Affective Forecasting and Emotion Regulation in Adolescence

Adolescence is a key developmental period for emotional functioning, marked by heightened emotional reactivity, ongoing brain maturation, and increased vulnerability to psychological distress. Emotional functioning during this period involves not only responding to present experiences, but also anticipating future emotional states. Although both emotion regulation and affective forecasting are important processes for understanding adolescent emotional functioning, they have largely been studied separately. This review examines research on emotion regulation and affective forecasting and argues that affective forecasting is an important but relatively underdeveloped process in adolescence. Bringing affective forecasting into research on adolescent emotional functioning, particularly alongside emotion regulation, may help provide a more complete understanding of emotional development. Future research should examine how these processes may relate to one another over time and how they may together influence emotional outcomes.