Facets of Emotion Regulation in Families with Adolescents: A New Research Approach

Family is the preferred place for the regulation of individual and relational affectivity, for the heating and tuning of emotions. Larson and Richard (1994) call it an ‘arena of emotions’. The project ‘Regulation of Emotions in Families with Adolescents’ explored the processing of emotional and somatic states, the perception of other’s emotional states and the social regulation of or coping with emotionally heated social situations in the family. We expected the sensitivity for family members’ emotions (i.e. accuracy of the perception) and the modalities of coping to he relevant prerequisites for the development and the well-being of the family members. An additional goal was the development of a new methodological tool to assess affective, cognitive and behavioural phenomena in the natural setting of family life. The questions we were focusing on concern (i) feelings and emotional states as a function of the time of the day, the day of the week, the social settings and activities, (ii) the role of accurate reading of the other’s emotional state in families and couples, (Hi) functional and dysfunctional modalities of interpersonal emotion regulation, and finally (iv) the evaluation of the possibility for practical applications of the new assessment tool in counselling and clinical settings. The following text describes some core facets of the project.