Antecedent-Focused Emotion Regulation, Response Modulation and Well-Being Nicola S. Schutte & Rebecca R. Manes & John M. Malouff Published online: 4 February 2009 # Springer Science + Business Media, LLC 2009 Abstract The aim of the research was to examine the full range of emotion regulation strategies proposed by the Gross and John (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 85:348–362, 2003; John, O. P., & Gross, J. J. (2007). Individual differences in emotion regulation. In J. J. Gross (Ed.), Handbook of emotion regulation (pp. 351–372). New York: Guilford) process model of emotional regulation. Seventy-three participants from Australia provided information on their use of emotion regulation strategies, well- being, and emotional intelligence. As predicted by the process model of emotional regulation, antecedent focused regulation strategies were associated with greater well- being. Response-modulation strategies predicted no additional variance in well-being beyond antecedent-regulation strategies. In contrast to past research on the selected response modulation strategy of suppression, in the present research response modulation was not associated with negative well-being outcomes. Individuals higher in emotional intelligence showed more antecedent-focused regulation, a finding congruent with model-based predictions. Keywords Emotion regulation . Antecedent-focused emotional regulation . Response modulation . Well-being . Emotional intelligence Emotional Regulation Emotional regulation may be the product of numerous factors, ranging from genetic and neural determinants (Hariri and Forbes 2007), to cognitive style (Peterson and Bossio 2001), to situational prompts (Frijda 2006). Frijda’ s(1986, 2006) and Gross and John’ s(2003; John and Gross 2007) influential theories of emotion generation and regulation emphasize the dynamic and continuous nature of these processes. The basic emotion generation progression suggested by these theories involves encountering a Curr Psychol (2009) 28:21–31 DOI 10.1007/s12144-009-9044-3 N. S. Schutte (*) : R. R. Manes : J. M. Malouff University of New England, Armidale NSW 2351, Australia e-mail: nschutte@une.edu.au