Idea generation during emotion regulation: A proposed framework.

Abstract

The field of emotion regulation (ER) is increasingly recognizing the influence of context on an individual's regulatory processes, prompting researchers to examine how specific circumstances dynamically shape ER. Well-accepted theoretical models and supporting empirical studies frame such situation-specific ER as a sequence of stages involving decision points: choosing to regulate, selecting a strategy, deciding whether to maintain current regulatory efforts, and so forth. These frameworks, however, omit an underappreciated process that we argue underscores ER at its highest specificity: idea generation. In other words, individuals do not just select properties of their regulatory attempt, but must actually generate an attempt-a distinction that leverages an underexplored level of analysis in ER known as techniques. In this article, we integrate multiple theoretical perspectives across domains to demonstrate the feasibility in (and insight afforded by) measuring idea generation in ER. Next, we review how existing empirical paradigms already utilize generation-related principles in largely unacknowledged manners, with some studies that have specifically targeted these generative operations during ER. We combine these observations into a novel framework called Emotion Regulation Generation of Techniques, which serves to deepen the study of ER by delineating a generation stage that follows and informs selection mechanisms. To help study idea generation in practice, this framework is equipped with methodological protocols that draw from neighboring domains (e.g., divergent thinking), paired with future directions and testable hypotheses that can inform the role of idea generation in healthy regulation and in dysregulated affective disorders. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).