Perspectives on Psychological Science· 2013Q1· Review
Regulatory Flexibility
- 1,582citations
- Q1SCImago
- 2013year
Short summary
This paper introduces and defines 'regulatory flexibility' as a construct that challenges the assumption that specific emotion regulation strategies are universally effective. It proposes that adapting to stress depends on the interaction between the person and the situation over time.
AI-generated from the title and abstract; the full text is not read.
Key points
- Challenges the 'fallacy of uniform efficacy' in emotion regulation research.
- Defines regulatory flexibility as the ability to adapt coping strategies to specific situations and feedback.
- Proposes a framework with three components: sensitivity to context, strategy repertoire, and feedback responsiveness.
- Highlights methodological limitations and future research directions for studying regulatory flexibility.
AI-generated from the title and abstract; the full text is not read.
Abstract
People respond to stressful events in different ways, depending on the event and on the regulatory strategies they choose. Coping and emotion regulation theorists have proposed dynamic models in which these two factors, the person and the situation, interact over time to inform adaptation. In practice, however, researchers have tended to assume that particular regulatory strategies are consistently beneficial or maladaptive. We label this assumption the fallacy of uniform efficacy and contrast it with findings from a number of related literatures that have suggested the emergence of a broader but as yet poorly defined construct that we refer to as regulatory flexibility. In this review, we articulate this broader construct and define both its features and limitations. Specifically, we propose a heuristic individual differences framework and review research on three sequential components of flexibility for which propensities and abilities vary: sensitivity to context, availability of a diverse repertoire of regulatory strategies, and responsiveness to feedback. We consider the methodological limitations of research on each component, review questions that future research on flexibility might address, and consider how the components might relate to each other and to broader conceptualizations about stability and change across persons and situations.
The authors' abstract, as published at the source. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 2013 · DOI ↗
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Field: Applied Psychology
Applied PsychologyPsychology