Shift: Managing Your Emotions—So They Don't Manage You

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of mental illness.

Ethan Kross’s academic credentials and research experience provide a strong foundation for the insights presented in Shift. As director of the Emotion & Self-Control Laboratory at the University of Michigan, where he holds professorships in both psychology and the Ross School of Business, Kross has spent over 15 years conducting empirical research on emotional regulation. His scientific work examines how people control their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors to improve their lives, and his research incorporates multiple methodologies, including behavioral experiments, physiological measurements, neuroimaging, and real-world data collection. This multidisciplinary approach gives Shift a depth often missing from popular psychology books, as its frameworks are built upon peer-reviewed research published in prestigious journals like Science and The New England Journal of Medicine rather than anecdotal evidence alone.

While Kross’s academic expertise lends significant credibility to his work, his perspective is primarily rooted in Western psychological traditions and academic contexts. Though the book acknowledges cultural differences in emotional expression, its approach may not fully capture the emotional regulation strategies developed in non-Western philosophical and spiritual traditions. Additionally, as a researcher working largely with university populations and laboratory studies, some of Kross’s findings may have limitations when applied to diverse socioeconomic contexts or individuals with significant mental health challenges.