This PhD defense presents computational approaches to human behavior across two domains. First, a construct-mining pipeline uses open-ended responses, sentence embeddings, debiasing, HDBSCAN clustering, and intrusion validation to derive a data-driven taxonomy of emotion regulation strategies. Second, mixed-methods and classifiers analyze German Twitter, linking counter-speech styles to hate reduction at scale.

This research investigates why people struggle with interpersonal problem-solving, especially in the context of psychological disorders. Using surveys and the MEPS task with 160 participants, the study found that emotion-regulation difficulties and experiential avoidance explain 46% of poor problem-solving. Improving emotional acceptance may significantly enhance responses to interpersonal conflict.