Mindful regulation of positive emotions: a comparison with reappraisal and expressive suppression.

Fanny Lalot,David Sander,Sylvain Delplanque

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00243

Fanny Lalot, David Sander + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00243

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Abstract

It is often acknowledged that mindfulness facilitates emotion regulation on a long-term scale. Only few empirical studies support the hypothesis that even a brief mindfulness induction among subjects without previous experience of meditation allows an effective reduction of both positive and negative emotions. To the best of our knowledge, this hypothesis has never been tested when comparing mindfulness to other regulation strategies known to be effective. The current study investigates the effects of mindfulness, reappraisal and expressive suppression during the regulation of positive emotions. Forty-five participants without previous meditation experience watched four positive video clips while applying a specific regulation strategy: mindful attention, reappraisal, expressive suppression or no strategy (control condition). Video clips were matched for intensity and positive emotions index. Each of them was evaluated on two dimensions, valence (negative/positive) and arousal (calming/exciting). Moreover, participants’ facial expressions were recorded during the presentation of the video clips. Results showed that (a) participants report less positive affect in reappraisal and mindful attention conditions compared to expression suppression and a control condition; and (b) the facialexpression – activation of AU12 (lip corner pull) and AU6 (cheek raiser) – varies with the regulation strategy applied. Results demonstrate the effectiveness of mindfulness in decreasing both the evaluative judgment of positive video clips and the related facial expression, among participants without previous mindfulness experience.

Highlights

Emotion regulation can be defined as “attempts to influence which emotions we have, when we have them, and how these emotions are experienced or expressed” (Gross, 1998, pp. 224)
Following Gross, most researches have focused on two strategies, namely expression suppression and reappraisal
The literature indicates that suppression is ineffective to reduce subjective feeling and physiological responses, and can even reinforce the latter (e.g., Gross and Levenson, 1993, 1997), supposedly because it takes place at a later stage in emotion generation (Gross and Thompson, 2007)

Summary

Introduction

Emotion regulation can be defined as “attempts to influence which emotions we have, when we have them, and how these emotions are experienced or expressed” (Gross, 1998, pp. 224). Following Gross, most researches have focused on two strategies, namely expression suppression (a response modulation strategy) and reappraisal (a cognitive change strategy; e.g., Gross and John, 2003). The literature indicates that suppression is ineffective to reduce subjective feeling and physiological responses, and can even reinforce the latter (e.g., Gross and Levenson, 1993, 1997), supposedly because it takes place at a later stage in emotion generation (Gross and Thompson, 2007). Reappraisal has been found to effectively reduce subjective feeling as well as physiological responses (e.g., Ochsner and Gross, 2008). It has been proposed to be more effective than other strategies because it takes place early in emotion generation, before emotional reactions have fully unfolded (Richards and Gross, 2000)

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