The number of studies and theoretical contributions on emotion regulation has grown rapidly. In this article we describe the concept of flexible emotion regulation. We argue that the effectiveness of specific emotion regulation strategies depends on the interaction of the features of a situation and personality characteristics of the individual regulating his/her emotions. We review a few recent theoretical contributions and studies that have attempted to capture some aspects of the flexibility of emotion regulation rather than distinguish between overly adaptive and maladaptive strategies. Moreover, we discuss potential personality determinants of effectiveness of particular regulatory strategies. We claim that further studies should address the interaction of situational and dispositional factors in shaping the effectiveness of particular emotion regulation strategies. So far, situational and personality determinants have been studied rather separately.

Financial risky decisions and evaluations pervade many human everyday activities. Scientific research in such decision-making typically explores the influence of socio-economic and cognitive factors on financial behaviour. However, very little research has explored the holistic influence of contextual, emotional, and hormonal factors on preferences for risk in insurance and investment behaviours. Accordingly, the goal of this review article is to address the complexity of individual risky behaviour and its underlying psychological factors, as well as to critically examine current regulations on financial behaviour. Keywords: decision-making, risky behaviour, risky context, risky content, cognitive factors, emotional and hormonal factors

In 5 experiments, we studied precautionary decisions in which participants decided whether or not to buy insurance with specified cost against an undesirable event with specified probability and cost. We compared the risks taken for precautionary decisions with those taken for equivalent monetary gambles. Fitting these data to Tversky and Kahneman's (1992) prospect theory, we found that the weighting function required to model precautionary decisions differed from that required for monetary gambles. This result indicates a failure of the descriptive invariance axiom of expected utility theory. For precautionary decisions, people overweighted small, medium-sized, and moderately large probabilities-they exaggerated risks. This effect is not anticipated by prospect theory or experience-based decision research (Hertwig, Barron, Weber, & Erev, 2004). We found evidence that exaggerated risk is caused by the accessibility of events in memory: The weighting function varies as a function of the accessibility of events. This suggests that people's experiences of events leak into decisions even when risk information is explicitly provided. Our findings highlight a need to investigate how variation in decision content produces variation in preferences for risk.