Despite evidence suggesting that enacted support messages contain emotion regulation strategies, this possibility has yet to be examined. This study provides a descriptive examination of enacted support messages using the process model of emotion regulation (Gross, 1998a, 1998b) as a guiding framework. Participants identified two separate text message exchanges in which they shared a positive and negative emotion with another person. The textual content was recorded and communication partnersÂ’ responses were unitized and then coded for emotion regulation strategies. Results indicate the presence of nearly all emotion regulation strategies across emotion valence and roughly 20% of conversational units for negative emotion contained an emotion regulation strategy. Findings are discussed in light of the implications for the interpersonal emotion regulation and social support literatures, and a new framework for examining the process by which interpersonal communication influences emotion regulation processes is proposed.
Key words: Enacted support, interpersonal communication, emotion regulation
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