Interdependence of Blurred Roles and Social Goals in Social Emotion Regulation: Theoretical Primer and Methodological Suggestions

The study of how people regulate one another’s emotions has grown in recent years. Known variously as interpersonal emotion regulation and social emotion regulation, researchers in affective science have begun to develop theoretical models of and a diverse set of methodologies to study this phenomena. However, two aspects of the phenomena remain underspecified: a) target and regulator roles are often blurred and variable and b) the goal dynamics that guide social emotion regulation are social in nature – tenets that have been historically discussed in relationship science and developmental science. Here, we review relevant literature from affective, social, and developmental sciences to highlight underexplored questions related to fluctuating roles in social emotion regulation and heterogeneous and interdependent (often social) goals that meaningfully impact social emotion regulation in everyday life. Then, we provide brief methodological suggestions that illustrate new analytic approaches that can be utilized to help understand roles and goals better in social emotion regulation. By paying attention to both variable roles and the social nature of goals, we can build better models of social emotion regulation that are inclusive of the heterogeneous situations, while also adopting rigorous analytical methods that respect the social nature of SER and broaden our temporal resolution to examine the interplay of roles and goals across the lifespan.