcover : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-1-4051-5864-0
(pbk.: alk. paper)
1. Emotions. I. Vandekerckhove, Marie.
BF531.R445 2008
152.4—dc22
2007030478
A catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
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CONTENTS
Notes on Editors and Contributors
vii
Foreword
Birgitt Röttger-Rössler and Hans J. Markowitsch
ix
Acknowledgments
xi
Regulating Emotions: Culture, Social Necessity, and Biological
Inheritance
Marie Vandekerckhove, Christian von Scheve, Sven Ismer,
Susanne Jung, and Stefanie Kronast
Part I Emotion and Regulation: Between Culture and Biology
1 Psssst! Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde are Actually the Same Person!
A Tale of Regulation and Emotion
Arvid Kappas
1
13
15
2 Culture and Automatic Emotion Regulation
Iris B. Mauss, Silvia A. Bunge, and James J. Gross
39
3 Emotion-Related Regulation: Biological and Cultural Bases
Claire Hofer and Nancy Eisenberg
61
Part II Culture and Social Interaction: Markers in the Development
of Emotion Regulation
4 Development of Emotion Regulation in Cultural Context
Gisela Trommsdorff and Fred Rothbaum
5 Adult Attachment Theory, Emotion Regulation, and
Prosocial Behavior
Phillip R. Shaver, Mario Mikulincer, and David S. Chun
83
85
121
| vi
Contents
6 Themes in the Development of Emotion Regulation in
Childhood and Adolescence and a Transactional Model
Maria von Salisch
Part III: What Is and What Is Expected: Psychopathology
and Emotion Regulation
7 Emotion Regulation and the Early Development of
Psychopathology
Pamela M. Cole, Tracy A. Dennis, Sarah E. Martin,
and Sarah E. Hall
146
169
171
8 Emotion Information Processing and Affect Regulation:
Specificity Matters!
Pierre Philippot, Aurore Neumann, and Nathalie Vrielynck
189
9 Socio-Emotional Processing Competences: Assessment and
Clinical Application
Martin Peper and Roland Vauth
210
10 Emotional Experience, Expression, and Regulation in the
Psychotherapeutic Processes
Leslie Greenberg and Marie Vandekerckhove
Part IV: Setting the Stage: Culture and Society as Emotionally
Regulated and Regulating Arenas
11 Passions as Cognitive and Moral Mistakes: The Case of
Honor Killings in Europe
Unni Wikan
12 The Political Regulation of Anger in Organizations
Poul Poder
13 Moods and Emotional Cultures: A Study of Flow and Stress in
Everyday Life
Charlotte Bloch
Index
240
269
271
291
312
334
NOTES ON EDITORS AND
CONTRIBUTORS
Charlotte Bloch, Department of Sociology, University of Copenhagen,
Denmark
Silvia A. Bunge, Department of Psychology and Helen Wills
Neuorscience Institute, University of California, Berkeley, USA
David S. Chun, Department of Psychology, University of California,
Davis, USA
Pamela M. Cole, Department of Psychology, Pennsylvania State
University, USA
Tracy A. Dennis, Department of Psychology, Hunter College, City
University of New York, USA
Nancy Eisenberg, Department of Psychology, Arizona State University,
Tempe, USA
Leslie Greenberg, Department of Psychology, York University, Toronto,
Canada
James J. Gross, Department of Psychology, Stanford University, USA
Sarah E. Hall, Department of Psychology, Pennsylvania State University,
USA
Claire Hofer, Department of Psychology, Arizona State University,
Tempe, USA
Sven Ismer, Department of Movement Science, University of Hamburg,
Germany
Susanne Jung, independent consultant
Arvid Kappas, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Jacobs
University Bremen, Germany
Stefanie Kronast, independent consultant
| viii
Notes on Contributors
Sarah E. Martin, Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior,
E. P. Bradley Hospital, Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown
University, USA
Iris B. Mauss, Department of Psychology, University of Denver, USA
Mario Mikulincer, School of Psychology, Interdisciplinary Center,
Herzliya, Israel
Aurore Neumann, Department of Psychology, Catholic University of
Louvain at Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium
Martin Peper, Department of Psychology, University of Marburg,
Germany
Pierre Philippot, Department of Psychology, Catholic University of
Louvain at Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium
Poul Poder, Department of Sociology, University of Copenhagen,
Denmark
Fred Rothbaum, Department of Child Development, Tufts University,
Medford, USA
Maria von Salisch, Department of Psychology, Leuphana University
Lüneburg, Germany
Christian von Scheve, Institute of Sociology, University of Vienna,
Austria
Phillip R. Shaver, Department of Psychology, University of California,
Davis, USA
Gisela Trommsdorff, Department of Psychology, University of Konstanz,
Germany
Marie Vandekerckhove, Department of Cognitive and Biological
Psychology, University of Brussels, Belgium, and Department of Internal
Medicine and Centre of Psychosomatics, University Hospital Ghent,
Belgium
Roland Vauth, Psychiatric Outpatient Department, University Hospital
Basel, Switzerland
Nathalie Vrielynck, Department of Psychology, Catholic University of
Louvain at Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium
Unni Wikan, Department of Social Anthropology, University of Oslo,
Norway
FOREWORD
The Research Group “Emotions as Bio-Cultural Processes” that was in
residence at the Center for Interdisciplinary Research (ZiF) at the University of Bielefeld from 2004 to 2005 had been set up to explore the interactions between the biological and the socially coded, culture-specific
aspects of emotions. All five editors of the present book have been Junior
Fellows of this Research Group. The young scientists, who, with only
one exception, entered this one-year residence as postgraduate students
at the beginning of their dissertation plans and projects, brought a breath
of fresh air with them in many ways. They did not just brighten up our
academic lives with unconventional leisure-time pursuits, but, with the
courage and freshness—but also the tenacity—of youth, they kept on introducing complex and demanding topics into our discussions.
