What emotional regulation technique involves changing the way you think about an event to change your feelings about it?

Emotional regulation refers to the process by which individuals influence which emotions they have, when they have them, and how they experience and express these emotions. The specific emotional regulation technique that involves changing the way you think about an event to change your feelings about it is called Cognitive Reappraisal.

Cognitive reappraisal is a proactive form of emotional regulation where an individual consciously reinterprets the meaning or significance of an emotion-eliciting situation in a way that alters its emotional impact. This technique operates on the understanding that our emotions are not solely determined by external events themselves, but fundamentally by our cognitive appraisal of those events, meaning how we perceive, interpret, and assign meaning to them.

The process of cognitive reappraisal involves identifying an initial, often automatic, interpretation of a situation that leads to an undesirable emotional response. The individual then deliberately generates an alternative, more benign, neutral, or even positive interpretation of the same situation. This active re-evaluation, or "reappraisal," of the event's meaning leads to a modification of the emotional response, typically reducing negative emotions or enhancing positive ones. For example, if someone receives constructive criticism at work (the event) and initially feels upset or defensive because they interpret it as a personal attack or a sign of failure (the initial appraisal), cognitive reappraisal would involve reinterpreting the situation. They might instead think of the feedback as an opportunity for growth, a demonstration of their manager's investment in their development, or valuable information to improve their skills (the reappraisal). This shift in thinking changes the feeling from upset to perhaps motivation, gratitude, or a sense of challenge. The core mechanism is altering the cognitive input, specifically the interpretation of an event, to change the emotional output, thereby regulating the emotional experience without altering the external situation itself. This technique is highly effective because it intervenes at an early stage of emotion generation, targeting the cognitive roots of an emotional response.