This study was to understand the processes and developmental characteristics of  emotion regulation in college students. The study mainly involved in qualitative analysis of emotion regulatory processes. There were 32 college students participate in this study, they were given the Emotion Regulation Interview (ERI). The ERI involved asking the situation in which the subject feels joy, anger, sadness, disgust and fear; how to manage one´s subjective experience of each emotion, especially its intensity and duration; and how to manage strategically one´s expression of emotion in communicative contexts. The results showed emotion regulation apparently involve multiple complex processes rather than a single serial process; different emotions evoke different kinds of regulatory responses; college students used a variety of cognitive and behavioral strategies to regulate their emotions, including seeking social support, doing pleasurable activities, and changing cognition. Finally, some developmental characteristics of emotion regulation in college students were described.