The feeling of the story: Narrating to regulate anger and sadness

ABSTRACT

Admonitions to tell one's story in order to feel better reflect the belief that narrative is an effective emotion regulation tool. The present studies evaluate the effectiveness of narrative for regulating sadness and anger, and provide quantitative comparisons of narrative with distraction, reappraisal, and reexposure. The results for sadness (n = 93) and anger (n = 89) reveal that narrative is effective at down-regulating negative emotions, particularly when narratives place events in the past tense and include positive emotions. The results suggest that if people tell the “right” kind of story about their experiences, narrative reduces emotional distress linked to those experiences.

KEYWORDS:

• Narrative
• emotion regulation
• anger
• sadness

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the members of the social development laboratory, and especially Kristina Oldroyd, for their hard work and dedication to the project.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by NIH R01HD067189 awarded to the first and second authors.