Abstract
Emotion regulation is important for psychological well-being. Although it is known that alternative regulation strategies may have different emotional consequences, the effectiveness of such strategies for socially driven emotions remains unclear. In this study we investigated the efficacy of different forms of reappraisal on responses to the selfish and altruistic behavior of others in the Dictator Game. In Experiment 1, subjects mentalized the intentions of the other player in one condition, and took distance from the situation in the other. Emotion ratings were recorded after each offer. Compared with a baseline condition, mentalizing led subjects to experience their emotions more positively when receiving both selfish and altruistic proposals, whereas distancing decreased the valence when receiving altruistic offers, but did not affect the perception of selfish behavior. In Experiment 2, subjects played with both computer and human partners while reappraising the meaning of the player’s intentions (with a human partner) or the meaning of the situation (with a computer partner). Results showed that both contexts were effectively modulated by reappraisal, however a stronger effect was observed when the donor was a human partner, as compared to a computer partner. Taken together, these results demonstrate that socially driven emotions can be successfully modulated by reappraisal strategies that focus on the reinterpretation of others’ intentions.
Highlights
Recent experimental evidence suggests that emotion regulation strategies play a key role in helping individuals to adapt to and master social interactions (Gross, 2002; Ochsner et al, 2002; Gross and John, 2003)
We wanted to test whether emotion regulation can be applied in an interpersonal context to complex social emotions, as opposed to the simple visual stimuli used in previous studies
We examined whether two different emotion regulation strategies, mentalizing and distancing, can affect emotion perception in an interactive context in which people observed selfish and altruistic behavior regarding the splitting of a pot of money
Summary
Recent experimental evidence suggests that emotion regulation strategies play a key role in helping individuals to adapt to and master social interactions (Gross, 2002; Ochsner et al, 2002; Gross and John, 2003). An important experimental question is whether emotion regulation can be applied to social interactive contexts, and in particular whether the same regulatory strategies that are useful in self regulation can be applied in interpersonal situations. This information may provide deeper understanding of psychiatric disorders characterized by serious disturbances in social functioning such as borderline personality disorder (Gunderson, 2007), avoidant personality disorder (Leising et al, 2006), or schizotypic spectrum disorders (Ballon et al, 2007)
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