People can alleviate stress through intrapersonal emotion regulation (ER) strategies or through interpersonal emotion regulation (IER) that enlists support from others. ER commonly involves distraction or rumination; distraction redirects attention toward pleasant content and often appears more adaptive, while rumination repeatedly cycles through worries and associates with heightened depression risk. When a single intrusive thought arises in the presence of a close companion, jointly processing that thought through co-rumination can sometimes lead to relief and collaborative problem-solving. Distraction may serve as a short-term stopgap, whereas interpersonal processing can facilitate deeper emotional processing and longer-term benefits. Comparative work on ER and IER remains limited but informative.
You're with a close friend, and out of nowhere, a remark your friend makes reminds you of a problem you've been dealing with that you'd rather not think about. Now you can't get it out of your mind. Although you've heard that ruminating over your worries isn't a great coping strategy, those thoughts are taking over, and you're not sure what to do. Should you share your feelings with your friend? Should you just try to distract yourself? Or both?
It is true that people who are prone to depression are prone to rumination. But when it's a one-off situation where you've got a thought stuck in your head, could it be actually better to turn it over in your mind until you figure out a solution? In this case, since you've got a friend right there with you, maybe you can jointly come to a happier place.
According to a new study by the University of British Columbia's Ashley Battaglini and colleagues (2025), people can alleviate stress through their own emotion regulation (ER) strategies or those that involve seeking support for the process from someone else, known as interpersonal emotion regulation (IER). ER has received far more attention in the empirical literature than IER, and almost never are the two investigated together. The UBC authors believe that there's much to be gained by comparing and contrasting the two approaches.
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