Cherry - an app for quick regulation of emotional states

We present an application to help individuals regulate negative emotions. The app asks users to smile in order to 1) make a virtual adversary’s emotion turn to confusion (or neutral), and 2) increase the user’s projected self-image (veridical size) in comparison to the size of the adversary’s image. This serves a two-fold purpose. First, it shifts the user’s negative emotional state (e.g., sadness, anger) to a positive emotional state. Second, it reduces the user’s feelings of inferiority that may be induced by the situation. We hope to help users overcome the initial onslaught of negative emotions following a negative situation. We believe this app can be extended to proactively train emotional regulation.