Ricerc@Sapienza

Environmental strategies of affect regulation refer to the use of natural and urban
socio-physical settings in the service of regulation. We investigated the perceived use
and efficacy of environmental strategies for regulation of general affect and sadness,
considering them in relation to other affect regulation strategies and to subjective
well-being. Participants from Australia, Finland, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, India, the
Netherlands, Portugal, and Sweden (N = 507) evaluated the frequency of use and
perceived efficacy of affect regulation strategies using a modified version of the Measure
of Affect Regulation Styles (MARS). The internet survey also included the Satisfaction
with Life Scale (SWLS), emotional well-being items from the RAND 36-Item Health
Survey, and a single-item measure of perceived general health. Environmental regulation
formed a separate factor of affect regulation in the exploratory structural equation models
(ESEM). Although no relations of environmental strategies with emotional well-being were
found, both the perceived frequency of use and efficacy of environmental strategies were
positively related to perceived health. Moreover, the perceived efficacy of environmental
strategies was positively related to life satisfaction in regulating sadness. The results
encourage more explicit treatment of environmental strategies in research on affect
regulation