Anshita Chhabra

Bsc. Life Science (Semester 1, 2023)

Roll no. - 234811

[1] Coping anxiety: My stressors and resources activity

Stressors Coping Obstacles Methods for Overcoming

1. Worrying that I am Understanding that everyone Feeling inadequate Trying to look for small
falling behind my is different and trying to be opportunities to start with
peers because of my easy on myself that do not consume a lot of
inability to commit my time
to anything outside
of my coursework
2. Taking care of my Taking care of hygiene, trying Finding it difficult to Swapping unhealthy snacks
health while living to eat healthy and workout as eat healthy because of with healthy ready-made
on my own much as I can not being able to cook ones
fresh meals due to
time constraints
Past sources

1. Worrying about Participating in events held Fearing competition Telling myself that putting
having less for students across the myself out there will help me
exposure due to country to know about my
living in a small shortcomings and will
town ultimately help me improve
2. Feeling like I do Detaching myself from Changing my views, Keeping things to myself until
not have a sense others’ expectations likes and dislikes as I grew more confident and
of self and have whenever making a decision soon as I would gaining more perspective on
based my or forming an opinion discover what the things from diverse sources
identity on what people I admire before making up my mind
would make thought of them about something
people like me
Expected future sources

1. Coming out to my Familiarizing them with Their views might be Working out a compromise
parents LGBTQ community slowly to very rigid and they where I maintain a good
give them time to open their might never come relationship with them and
minds around keep my romantic life to
myself
2. I stop having an Educating myself as much as I I might get influenced Always trying to grab any
open mind as I grow can by media and opportunity to familiarize
old literature myself with people from
diverse backgrounds and
ideologies

[2] Using a real-world example explain the Gross’s Process Model of Emotion Regulation.

The American Psychological Association had defined emotions as conscious mental reactions,
subjectively experienced as strong feelings usually directed toward a specific object and typically
accompanied by physiological and behavioural changes in the body. Even though emotions are
dynamic, people often make efforts to control them in some capacity. Emotion regulation is a tool
used for that purpose. Emotions regulation may be viewed as altering an emotion trajectory that
would have occurred in the absence of that emotion regulation strategy, and different regulation
strategies and tactics should alter the emotion trajectory in different ways (Gross, 2015). This can be
achieved through numerous regulatory strategies. The process model of emotion regulation
introduced by James J. Gross organizes these regulation strategies into a framework involving a
sequence of steps. This essay shall elucidate upon Gross’ model with help of an example.

For the sake of understanding, let us consider an example wherein a person’s partner wants them to
have Italian food with them. The partner has a lot of emotional value associated with Italian food and
wants to share this experience with the person. However, the person is quite apprehensive of this
owing to a bad experience in the past.

According to Gross’ model, the first point where emotion regulation can occur is represented by the
family of emotion regulatory strategy called Situation Selection. It refers to taking actions that make
it more (or less) likely that one will be in a situation that one expects will give rise to desirable (or
undesirable) emotions (Gross, 2015). In the situation on hand, the person can choose to not try
Italian food at all, disregarding their partner’s wish to have it with them which may cause the partner
to feel resentful. Alternatively, the person could decide to respect their partner’s desire, keeping
their apprehensions aside. Choosing the second situation may make the person feel good about
themselves for keeping an open mind and trying something new.

At this stage, the person might want to take some measures to ease themselves into this new
cuisine. By doing this, they are essentially modifying the situation in order to change its emotional
impact. Gross refers to this process as Situation Modification. The person could make the situation
more comfortable for themselves by trying the food in a restaurant instead of ordering it in which
will allow them to enjoy fresh food straight out of the kitchen. It will also allow them to look around
at what other people have ordered and gaining some insight before placing an order.

While at the restaurant, the person can avoid feelings of nervousness by diverting their attention to
other pleasant things like the ambience of the restaurant or the conversation they are having with
their partner. This regulation strategy, wherein a person allocates their attention with the intention of
modifying their emotional response is referred to as Attention Deployment.

The next point where emotional process can be altered corresponds to the regulatory strategy called
Cognitive Change. Cognitive change refers to modifying one's appraisal of a situation in order to alter
its emotional impact (Gross, 2015). Continuing with the above example, the person could change
their perspective to view this situation as an experience which has taught them more about their
partner, hence bringing them closer to their partner instead of thinking of this act as a favour to their
partner, which could potentially lead to feelings of resentment.

The last point of regulation, called Response Modulation refers to directly influencing experiential,
behavioural, or physiological components of the emotional response after the emotion is well
developed (Gross, 2015). In this situation being discussed, this can be represented by the person
supressing their feelings of discontent after not liking the food they tried for the sake of their partner.
It could also include the person deciding to value the experience of sharing something important to
their partner with them rather than the food itself.

Through the example discussed above, it can be seen how emotion regulation processes explained in
Gross’ process model of emotion regulation find their application in real life. It is undeniable that
emotional processes play a major role in an individual’s life. Thus, understanding and practicing
regulatory strategies can enhance one’s quality of life immensely.