Recent innovations in the field of interpersonal emotion regulation

• Interpersonal emotion regulation is a critical and understudied process.
• Recent theories provide frameworks for interpersonal emotion regulation.
• Innovative paradigms are required to adequately capture these complex processes.
• Interpersonal emotion regulation has distinct effects across specific domains.
• Interpersonal emotion regulation difficulties may contribute to psychopathology.

Emerging research and theory point to the importance of interpersonal emotion regulation processes in intrapersonal and social functioning. The aim of the present review is to present a definitional framework of interpersonal emotion regulation and highlight recent empirical research and novel paradigms in this area. We suggest that future work in this field would benefit from firstly, converging upon a common terminology; secondly, using innovative paradigms to adequately capture the dyadic nature of these processes; and finally, employing context-sensitive views of the adaptive and maladaptive influences of interpersonal emotion regulation across domains. In particular, further research is needed to identify patterns of interpersonal emotion regulation associated with psychopathology that could serve as targets for intervention.