Much of the scientific work on emotion regulation has examined strategies in isolation. Now that we have a better understanding of emotion regulatory strategy use and frequency, there is an opportunity to explore new psychological territory. As a starting point, we illustrate how a highly touted strategy, cognitive reappraisal, supercharges a critical component of well-being: purpose in life. We also examine how purpose in life offers a framework to better understand when and how cognitive reappraisal is adaptive. Examining emotion regulation (...) in the context of a sense of purpose in life opens portals to new questions and testable hypotheses. We end with a reconsideration of emotion regulation flexibility over hyper specialization on singular strategies such as reappraisal. Our aim is to inspire research that examines how emotion regulation facilitates or hinders important elements of the good life, as well as how elements of well-being inform regulation choice and success. (shrink)

Physical touch is central to the emotional intimacy that separates romantic relationships from other social contexts. In this study of 256 adults, we examined whether individual differences in social anxiety influenced comfort with and avoidance of physical touch. Because of prior work on sex difference in touch use, touch comfort, and social anxiety symptoms and impairment, we explored sex-specific findings. We found evidence that women with greater social anxiety were less comfortable with touch and more avoidant of touch in same-sex (...) friendships. Additionally, a woman’s social anxiety had a bigger effect on a man’s comfort with touch and avoidance of touch in the romantic relationship than a man’s social anxiety had on the woman’s endorsement of touch-related problems. These effects were uninfluenced by the length of romantic relationships. Touch is a neglected emotional experience that offers new insights into the difficulties of individuals suffering from social anxiety problems, and their romantic partners. (shrink)