The regulation of emotions and their socio-cultural as well as biopsychological preconditions—an issue that has attracted increasing attention in recent years—are such complex and many-layered subject areas.
The individual disciplines are approaching them with mostly extremely
heterogeneous approaches, concepts, and terminologies. At first glance,
this plurality of definitions and models makes emotion regulation appear
to be a very vague and shapeless field of research. As the heads of the research group on “Emotions as Bio-Cultural Processes,” we had initially
been strongly tempted to put the topic of emotion regulation aside—and
avoid making the interdisciplinary dialogue on emotions even more complicated than it already is. Nonetheless, the Junior Fellows were not deterred by our temptation and enthusiastically organized a workshop on
“Regulating Emotions: Social Necessity and Biological Inheritance” in
December 2004 at the ZiF.
Several renowned emotion researchers attended this successful event,
and the Junior Fellows decided to collect revised versions of the papers
presented together with further articles and to publish them in a book.
Their goal was not only to present new studies on emotion regulation
but also, and above all, to facilitate the dialogue between the disciplines.
|x
Foreword
With their characteristic zeal, our five Junior Fellows got down to work
on the present book, and the outcome passed through the review process
of a most renowned publishing house—something they can justifiably feel
proud of! Marie Vandekerckhove, Christian von Scheve, Sven Ismer, Susanne Jung, and Stefanie Kronast present an up-to-date, fascinating, and
coherent book that makes a major contribution to the field of emotion
regulation research and in particular to the work of the Research Group
“Emotions as Bio-Cultural Processes.”
This is a good opportunity for us to express our warm thanks to them
—not just for organizing the workshop and producing this book, but also
for their total commitment during the year we did research together in
Bielefeld. They were a pleasure to work with.
Birgitt Röttger-Rössler and Hans J. Markowitsch
Halle / Bielefeld, April 2007
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We would like to express our sincere thanks to the organizers of the Research Group on “Emotions as Bio-Cultural Processes” at the University
of Bielefeld’s Center for Interdisciplinary Research (ZiF), Hans J. Markowitsch and Birgitt Röttger-Rössler, for giving us the opportunity to participate in this intellectually challenging and also highly sociable endeavor.
The year we spent as fellows at the ZiF in Bielefeld has given us an insight
in and understanding of emotions that is unique in its extraordinarily wide
interdisciplinary scope and its profound disciplinary foundations. This of
course would not have been possible without the contribution of all the
group’s members, whom we would equally like to thank: Michael Casimir,
Irene Daum, Eva-Maria Engelen, Susanne Erk, Manfred Holodynski,
Gerald Hüther, William Jankowiak, Margot Lyon, Sighard Neckel, Bradd
Shore, Achim Stephan, and Harald Welzer.
Also, we would like to thank the research group for granting us the opportunity to organize the group’s international workshop on “Regulating
Emotions: Social Necessity and Biological Inheritance” from which the
chapters in this volume have emerged. Furthermore, we thank the whole
staff at the ZiF, in particular the group’s research assistant Henrik Bollermann, who have contributed invaluably not only to organizing this particular workshop but also to making our time at the ZiF most enjoyable
and successful. Thank you!
Last but not least we owe thanks to our executive editor at WileyBlackwell, Christine Cardone, for her encouragement and confidence
in this project from the beginning on. We also thank our project editor
Sarah Coleman, whose support and advice throughout the critical stages
have always been most helpful.
Marie Vandekerckhove, Christian von Scheve, Sven Ismer,
Susanne Jung, and Stefanie Kronast
Regulating Emotions:
Culture, Social Necessity, and
Biological Inheritance
Marie Vandekerckhove, Christian von Scheve,
Sven Ismer, Susanne Jung, and Stefanie Kronast
What seems so compelling about the regulation of emotions to researchers in many different disciplines is that within this theme, questions concerning the alleged antipodes nature and nurture or biology and culture
are conflating in most obvious ways. We suspect that this is precisely the
reason why emotion regulation has recently attracted such exceptional
attention in a scientific environment that is characterized by a growing
interest in bridging disciplinary boundaries. Without a doubt, the topic
of emotion regulation has experienced a boom at the beginning of the
21st century, with many important contributions coming from academic
disciplines as diverse as psychology, neuroscience, anthropology, psychotherapy, and sociology—not to mention the more popular writings and
counseling literature.
Research on emotions in the past 20 years has increasingly portrayed
emotions as highly functional phenomena of crucial evolutionary significance and biological grounding—in individual as well as in social and
cultural terms. Clearly, this has not always been the case. From the Greek
philosophers to the Scottish moralists, emotions have often been considered as disturbing and irritating occurrences in human life, in particular in domains requiring calm analysis, deep thinking, or polite manners.
However, in other areas emotions have never ceased to be “that certain
something,” more or less legitimately serving as most compulsive means
and ends of human action.
Although emotions are ubiquitous in human affairs, it seems not too
bold to claim that what has separated “man” from “animal” in many societies and cultures till today is the potential and the ability to keep one’s
emotions under control. That is, to hide them from and adapt them to
these affairs, not to forget oneself when faced with indignity, to keep calm