 24. Emotion Regulation  529
been linked to the ability to spontaneously 
use suppression (Gyurak et al., 2009).
Third, there are also a number of traits 
that may result in differential strategy pref -
erences because of the effects they have on 
perceptions of what is contextually appro -
priate. Individuals who value emotional 
restraint, for example, may be more prone 
to use suppression (Butler, Lee, & Gross, 
2007, 2009). Strategy selection has been 
shown to vary based on various aspects of 
the regulation context. However, the impact 
of these factors may depend on how much 
the regulator personally cares about them. 
For instance, while individuals generally use 
suppression more when interaction partners 
are present (e.g., English et al., 2017), this 
tendency may be exacerbated among those 
high in impression management concerns 
(Eldesouky & English, 2019b). The emotion 
being targeted is also centrally important 
for regulation (Raio, Orederu, Palazzolo, 
Shurick, & Phelps, 2013; Sheppes & Gross, 
2011). As a result, traits tapping emotional 
reactivity, impulse strength, and expressivity 
may play an important role in strategy selec -
tion. For instance, given that distraction is 
preferred over reappraisal when regulating 
emotions at high-  intensity levels (Sheppes, 
Catran, & Meiran, 2009), individuals who 
experience emotions more strongly may ex -
hibit a greater bias toward distraction.
Implementation  Stage
Once individuals have selected a strategy to 
regulate their emotions, they must deploy a 
specific tactic or form of the chosen emotion 
regulation strategy tailored to the context 
at hand. This step requires representing rel -
evant features of the environment and dif -
ferent ways to enact the previously selected 
strategy, evaluating options of regulation 
tactics, then activating the goal to deploy a 
particular tactic. Individual differences can 
again play a role at this point in the emotion 
regulation process, influencing which tactic 
is deployed and how successful a regulator 
is in implementing that tactic. We focus on 
two factors that may be particularly relevant 
at this stage: the regulator’s tactics repertoire 
and capability of deploying different tactics.
Similar to the selection stage, a person’s 
repertoire of emotion regulation tactics may also influence how successful that person 
is in his or her regulation efforts. Most re -
search has only examined habitual strategy 
use broadly rather than delineating specific 
underlying tactics associated with a strat -
egy. However, there is some evidence that 
people vary in the emotion regulation tactics 
they use and that certain tactics are gener -
ally more effective than others (McRae et 
al., 2012). For instance, positive reappraisal 
(i.e., creating a more positive interpretation 
or looking on the bright side) often results in 
greater positive emotional experience than 
detached reappraisal (i.e., trying to neutral -
ize negative stimuli or emotionally distance 
oneself). Regulators who typically rely on 
a given tactic (e.g., positive reappraisal), or 
perceive that tactic to generally be particu -
larly effective, may be biased toward using it 
and therefore be less likely to consider using 
other tactics.
There are also individual differences in ca -
pability, or how well the person is able to use 
different emotion regulation tactics (Troy, 
Wilhelm, Shallcross, & Mauss, 2010). Re -
searchers have examined perceived emotion 
regulation ability more broadly through self- 
reports, such as the Difficulties in Emotion 
Regulation Scale (Gratz & Roemer, 2004). 
Thus far, however, emotion regulation capa -
bility has only been examined with regard 
to overarching strategies, not specific tac -
tics. For example, McRae et al. (2012) ex -
amined reappraisal ability by computing the 
reduction in negative affect after instructing 
individuals to use reappraisal while view -
ing negative emotion-  inducing images. This 
ability tends to be higher in those with great -
er executive resources (Opitz, Lee, Gross, & 
Urry, 2014), and it has been shown to buf -
fer individuals against the adverse effects of 
stress on well-being (Troy et al., 2010).
In terms of other links to other personal -
ity traits, there is reason to expect that in -
dividuals who are high on conscientious or 
openness may be particularly efficient in 
implementing tactics. For conscientiousness, 
this may not necessarily be due to actual 
differences in regulatory ability per se, but 
rather an increased motivation to successful -
ly regulate one’s emotions, which will ulti -
mately serve one’s goals. The increased goal 
striving of conscientious individuals (Goll -
witzer & Oettingen, 2011) may allow for 