6 Strategies to Positively Influence Other People’s Emotions

Our everyday interactions often involve managing other people’s feelings. We do it to care for them, make them feel better, and improve our relationships with them. Beyond that, we manage their feelings to persuade them to help us with our feelings in return.

Therefore, the strategies we use to change the feelings of others (known as Controlled Interpersonal Affect Regulation Strategies) often influence the success of our professional and personal interactions. Fortunately, in the last decade or two, research has begun to unravel the secrets of those emotional persuasion strategies. So, below, we’ll look at the ways you can improve social interactions by persuading others to feel better, too!

Classifying Affect Regulation Strategies

Niven, Totterdell, and Holman (2009) published a foundational article collecting and classifying interpersonal affect regulation strategies. Those strategies were gathered through research on everything from emotion management and care-giving to social support and interpersonal influence. The team also conducted three studies, asking participants about the strategies they used to impact the emotions of others.

Altogether, they obtained 955 examples of interpersonal affect regulation strategies, which were grouped together into categories. At the highest level, strategies were split between those that improved the emotions of others (Affect-Improving) and those that made someone’s mood worse (Affect-Worsening). From there, the affect-improving strategies were split into the following two categories and six sub-categories:

Acceptance (Diversion) Strategies that distract the individual from their emotions and situation, as a way of indirectly changing their mood. Such strategies can take three different forms:

• Valuing: These strategies redirect the individual’s feelings toward you to improve their mood. This includes spending time with them, being there for them, saying that you value them, and making them feel cared about and special.
• Distracting: These strategies redirect the individual’s feelings toward other social activities to improve their emotional state. This includes arranging activities with them, taking them out, inviting them to parties and events, and showing them that other people care about them too.
• Humor: These strategies redirect the individual’s feelings by making them laugh and have fun. This includes acting silly, finding something funny to laugh at together, sending them jokes and amusing notes, and entertaining them in general.

Positive Engagement Strategies that help the individual pay attention to their emotions and situation as a way of sorting out their feelings and thoughts directly. Such strategies can take three general forms:

• Problem-Focused Engagement: These strategies focus on the problematic situation and allow the individual to vent and process their emotions about it. This includes making time for them, listening to them, letting them share their feelings, and providing caring and supportive responses.
• Target-Focused Engagement: These strategies focus on the individual’s own positive characteristics to improve their feelings of efficacy and worth. This includes highlighting the positive characteristics that distinguish them, reminding them of past accomplishments, praising their work, and expressing belief that they will overcome the current situation, too.
• Cognitive Engagement: These strategies focus on giving advice to change the individual’s frame of mind toward a more positive outlook. This includes reframing the situation more objectively, supporting their reasoning, pointing out positive opportunities, and making them aware of social support to help them as well.

Taking Steps to Improve Emotions

As described above, each of the six strategies has its own unique way of improving someone’s emotions. Generally, you can pick one by first deciding whether to divert or engage their emotions. From there, you can select the sub-strategy you are comfortable using, or the one most suitable for the situation.

In my experience, however, it is also possible to blend the strategies into three specific steps. At each step, diversion and engagement strategies can be paired together and used to balance an individual’s emotions. That way, when they get too distracted, you can re-engage them positively—and when engagement becomes too emotionally intense, you can distract them for a break. More specifically, the steps can be balanced as follows:

1) Value and Vent: This first step combines valuing the individual to help them accept their emotions, while using problem-focused engagement to let them vent those feelings too. Both processes require that you make time for them, listen to them, and show that you care. From there, the step becomes a balance between you sharing how much you value them and allowing them to express and process their negative feelings about the problem at hand. This builds rapport and connection through relational strategies (genuineness, empathy, and warmth) and behavioral strategies (attention, positivity, coordination). It also reinforces and rewards them with affection and regard, which can improve their mood and behavior too.

2) Distract and Distinguish: If the negative mood persists, the next step combines distracting the individual from their emotional state, while also using target-focused engagement to distinguish them for their positive characteristics. Put simply, this is about getting them to go out, reconnect with others, have fun, and get reminded that they are valuable and cared about, too. This works by building a sense of unity with others, while also promoting the process of positive self-evaluation within the individual. Taken together, those processes help the individual to form more hopeful expectations—and be better able to trust in their own future performance as well.

Emotions Essential Reads

The Science of the Smile: Why it Can be Your Best Friend

"You Made Me Feel That Way”: The Phrase Obscuring Your Power

3) Amuse and Advise: If negative feelings continue, the final step involves guiding the individual’s thinking and perspective about the actual problem that's creating their mood. This includes using humor to amuse them, ease their mood, and open them up to new perspectives. These humorous re-frames are also balanced by direct advice, which engages the individual in objective thinking, problem-solving, and generating new opportunities. This helps break them out of the status quo bias that may have them feeling stuck. It can also help them overcome a loss-focused frame of mind and create the deliberate thinking necessary for good decision-making. That improved state of mind is often the final nudge required to elevate their mood as well!

© 2026 by Jeremy S. Nicholson, M.A., M.S.W., Ph.D. All rights reserved.