Distractive emotion regulation, which relieves arousal through attention shift, protects individuals from strong stress. Distractive emotion regulation is widely used in everyday life and although it has great implications in the context of adaptation such as to addiction, it is generally not considered separately from avoidant regulation, it has neither been clearly defined nor measured.

Through a literature review and qualitative analysis, we selected adults’ distractive emotion regulation behaviors. We explored the construct by developing measurement on the distractive behaviors that adults use to regulate emotion.

Factor analysis revealed that distractive emotion regulation consisted of four factors: “consumption distraction” concerned with activities such as shopping, internet use, and TV viewing; “arousal control distraction” related to activities such as exercise, bathing, and deep breathing; “reserving distraction” pertaining to activities such as eating, sleeping, and listening to music; and “aggressive distraction” involving behaviors such as bullying, physical destructiveness, or cursing. Each factor had a different correlation with stress coping dimensions and subjective well-being.

Distractive emotion regulation is a multidimensional concept composed of sub-factors with different functions and clinical implications in daily life.