Conceptual framework for emotion control integrating empathy, emotional regulation, and flexibility

Emotions play an active role in the decision-making process and must be controlled to promote “good decisions” and avoid “bad decisions.” Emotions can be controlled using emotional regulation. Emotional regulation needs the perception of our own and other people’s emotions. The perception of other’s emotion relies on empathy. Empathy and emotional regulation are closely related. When the emotional regulation strategy fails, flexibility enables the implementation of another emotion regulation strategy. We propose a framework of emotion control integrating empathy, emotional regulation, and flexibility. On-going emotion is supervised, and online emotion control takes place. Online emotion control is evidenced by empathy and emotion regulation processes. When the emotional regulation strategy needs to be changed because it did not trigger the appropriate behavior, the offline emotion control takes place. Offline emotion control is evidenced by coping flexibility. We assume that emotion control processes are supported by the prefrontal cortex and are part of executive functions. 166 volunteers completed questionnaires testing empathy (Interpersonal Reactivity Index), emotional regulation (Cognitive Emotion regulation Questionnaire), and coping flexibility (Coping Flexibility Scale). Our results showed a close relationship between cognitive empathy, emotional regulation, and coping flexibility, supporting our framework.