Hierarchical Taxonomy of Emotion Regulation (HiTOE), Tactic Flexibility, and the Need for Meta-Emotion-Regulation

We introduce the Hierarchical Taxonomy of Emotion Regulation (HiTOE) to resolve conceptual inconsistencies and to provide a common, and richer, vocabulary for emotion regulation (ER) research and practice. It is based on a breakdown of ER strategies into their subtypes (i.e., tactics) and, at the bottom of the hierarchy, into the actual ER (overt or covert) behavior. The HiTOE can be extended to other levels (e.g., a subtactic level) and serves as a structural model for future categorizations of ER processes. Based on the HiTOE, we further propose extensions of the ER flexibility and emotion polyregulation concepts to include not just strategy flexibility and strategy polyregulation but also tactic flexibility (flexibly choosing between ER tactics, within or between strategies) and tactic polyregulation (using multiple ER tactics, within or between strategies). This approach of zooming in on ER strategy subtypes as tactics affords a precision that may be particularly important when considering context-dependent ER effectiveness. What furthermore emerges is the need for understanding and using meta-emotion-regulation, namely, the processes by which one influences ER behavior, so that context-sensitive and effective ER becomes feasible.