Explain how suppressing an emotion differs from regulating it, using James Gross's process model.
Write down one situation at work that keeps winding you up. Next to it, write what you usually do once the feeling arrives. A lot of people put down some version of "I keep a straight face and get on with it."
Most of us were brought up to keep our feelings in so nobody else sees them. While you're doing it, holding it in feels like self-control. Research suggests that hiding a feeling is one of the more costly ways to deal with it. There are cheaper options, and they come earlier.
James Gross, a psychologist at Stanford, developed the process model of emotion regulation. It treats an emotion as something that plays out over time. It begins with the situation that triggers it and ends with the reaction other people can see. Gross identified five points along that sequence where you can do something.
At stage 1, choosing the situation, you decide whether to walk into it at all. At stage 2, changing the situation, you're already in it and you alter it. Asking for a meeting to use a different format is one example. Stage 3 is shifting attention, which means choosing what you focus on while you're in the situation. Stage 4 is reinterpreting, where you change what the event means to you. Stage 5 is changing the response. The feeling is already there by this point, but you still control your breathing, your expression, and what you say and do.
Stages 1 to 4 all happen before the emotion has fully built. Stage 5 happens after. Most of the effort people spend on staying calm goes into stage 5, right at the last second.
Arif (an invented example) works on client calls with Jason and Grace (both invented as well). On a Thursday afternoon call, Jason talks over Arif. It isn't the first time. Arif does what he believes a professional ought to do. He keeps his face neutral, nods, says "sure, go ahead" and continues as if nothing has happened. For the rest of the hour his jaw stays clenched. Everything he did to manage himself that Thursday was at stage 5.
Once the call is over, Arif can't recall what the client said about the revised timeline, and he has to check with a colleague. The anger hasn't gone anywhere either. On Friday night he sends Grace a curt reply, and the reply has nothing to do with Jason.
Arif was using suppression. This is one particular stage 5 strategy: you hide the outward signs of a feeling, and the feeling keeps going on the inside. Holding a straight face while your heart is racing counts as suppression. Saying "No problem" through gritted teeth counts too.
There are moments when suppression is the right choice. For example, you might prefer that a client doesn't see you rattled. The trouble starts when it becomes your main strategy or the only one you have. Research in Gross's tradition connects habitual suppression with two costs that matter at work: memory and closeness.
The memory finding comes from laboratory studies. Researchers asked some people to hide their reactions while they watched an upsetting film or took part in an upsetting conversation. Those people remembered less of what was said than people who had not been asked to hide anything. The usual explanation is that holding a straight face uses up attention you would otherwise spend listening. Arif losing track of the client's comments on the revised timeline is this cost.
The closeness finding comes from what people report about their relationships. People who describe themselves as habitual suppressors tend to report less close relationships and feel less supported by others. One explanation is that suppression makes you harder to read. Colleagues sense that something is wrong but can't work out what, and so trust between you builds more slowly. A suppressed feeling also tends to come back later, often at someone who had no part in it. For Arif, that person was Grace on Friday night.
Dealing with a feeling earlier costs you less. Change how you see a situation before the feeling peaks, and you'll have less to hold in. Change the situation itself, and the feeling may never build in the first place. Steering early usually takes less effort than clamping down at the end.
You can still manage your response at stage 5, and doing so is reasonable. It works better when you have moves at the earlier stages as well. You don't have to use all five stages every time. What you're trying to do is stop depending on the last stage alone. For most recurring problems at work, one move at stage 1 or 2 plus one move at stage 4 removes a lot of the pressure from stage 5.
Arif took his Jason problem and wrote a possible move for each stage:
Stage 1, choosing: client calls are part of his job, so he can't do much here. He can, though, stop booking a second call straight after the stand-up, which means he won't arrive already wound up. Stage 2, changing: his more promising option is to ask Grace whether updates on client calls could follow a running order, with each person taking a turn. If people speak in turn, an interruption would stand out. Stage 3, attention: when Jason cuts in, Arif writes down the point Jason is making so he can respond to it later. This keeps him from replaying the interruption in his head. Stage 4, reinterpreting: he asks himself whether Jason is being dismissive or is simply anxious about the vendor issue. Stage 5, response: he takes a slow breath and says something calm, such as "Jason, let me finish this point, then I want to hear yours."
Arif's list has a stage 2 move and a stage 4 move. On his next call he has more to work with than keeping his face still. Lesson 3.2, "Change the story you tell yourself about what happened", covers stage 4 in more depth. Lesson 3.3, "Buy time when you feel yourself about to react", gives you more ways to change your response at stage 5.
Now take one recurring stressful situation of your own. It could be one of the top two from your trigger log in lesson 2.4, or the one you wrote down at the start. Write one thing you could do at each of the five stages, as Arif did. Then check that at least one move is at stage 1 or 2 and at least one is at stage 4, so stage 5 is not your only tool.
Pick one stressful situation that keeps coming up. For each stage of the process model, from avoiding the situation to changing your response, write down one thing you could do.
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