Mapping the Architecture
of Emotion Processing.

This foundational research program develops the Core Functions of Emotion Processing as an integrative framework for investigating impathy, empathy, emotion regulation, and emotion expression.

We refine the theoretical boundaries of the four functions, develop and validate approaches for their measurement, and investigate how they combine into differential emotion-processing profiles.

Attachment representations provide a developmental and relational framework for understanding individual differences in emotion processing.

We investigate how secure, insecure, and unresolved attachment representations are associated with the perception and understanding of one’s own and others’ emotions, emotion regulation, and emotion expression.

attachment-related differences in impathy, empathy, emotion regulation, and emotion expression; attachment-related profiles of emotion processing; stability and change across the lifespan.

Psychopathology may involve difficulties across all four core functions of emotion processing—impathy, empathy, emotion regulation, and emotion expression—rather than emotion dysregulation alone.

This program investigates how mental disorders and psychological symptoms are associated with selective impairments, broader imbalances, or distinct C-FEP profiles. We compare transdiagnostic and disorder-specific patterns to identify differential profiles of emotion processing and inform the development of targeted interventions.

transdiagnostic and disorder-specific C-FEP profiles; preserved and impaired core functions across psychopathology; implications of differential emotion-processing profiles for targeted interventions.

Adaptive emotion processing depends on the ability to coordinate impathy, empathy, emotion regulation, and emotion expression flexibly and context-sensitively in response to changing personal, interpersonal, and situational demands.

This program investigates regulatory flexibility as a central mechanism of adaptive functioning. Drawing on the flexibility sequence, we examine context sensitivity, regulatory and expressive repertoires, and responsiveness to feedback, as well as the flexible, context-sensitive coordination of the four core functions. We also study how expressive and psychophysiological flexibility relate to mental health and how regulatory flexibility can be strengthened through Flexibility Mindset and other targeted interventions.

This research program investigates how targeted interventions can strengthen impathy, empathy, emotion regulation, and emotion expression and support their adaptive coordination.

We develop and evaluate emotion-focused individual interventions, coaching formats, and group-based training programs, including guided imagery, self-reflection, and resource activation. A particular focus is the development of privacy-preserving AI-based and AI-assisted intervention protocols and their comparative evaluation alongside professionally guided and self-guided formats across clinical and non-clinical populations.

emotion-focused individual interventions and group trainings; emotion-focused coaching; guided imagery, self-reflection, and resource activation; privacy-preserving AI-based and AI-assisted interventions; comparative evaluation of professionally guided, AI-assisted, and self-guided formats; mechanisms and moderators of change.

Aesthetic facial treatments can alter facial appearance and movement and therefore offer a real-world model for studying how changes in the face influence emotion processing.

This program investigates how aesthetic facial treatments affect the four core functions of emotion processing—impathy, empathy, emotion regulation, and emotion expression—and their coordination. We examine in particular how treatment-related changes influence emotion expression and how treated faces are perceived by others.

comparative studies of social perception and interpersonal impressions following different aesthetic facial treatments; a large-scale investigation of how botulinum toxin affects the four core functions and their coordination.