For reappraisal, the picture was a little more nuanced. For about half the people in the study, reappraisal seemed to be of no use in regulating their negative emotions. Overall, appraisal tended to be more helpful for people who were older: for older participants, using appraisal was associated with lower levels of negative emotions while for adolescents, it was linked to higher levels of negative emotions!
These results indicate that there’s no one-size-fits-all coping strategy that works for everyone. Finding whatever way of dealing with stressful situations works best for you is the way to go.
That said, some strategies seem like promising places to look. Mindfulness is an especially promising candidate while for many emotion suppression will do more harm than good. And reappraisal? You’ve probably got about a fifty-fifty chance on that one.
This guest article originally appeared on PsychCentral.com: Mindfulness, Reappraisal, Emotion Suppression: Which Coping Strategies Work?
Reference
Brockman, R., Ciarrochi, J., Parker, P., & Kashdan, T. (2016). Emotion regulation strategies in daily life: Mindfulness, cognitive reappraisal and emotion suppression. Cognitive Behaviour Therapy.