Implicit and explicit emotion regulation in adolescents with dispositional optimism

Abstract

The development of adaptive emotion regulation (ER) plays a pivotal role in adolescent mental health and socio-emotional adaptation. Dispositional optimism, as an important protective factor for adolescent adjustment, may affect adolescent ER and subsequently influence adaptive outcomes. In this review, the changes and challenges, the role of ER in socio-emotional adjustment, and the developmental characteristics of implicit and explicit ER during adolescence are described. Subsequently, by employing the top-down model of personality, coping, and emotion, how dispositional optimism may affect psychological adjustment from the perspective of ER is analyzed. Furthermore, how the differences in adolescents’ dispositional optimism may be reflected by the differences in implicit ER is discussed. Finally, recommendations for future research are outlined.

The development of emotion regulation in adolescence: What do we know and where to go next?

“…Contrary to explicit emotion regulation, implicit processes are engaged without explicit instructions to modulate emotional responses, and individuals report a very poor awareness of such modulation (Gyurak et al., 2011). As the habitual use of emotion regulation strategies prompts real‐time emotion regulation unintentionally when confronted with emotional situations, the habitual use of specific strategies is considered to be a form of implicit emotion regulation (Zou & Yuan, 2021). Nevertheless, the habitual use of emotion regulation strategies can be made explicit by asking participants about their emotion regulation processes in a short‐time scale (Silvers, 2022).…”