Chapter 7: Emotion Regulation in the Face of Guilt and Contradiction: A Model of Life-Role Paradox

In this chapter, we explore how individuals regulate emotions in response to ongoing tensions across their work, family, and personal roles, especially among those engaged in serious athletic training alongside professional commitments. Drawing on interviews with participants across five countries, we develop a recursive model of emotion regulation informed by paradox theory, self-determination theory, cognitive dissonance theory, and boundary theory. Rather than resolving emotional contradictions such as guilt or ambivalence, individuals used interpretive strategies including reframing, boundary-setting, and narrative repair to maintain psychological coherence over time. From this analysis, we introduce the concept of temporary identity coherence to explain how people sustain a continuous sense of self despite persistent paradoxes. Emotion regulation, we argue, is not a one-off reaction but a socially and morally embedded process of ongoing meaning-making. This perspective enriches theoretical understanding of emotion regulation and highlights the need for practical interventions that support reflective emotional navigation, rather than enforcing control, in today’s complex organizational environments.