Abstract
IntroductionNumerous studies have explored the effect of cognitive reappraisal before or after emotion‐inducing events. However, only a few studies have examined the influence of regulatory timing on the effectiveness of reappraisal. Thus, the aim of this study was to investigate the role of regulatory timing and goals in reappraisal regulation, which would help promote the specific application of cognitive reappraisal in emotion regulation. We hypothesized that decrease reappraisal would be more effective when initiated early rather than late, but increase reappraisal would be more effective when initiated in the emotional high‐activation phase.MethodsThis study, via event‐related potential (ERP) technique, probed the influence of the timing and regulatory goal on negative emotion when reappraisal was introduced, respectively 500 ms before (anticipatory), 2,000 ms after (online 2,000 ms) picture onset (in Experiment 1), 500 ms after (online 500 ms) picture onset, and 1,500 ms after (online 1,500 ms) picture onset (in Experiment 2).ResultsBased on the ERP results, under the anticipatory regulation condition, the LPP amplitude in the parietal area was significantly reduced by decrease reappraisal during 700–2,100 ms after picture onset, and under the online 500 ms regulation condition, the LPP in central and parietal areas was significantly enhanced by increase reappraisal during 450–750 ms after regulatory cue onset. Moreover, our results showed that increase reappraisal evoked a larger prefrontal or frontal LPP than decrease reappraisal beginning at about 700 ms after picture onset under the anticipatory regulation condition and beginning at 450 ms after regulatory cue onset under the online 500 ms regulation condition, which may reflect increased cognitive effort and mental conflict associated with increase reappraisal.ConclusionThe anticipatory reappraisal successfully decreased negative emotion, and online 500 ms reappraisal successfully increased negative emotion. Our results support the hypothesis.
Highlights
Numerous studies have explored the effect of cognitive reappraisal before or after emotion-inducing events
The frontal late-positive potential (LPP) was more positive under increase reappraisal than under the decrease or view conditions for a period of several seconds beginning at 450 ms after regulatory cue onset, possibly reflecting increased cognitive effort and more mental conflict associated with increase reappraisal
Unlike previous studies which only showed that the effect of decrease reappraisal is moderated by regulatory timing (Sheppes & Meiran, 2007) or that the effectiveness of increase reappraisal depends on regulatory timing (Urry, 2009), the present study revealed that the effects of both decrease and increase reappraisals are moderated by regulatory timing
Summary
Numerous studies have explored the effect of cognitive reappraisal before or after emotion-inducing events. According to Gross’s (1998b) process model of emotion regulation, cognitive reappraisal is categorized as an antecedent-focused strategy which starts operating before the response tendencies have been fully activated This implies that reappraisal should be more effective when the instruction to reappraise is delivered before rather than after the emotion-inducing event, or when it delivered early rather than late during the emotion generative process, because of the generally lower level of emotional activation at that stage (Gross & Thompson, 2007; Urry, 2009). They proposed that there is a “point of no return,” at which emotion is fully activated and reappraisal may become exceptionally difficult
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