The ability to understand your feelings and those of others is critical to mental health and relationships. Captured by the concept of emotional intelligence, this ability can help you succeed in ways that “book smarts” cannot.
Sally has risen up the career ladder in her field despite not having all of the necessary academic credentials. People like her and want to be with her. Even during times when the stress levels on the job are rising to almost insufferable proportions, Sally seems to make people feel better. Eventually, through her leadership, they overcome adversity. What is it about Sally that gives her this almost magical quality?
Labeling Your Emotions is the First Step to Regulating Them
A new study led by Laureate Institute for Brain Research’s Taylor Torres and colleagues (2026) focuses on people’s ability to regulate their emotions, which “encompasses any cognitive or behavioral action taken to modify an emotional state” (p. 1). These actions may be applied not just to yourself, but to others. Sally showed this ability by managing both her own stress and that of her coworkers.
Emotion regulation, Torres et al. propose, requires that you recognize emotions, meaning that you can perceive and label them. But you also need a deeper level of understanding in terms of knowing the cause and effects of these emotions. This second piece of the puzzle involves emotional awareness. If you’re going to label your emotions, you have to be aware of them. Things start to fall apart when people try to shove their emotions out of conscious awareness and pretend they don’t exist.
Emotion Recognition, Awareness, and Regulation: Testing the Relationships
The proliferation of measures of emotional intelligence over the past few decades means that there is no one obvious way to quantify emotion recognition, awareness, and regulation. Using two independent samples consisting of students and members of the surrounding communities in and around Tucson, Arizona (average ages 24 and 25), the author team settled on a wide set of questionnaires used in prior research to measure emotion recognition, awareness, and regulation.
From this relatively extensive battery of tests, Torres et al. used statistical modeling to reduce each component of the equation to its basic factors. These included the following:
Emotion Recognition
- Noticing emotions
- Observing emotions
- Listening to the body
- Perceiving emotions
- Paying attention to emotions
Emotional Awareness
- Identifying feelings
- Describing feelings
- Ability to orient to internal states
- Controlling impulses
- Noticing emotions
- Accepting emotions
- Not reacting to emotions
Emotion vocabulary figured into this model through measures of the ability to put feelings into words and richness of vocabulary in labeling and describing specific emotions. Across both samples, it was this factor that predicted higher levels of emotion regulation, particularly when combined with emotional awareness. As the authors concluded, “greater emotion vocabulary appeared to strengthen the positive link between self-focused recognition and mindfulness-based regulation.” Furthermore, “greater difficulty linking bodily sensations to emotions instead weakened this relationship” (p. 14).
Upping Your Emotion Vocabulary
Thinking back on Sally’s situation, the Torres et al. findings would imply that her ability to succeed with her coworkers can be traced to her facility in guiding their emotion recognition. She doesn’t shy away from exploring her feelings and those of others but instead seeks to gain meaning both from her bodily reactions to a situation and the cues presented by those she works with.
To develop this ability in yourself, the first and probably easiest step is to think about what’s happening in your body when you feel you may be losing your grip on your emotions. The stereotypical “butterflies” in your stomach could be a sign that your anxiety level is rising for some reason. But then you need to ask yourself what that anxiety means. Maybe a thought is passing through your mind that you’re worried about a relative who’s facing major surgery. Your anxiety isn’t exactly anxiety but concern for this person’s health.
Once identified, an emotion then becomes ripe for the processing. The Torres et al. study showed how important mindfulness is vs. suppression. Noticing an emotion and acknowledging its existence is more adaptive than pretending it’s not there.
What’s more, the understanding you can achieve of your own internal states is something you can transfer to the empathy you may feel toward others. People communicate their emotions in all kinds of ways, some of which may seem counterintuitive. Other relatives worried about this upcoming surgery may express their feelings by becoming unusually irritable. They also may shut down. Knowing what the anxiety is and where it’s coming from can allow you to help them through this difficult time.
Emotional Intelligence Essential Reads
To sum up, what the authors call “granular emotion concept knowledge” can become the basis for more effective regulation of your feelings. As you develop this introspective ability, your mental health and your relationships will become that much more fulfilling.
