98 Don’t Let A nxiety Run Your Life
and the overall usefulness of each type of response pattern.
Although we brief ly mentioned this concept in the intro-
duction, it’s worth elaborating on, because response style
plays a crucial role in the overall course and development of
a given emotion.
Response styles can include any number of specific
emotion regulation procedures. For instance, if you feel sad
or down, you might distract yourself with music, problem
solve by figuring out what you can do to make yourself
happy, or even dwell on the causes and meaning of your
depression. W hereas the first two techniques might provide
some critical distance and facilitate more positive emotions,
the last strategy is likely to maintain your negative feelings.
Besides resulting in different outcomes, individual response
styles are instances of higher- level processes. In other words,
different kinds of specific emotion regulation strategies can
be organized into broader categories. In this chapter, we will
discuss one of the most unhelpful categories: repetitive neg-
ative thinking.
It might be helpful to illustrate these concepts with some
examples. Let’s have a look at Robert and his way of dealing
with his fears and distress. Throughout his whole life, Robert
has considered himself a socially anxious introvert. W hen
entering conversations, he often doesn’t know what to say
and fumbles over his words to such an extent that he becomes
overly concerned with how others perceive him. Group situ-
ations are the worst, because it feels as if he is forced to enter
a competition he has no hope of winning. Everyone else
seems to exchange jokes and witty comments with noncha-
lance and ease. Robert, on the other hand, remains petrified,
because his heart f lutters whenever he attempts to muster
enough courage to make any sort of comment whatsoever.