/asmagazine/ en /asmagazine/2025/01/17/using-mathy-math-understand-how-people-regulate-their-emotions <span>Using ‘mathy math’ to understand how people regulate their emotions</span> <span><span>Rachel Sauer</span></span> <span><time datetime="2025-01-17T14:30:28-07:00" title="Friday, January 17, 2025 - 14:30">Fri, 01/17/2025 - 14:30</time> </span> <div> <div class="imageMediaStyle focal_image_wide"> <img loading="lazy" src="/asmagazine/sites/default/files/styles/focal_image_wide/public/2025-01/regulating%20emotions.jpg?h=9156f6a5&amp;itok=NzheFhrm" width="1200" height="800" alt="Row of round faces of various colors expressing different emotions"> </div> </div> <div role="contentinfo" class="container ucb-article-categories" itemprop="about"> <span class="visually-hidden">Categories:</span> <div class="ucb-article-category-icon" aria-hidden="true"> <i class="fa-solid fa-folder-open"></i> </div> <a href="/asmagazine/taxonomy/term/30"> News </a> </div> <div role="contentinfo" class="container ucb-article-tags" itemprop="keywords"> <span class="visually-hidden">Tags:</span> <div class="ucb-article-tag-icon" aria-hidden="true"> <i class="fa-solid fa-tags"></i> </div> <a href="/asmagazine/taxonomy/term/1242" hreflang="en">Division of Natural Sciences</a> <a href="/asmagazine/taxonomy/term/148" hreflang="en">Institute of Cognitive Science</a> <a href="/asmagazine/taxonomy/term/144" hreflang="en">Psychology and Neuroscience</a> <a href="/asmagazine/taxonomy/term/686" hreflang="en">Research</a> </div> <span>Daniel Long</span> <div class="ucb-article-content ucb-striped-content"> <div class="container"> <div class="paragraph paragraph--type--article-content paragraph--view-mode--default"> <div class="ucb-article-text" itemprop="articleBody"> <div><p class="lead"><em><span>In a recent study, ���ϳԹ�’s Robert Moulder and colleagues find that individuals with trait neuroticism rarely modify how they respond to negative emotions&nbsp;</span></em></p><hr><p><span>Emotions, like temperatures, go up and down. Yet everyone copes with these ups and downs in his or her own way. Some use the same emotion-regulation strategies over and over—read a book, take a walk, watch a movie—while others change which strategy they use depending on the situation.</span></p><p><span>Research scientist&nbsp;</span><a href="/ics/robert-bobby-moulder" rel="nofollow"><span>Robert Moulder</span></a><span> of the ���ϳԹ�&nbsp;</span><a href="/ics/" rel="nofollow"><span>Institute of Cognitive Science</span></a><span>, along with&nbsp;</span><a href="https://katharinedaniel.com/" rel="nofollow"><span>Katharine E. Daniel</span></a><span>,&nbsp;</span><a href="https://psychology.osu.edu/people/southward.6" rel="nofollow"><span>Matthew W. Southward</span></a><span>,&nbsp;</span><a href="https://psychology.osu.edu/people/cheavens.1" rel="nofollow"><span>Jennifer S. Cheavens</span></a><span> and&nbsp;</span><a href="https://psychology.as.virginia.edu/people/steve-boker" rel="nofollow"><span>Steven M. Boker</span></a><span>, wanted to know why: Why do some people frequently modify their regulation strategies? Why do others reuse the same strategies? And are there benefits to both approaches?</span></p><div class="feature-layout-callout feature-layout-callout-large"><div class="ucb-callout-content"><p>&nbsp;</p> <div class="imageMediaStyle large_image_style"> <img loading="lazy" src="/asmagazine/sites/default/files/styles/large_image_style/public/2025-01/Robert%20Moulder.jpg?itok=9Sqc2p2r" width="1500" height="1500" alt="headshot of Robert Moulder"> </div> <span class="media-image-caption"> <p class="small-text">Institute of Cognitive Science research scientist Robert Moulder, a lecturer in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, notes that "<span>that there are some times when it makes sense to become more adaptive" in regulating emotions.</span></p> </span> </div></div><p><span>Difficult questions, these, not least because they seek to identify patterns in what seem like random human behaviors. Which is why Moulder was particularly well-suited to the job of answering them. With a background in both mathematics and psychology, he uses chaos theory and nonlinear dynamics to understand human systems. “The way I like to describe it, I am like&nbsp;</span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Malcolm_(Jurassic_Park)" rel="nofollow"><span>Ian Malcolm</span></a><span> from </span><em><span>Jurassic Park,&nbsp;</span></em><span>but for people instead of dinosaurs,” he jokes. “I do the ‘mathy math’ behind how psych works.”</span></p><p><span>Thanks to Moulder’s “mathy math,” he and his fellow researchers&nbsp;</span><a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10608-024-10493-x" rel="nofollow"><span>were able to reveal</span></a><span> a key distinction between those who rarely change up their emotion-regulation strategies and those who do so often: trait neuroticism.</span></p><p><strong>Trait vs. state</strong></p><p><span>Neuroticism, Moulder says, refers to “someone's overall tendency to engage in and ruminate on negative emotions like getting angry, getting upset, being distrustful. You can think about it as the propensity of an individual to experience and act upon negative emotions.”</span></p><p><span>There are two categories of neuroticism: state neuroticism and trait neuroticism, the differences between which Moulder illustrates with an analogy to extroversion.</span></p><p><span>“A state personality would be, say, how extroverted you are right now, or how extroverted you are in two or three days,” he says. “Have you ever gone to a party and felt really engaged but afterwards felt dead? During that party your extroversion was higher than it normally would be, and afterwards, it was probably a little lower.”&nbsp;</span></p><p><span>Trait extroversion, on the other hand, takes the average of those individual moments over time. “It's kind of like your stable equilibrium,” says Moulder. “If you were going to describe to someone how extroverted you are, you'd be talking about your trait extroversion.”</span></p><p><span>The same thing goes for neuroticism. One person may have a high degree of neuroticism at any given moment but a low degree overall—high state, low trait—whereas another person may be exactly the opposite.</span></p><p><span>What Moulder and his colleagues found was that subjects with high levels of trait neuroticism tend