Emotional Forecasting of Happiness

What is it about?

People regulate their emotions, using emotion regulation strategies. Regulation of emotions happens within social contexts, such as religious groups. We have studied the dominant regulation strategies used among Jehovah´s Witnesses, being an end- time focused group with the goal of eternal life in Paradise. The emotion regulation strategies identified among Jehovah´s Witnesses were social sharing and the interconnected cognitive reappraisal. A new concept, emotional forecasting, was introduced, describing a reappraisal tactic of regulation using prospects of future emotions to regulate the here and now. It was concluded that the prospection of the future is a strong regulator of emotions of the here and now and should be included in psychological models of emotion regulation.

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Why is it important?

Our findings show how important prospections of the future is for the psychological here and now, as well as the potential emotion regulation functions religious group membership can have. We have created the term emotional forecasting as to underscore how prospections about the future has impact on emotion regulation.