Interpersonal Emotion Regulation in a High Performance Varsity Volleyball Team

An instrumental case study approach was used to investigate the use of interpersonal emotion regulation (IER) in high performance varsity female volleyball athletes. Athletes reported using a variety of emotion-improving (verbal/positive feedback, cueing teammates about emotions, humour and non-verbal strategies), and emotion-worsening IER strategies, in addition to choosing not to engage in IER in some instances. The factors that were found to influence IER included athletes’ roles, social norms, the volleyball context, athletes’ preferences for IER, and interpersonal factors (i.e., relationship quality, personality, and relatability). Athletes also discussed how they learned to regulate their teammates’ emotions, and the concept of ‘automaticity’ in which some IER behaviours become almost automatic or done out of habit. This study has theoretical implications regarding the distinction between emotion regulation versus affect regulation, athletes’ preferences and perceived effectiveness of IER, and the use of emotion worsening strategies in sport.M.Sc