Assistant Professor
Division of Family Studies & Human Development
Scholarly Interests and Activities
Health, Emotion, and Relationships (HER)
Research Group
Publications
Courses
[MAILING ADDRESS]
PO Box 210033
Tucson, AZ 85721-0033
[CAMPUS ADDRESS]
Family and Consumer Sciences Bldg.
1110 East South Campus Drive Tucson, AZ 85721-0033
Phone: (520) 621-1075 Fax: (520) 621-3401
eabutler@email.arizona.edu
Scholarly Interests and Activities
My research investigates interpersonal emotion regulation (IER), which refers to attempts to influence our own or our social partners' emotions in the context of a relationship or social interaction. IER can alter both our own and our partners' emotional experience, expression, cognitions, interpersonal behavior, and autonomic physiology. As such, it can set in motion dynamic processes within both the individual and the relationship that have implications for physical and mental well-being.
My current research includes studies of emotion and eating in married couples coping with obesity, emotional and relationship factors involved in unhealthy eating, cultural influences on emotions and social relationships, the physiological correlates of emotion and emotion regulation, and the congruence (or lack thereof) of emotion channels (e.g. subjective experience, expressive behavior, physiology) within a person and between social partners trying to control their emotions in various ways. I am a cofounder of the Health, Emotion, and Relationships (HER) research group, a collaborative enterprise to advance the scientific study of relational and emotional contributions to physical and psychological well-being.
I study interpersonal emotion regulation using both experimental and naturalistic methods, including laboratory based manipulations, in-depth qualitative interviews, and daily diaries. The data from my studies includes self and partner reports (both from structured questionnaires and from open-ended interviews), behavioral observations rated from videotapes, and physiological indices. All measures are taken repeatedly over time-periods ranging from a few minutes to several years. To analyze such data I make use of statistical methods appropriate for investigating complex intrapersonal and interpersonal systems evolving over time.
Shoham, V. Butler, E. A., Rohrbaugh, M. J., & Trost, S. (2007). Symptom-system fit in couples: Emotion regulation when one or both partners smoke. To appear in Journal of Abnormal Psychology.
Butler, E. A., Lee, T. L., & Gross, J. J. (2007). Emotion regulation and culture: Are the social consequences of emotion suppression culture-specific? Emotion, 7, 30-48.
Butler, E. A., Wilhelm, F. H, & Gross, J. J. (2006). Respiratory sinus arrhythmia, emotion, and emotion regulation during social interaction. Psychophysiology, 43, 612-622.
Srivastava, S., McGonigal, K.M., Richards, J.M., Butler, E.A., & Gross, J.J. (2006). Optimism in close relationships: How seeing things in a positive light makes them so. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 91, 143-153.
Butler, E. A., & Gross, J. J. (2004). Hiding feelings in social contexts: Out of sight is not out of mind. In P. Philippot & R. Feldman (Eds.), The regulation of emotion (pp.101-126). Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Butler, E. A., Egloff, B., Wilhelm, F. H., Smith, N. C., Erickson, E. A., & Gross, J. J. (2003). The social consequences of expressive suppression. Emotion, 3, 48-67.
Richards, J. M., Butler, E. A., & Gross, J. J. (2003). Emotion regulation in romantic couples: The cognitive consequences of concealing feelings. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships 20, 599-620.
FSHD 337, Dynamics of Family Relations, Fall 2006
FSHD 507A, Research Methods, Spring 2007, Fall 2007
FSHD 607, Multilevel Modeling, Fall 2007