New Technologies for the Understanding, Assessment, and Intervention of Emotion Regulation

Front Psychol. 2019 Jun 18:10:1261. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01261. eCollection 2019.

Abstract

In the last decades, emotion regulation (ER) received increasing attention and became one of the most studied topics within the psychological field. Nevertheless, this construct has not been fully updated with the latest technological advancements. In this perspective, we will show how diverse technologies, such as virtual reality (VR), wearable biosensors, smartphones, or biofeedback techniques, can be applied to the understanding, assessment, and intervention of ER. After providing a brief overview of the currently available technological developments, we will discuss the benefits of incorporating new technologies in ER field, including ecological validity, intervention personalization, and the integration of understudied facets of ER, such as the implicit and interpersonal dimension.

Keywords: biofeedback; emotion regulation; internet interventions; serious games; smartphones; virtual reality.