Emotional Regulation and Human Flourishing: Theoretical and Empirical Perspectives

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Background

Several authors —i. e. Scheler, Arnold, Goldie, Keltner and Ekman— agree that traditionally, in the history of Western thought, emotions have been seen as enemies of rationality and disruptive of cooperative social relations.
However, emotions guide our perceptions of the world, our memories of the past and even our moral judgments of right and wrong, most typically in ways that enable effective responses to the current situation. For example, studies find that when we are angry, we are acutely attuned to what is unfair, which helps animate actions that remedy injustice.
Emotions structure (not just colour) diverse social interactions such as attachment between parents and children, flirtations, and negotiations between rivals.
Thus, emotions organize — rather than disrupt — rational thinking. According to Arnold, positive or negative, we need to deal with emotions. We need to think about them and what they tell us.
As Williams poses, the moral significance of emotions reveals how fact and value come together in the moral agent. Human beings’ capacity for ethics arises from the intersection between reason and emotion.

In this framework, the question of emotion regulation arises. What emotional regulation looks like? Is emotional regulation at the service of action, of feeling good, or of human flourishing?
In psychology, the cognitive aspects of emotion regulation are becoming a relevant topic. Emotion regulation is a metacognitive process within which both emotion and cognition are highly salient. Is it feasible for emotion regulation to integrate cognition and emotion?
Philosophical and moral psychology wants not only to predict what will happen when a person is angry, afraid or in love but also to know how these emotions are likely to be aroused and how they can be managed. To discuss the management of emotion, we shall have to discuss the motives for self-management and identify ways to assess people’s knowledge of their motives and their ability to put that knowledge into action. Moreover, it would be necessary to develop frameworks that delineate how to moderate affective influences. Finally, we will consider whether and how moral virtues can be reliable tools for emotional regulation.

In this spirit, this Research Topic invites contributions related to an integral view of emotion regulation shaped by an understanding of its relevance in human flourishing. Therefore, we invite contributions that tackle themes including, but not limited to, the below:
● Metacognitive aspects of emotional regulation
● How to develop and practice self-regulation? Exercises and Strategies
● The influence of emotional regulation on life satisfaction
● The relevance of virtues in emotional regulation
● Dealing with stress in emotional regulation
● Emotional well-being: a balance of positive and negative emotions?
● The education of emotions as part of moral or character development

We encourage researchers from Psychology and Philosophy to contribute original papers, review articles, opinion papers, and other types of contributions supported by Frontiers in Psychology. Diverse theoretical and empirical approaches are welcome, including, but not limited to conceptual, experimental, observational, and intervention studies. In line with the multidisciplinary ethos of the journal and given the many areas of scholarship with the potential for contributing to the study of emotional regulation, we actively seek interdisciplinary research approaches.

Keywords: emotions, regulation, self-management, flourishing, action, motive, value

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

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