Discrepancy-based and anticipated emotions in behavioral self-regulation.

• DOI: 10.1037/a0021756
• Publication Date: 2011-04-25T15:57:36Z
• Authors: Christina M. Brown; Allen R. McConnell
• Keywords: Emotional Regulation; Goal pursuit; Expressive Suppression

Discrepancies between one's current and desired states evoke negative emotions, which presumably guide self-regulation.In the work we evaluated function of discrepancy-based emotions in behavioral self-regulation.Contrary to classic theories self-regulation, did not predict degree people engaged self-regulatory behavior.Instead, expectations about how future self-discrepancies would make one feel (i.e., anticipated emotions) predicted self-regulation.However, were influenced by previous emotional experiences, suggesting that latter do directly motivate self-regulation but rather expectations.These findings are consistent with perspective necessarily direct immediate behavior, have an indirect effect guiding expectations, turn goal-directed action.