Cartoonists are often astute observers of people. Since cartoonists usually don’t name the psychological concept that they are illustrating, their cartoons can provide excellent fodder for class discussion.
Before we get to the discussion, note that the comic strip below is part of the Go Comics family which uses Andrews McMeel licensing. Be sure to read their classroom usage statement to ensure that you do not inadvertently violate copyright law.
Before beginning this activity, make your students understand the different types of emotion regulation (McRae & Gross, 2020).
Situation selection. We select a particular situation in order to experience a particular emotion. For example, if we want to experience the excitement of fear, we might watch a horror movie. Okay, no, I would never do that. I learned a long, long time ago, that horror movies are not my thing. But other people certainly do that. (Ask your students to raise their hand if they enjoy horror movies. And then email me [sue@suefrantz.com] with what you learn.)
Situation modification. When we are stuck with a particular situation, we may be able to modify it in some way that would alter our emotions. Let’s say that we find ourselves watching a horror movie—perhaps because our friends talked us into it—we might choose to put in ear plugs to reduce the sound.
Attentional deployment. Where we put our attention can influence our emotions. At the horror movie, we can shift our attention by putting in earbuds, closing our eyes, and listening to a favorite podcast.
Cognitive change. Here we change how we think about the situation we are in. For the horror movie, shifting from “movie watcher” to “movie critic” may help reduce fear. If we think about the quality of the story, the acting, the makeup, the scenery, and the sound, our experience of the movie may shift from being part of it to being removed from it.
Response modulation. Imagine that we are full blown in the middle of feeling fear during this horror movie. We can reduce the intensity of the fear by doing things like taking deep breaths and relaxing our muscles.
With that common understanding of emotion regulation, let’s go to the cartoon!
Ask students to read it: Herb and Jamaal cartoon dated Sunday, May 12, 2024
Working in small groups, give students these two discussion prompts:
- Give an example of how the son could use each of the five emotion regulation strategies to reduce his anger.
- Is the son’s father giving advice about a particular emotion regulation strategy? Explain.
To conclude the activity, ask volunteers from each group to share examples they generated for situation selection. After each group has offered one example, repeat with situation modification, and so on through all five strategies. Finally, ask volunteers from each group to offer their thoughts on the father’s advice. Is he advising his son to use a specific emotion regulation strategy or just some emotion regulation strategy?
Reference
McRae, K., & Gross, J. J. (2020). Emotion regulation. Emotion, 20(1), 1–9. https://doi.org/10.1037/emo0000703
