Pauw, L. S., Sauter, D. A., Van Kleef, G. A., Sels, L., & Fischer, A. H. (2025). The dynamics of interpersonal emotion regulation: How sharers elicit desired (but not necessarily helpful) support. Emotion, 25(2), 287–299. https://doi.org/10.1037/emo0001382

Key Takeaways

Focus: The study investigated the dynamics of interpersonal emotion regulation, specifically how people seeking emotional support influence the type of support they receive.
Aims: The research aimed to explore whether people receive the support they seek when sharing emotions, how emotional intensity affects the type of support desired, and whether empathic accuracy in listeners leads to more responsive support.
Findings: The study found that people tend to receive the type of support they seek, with emotional intensity increasing the desire for both emotional and cognitive support. Additionally, listeners who accurately perceived the sharer’s emotional intensity provided more responsive emotional support, but not cognitive support.
Implications:

Rationale

People often turn to others for emotional support when distressed, a phenomenon known as social sharing.

While social sharing is perceived as beneficial, it often fails to promote emotional recovery. This may be because people primarily seek and receive emotional support, which provides temporary relief but does not address the underlying issue.

Cognitive support, which involves reframing the situation, may be more effective for long-term recovery but is less frequently sought and offered.

This study aimed to investigate the dynamics of interpersonal emotion regulation by examining how the intensity of emotions and empathic accuracy of listeners influence the type of support provided and received.

The findings contribute to understanding the complex interplay between sharers and listeners in social sharing interactions.

Method

This study used a dyadic interaction design, where pairs of participants engaged in conversations about an upsetting emotional event.

The conversations were video-recorded, and participants later watched the recordings and rated their emotional intensity, support desires, and the support provided during the interaction.

Procedure

Participants: 208 participants (70% female) were randomly paired into 104 dyads and assigned roles as either sharer or listener.
Interaction: Sharers discussed an upsetting emotional event with the listener for 8 minutes.
Video-Mediated Recall: Participants watched the recorded interaction in 20-second fragments.
Ratings: Sharers rated their emotional intensity and desire for emotional and cognitive support, while listeners rated their perception of the sharer’s emotional intensity and their own support provision.

Sample

208 participants (70% female) with an average age of 22.9 years.
Participants were recruited from the University of Amsterdam and paired with another, same-sex participant they did not know.

Measures

Emotional Intensity: Participants rated the sharer’s emotional intensity on a 100-point scale.
Desired Support: Sharers rated their desire for emotional and cognitive support on a 100-point scale.
Provided Support: Listeners rated their provision of emotional and cognitive support on a 100-point scale.
Empathic Accuracy: Calculated as the absolute difference between sharer’s and listener’s ratings of the sharer’s emotional intensity.

Statistical Measures

Multilevel analyses were conducted to account for the nested structure of the data (repeated measurements within dyads).

The main focus was on concurrent effects, examining how emotional intensity, support desires, and empathic accuracy related to support provision at the same time point.

Results

Key Findings

Hypothesis 1: Sharers’ desire for emotional and cognitive support positively predicted corresponding support provision by listeners.
Hypothesis 2: Emotional intensity was positively associated with the desire for both emotional and cognitive support, contrary to the initial prediction of a decrease in desire for cognitive support.
Hypothesis 3: Empathic accuracy positively predicted emotional support alignment but did not predict cognitive support alignment.

People seek emotional support in distress, but it may not aid long-term recovery.

Social sharing is often perceived as beneficial, but it does not necessarily lead to emotional recovery.
People tend to seek emotional support (which provides momentary relief) rather than cognitive support (which may be more effective for long-term coping).

Sharers influence the type of support they receive.

Sharers’ desire for emotional support is positively associated with receiving more emotional support.
Similarly, sharers’ desire for cognitive support predicts receiving more cognitive support.
However, cognitive support is less commonly provided, and it is often combined with emotional support.

Emotional intensity influences support preferences.

Higher emotional intensity increases the desire for both emotional and cognitive support.
However, emotional intensity is associated with a decrease in the provision of cognitive support.
This suggests that people may need cognitive support but not be receptive to it in moments of high distress.

Empathic accuracy improves alignment with emotional support needs.

When listeners accurately perceive sharers’ emotional intensity, they provide emotional support more aligned with sharers’ desires.

However, empathic accuracy does not improve alignment for cognitive support.

Sharers may contribute to the failure of effective emotion regulation.

People elicit the support they want, but this is often emotional support rather than cognitive support.

Since emotional support provides short-term relief rather than long-term coping, this helps explain why social sharing feels beneficial despite its limited long-term effects.

Insight

This study provides valuable insights into the dynamics of interpersonal emotion regulation during social sharing.

The findings highlight that people tend to receive the support they implicitly seek, even if it may not be the most beneficial for long-term recovery.

The unexpected positive association between emotional intensity and the desire for both emotional and cognitive support suggests a more complex interplay between these factors than previously hypothesized.

Furthermore, the finding that empathic accuracy only promoted emotional support alignment underscores the importance of clear communication in eliciting desired support.

These findings extend previous research by examining the dynamic interplay between emotional intensity, support desires, and empathic accuracy in real-time interactions.

Future research could investigate the specific cues that sharers use to communicate their support desires and how listeners interpret these cues.

Additionally, exploring interventions that promote more explicit communication of support needs could be beneficial

Implications

The findings have implications for clinical practice and future research on social support and emotion regulation.

They suggest that interventions aimed at improving empathic accuracy in listeners could enhance the effectiveness of social support interactions.

Additionally, helping people become more aware of their support needs and how to communicate them effectively could lead to more beneficial social sharing experiences.

Recommendations

Encourage Explicit Communication: Practitioners can encourage individuals to explicitly communicate their support needs to ensure they receive the most beneficial type of support.
Empathy Training: Training programs for mental health professionals and social support providers could focus on enhancing empathic accuracy to better understand and respond to individuals’ emotional needs.
Tailored Support: Policymakers could consider developing support services that offer both emotional and cognitive support, allowing individuals to access the type of support that best suits their needs and preferences.

Potential Benefits

Improved emotional recovery and well-being for individuals seeking support.
Enhanced effectiveness of mental health and social support interventions.

Potential Challenges

Resistance to explicit communication of emotional needs due to stigma or discomfort.
Difficulty in accurately assessing and responding to fluctuating emotional intensity and support desires.

Strengths

Ecological validity: The study used real-time dyadic interactions rather than hypothetical scenarios.
Dyadic design: Captured both sharers’ needs and listeners’ responses dynamically.
Fine-grained momentary analysis: Allowed tracking of fluctuations in emotional states and support behaviors.

Limitations

Correlational design: Cannot establish causality.
Sample: The sample consisted mainly of young adults from the University of Amsterdam, which may limit the generalizability of the findings to other populations.
Same-sex dyads: The study focused on same-sex dyads to control for potential effects of sexual attraction, but this may not reflect the full range of social support interactions in real life.
Unacquainted participants: Participants were unacquainted to avoid the influence of prior relationship dynamics.

Discussion Questions for a College Class

Why do people tend to seek emotional support rather than cognitive support in distress?
How can we encourage people to accept cognitive support when it might be more beneficial for long-term coping?
In what ways does emotional intensity influence the type of support we need and accept?
How can we train individuals to improve their empathic accuracy in supportive interactions?
Do different cultural or personality factors influence preferences for emotional vs. cognitive support?
How might the findings change if the study were conducted with romantic partners or family members instead of strangers?
Should support providers prioritize what the distressed person wants or what would actually help them long-term?

Reference