Predicting analog intrusions from neural correlates of immediate and lasting effects of cognitive reappraisal.

Reinterpretation and distancing, two cognitive reappraisal tactics, are known to effectively reduce negative feelings and event-related potentials (ERPs), such as the P300 and the late positive potential (LPP), in the short-term. Less is known about differential and lasting effects on ERPs as well as their association with habitual reappraisal. Fifty-seven participants were instructed to passively view or reappraise (reinterpretation, distancing) pictures that were repeatedly presented with the same instruction (active regulation phase). Thirty minutes later, these pictures were shown again without instruction for the assessment of lasting effects (re-exposure phase). ERPs were recorded and participants rated the intensity of negative feelings following picture presentation. Reappraisal led to an attenuation of the LPP, and both tactics decreased negative feelings during active regulation, whereby reinterpretation had a stronger impact on the subjective level. Passive re-exposure resulted in reduced negative feelings for previously reappraised pictures but had no lasting effects on ERPs. Higher habitual reappraisal was associated with higher P300 and early LPP amplitudes for emotional reactivity during the active regulation phase. During the re-exposure phase, higher habitual reappraisal was not related to ERPs. The current findings emphasize the effectiveness of both tactics in the short-term and lasting effects on the subjective experience of negative feelings. Enhanced emotional reactivity on the electrocortical level in individuals with a more frequent habitual use of reappraisal might indicate a higher preparedness to regulate.

Recent studies have shown that instructed cognitive reappraisal can regulate the neural processing of reward. However, it is still unclear whether the habitual use of cognitive reappraisal in everyday life is related to brain activity involved in reward processing. In the present study, participants’ neural responses to reward were measured using electroencephalography (EEG) recorded during a gambling task and their tendency to use cognitive reappraisal was assessed using the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ). Event-related potential (ERP) results indicated that losses on the gambling task elicited greater negative reward-related feedback negativity (FN) than gains. The differential FN between losses and gains was significantly correlated with cognitive reappraisal scores across participants such that individuals with a higher tendency to use cognitive reappraisal showed stronger reward processing (i.e., amplified FN difference between losses and gains). This correlation remained significant after controlling for expressive suppression scores. However, expressive suppression per se was not correlated with FN differences. Taken together, these results suggest that the habitual use of cognitive reappraisal is associated with increased neural processing of reward.

Abstract. Mental Toughness (MT) provides crucial psychological capacities for achievement in sports, education, and work settings. Previous research examined the role of MT in the domain of mental health and showed that MT is negatively associated with and predictive of fewer depressive symptoms in nonclinical populations. The present study aimed at (1) investigating to what extent mentally tough individuals use two emotion regulation strategies: cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression; (2) exploring whether individual differences in emotion regulation strategy use mediate the relationship between MT and depressive symptoms. Three hundred sixty-four participants (M = 24.31 years, SD = 9.16) provided self-reports of their levels of MT, depressive symptoms, and their habitual use of cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression. The results showed a statistically significant correlation between MT and two commonly used measures of depressive symptoms. A small statistically significant positive correlation between MT and the habitual use of cognitive reappraisal was also observed. The correlation between MT and the habitual use of expressive suppression was statistically significant, but the size of the effect was small. A statistical mediation model indicated that individual differences in the habitual use of expressive suppression mediate the relationship between MT and depressive symptoms. No such effect was found for the habitual use of cognitive reappraisal. Implications of these findings and possible avenues for future research are discussed.

Adolescence is a critical developmental period within which young athletes are sensitive to influence from others. Thus, key social agents in sport including coaches and teammates may be important sources from whom young athletes learn emotion regulation. This study explored the relationship between athletes’ habitual use of cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression and descriptive social norms from teammates and coaches (i.e., perceptions of the extent to which teammates and coaches use cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression). Based on the theory of normative social behaviour, social identity and injunctive social norms (i.e., perceptions of social approval) were examined as moderators. Regression analyses of self-report responses from 169 youth athletes in competitive sports (Mage = 15.5 ± 1.3 years) demonstrated that athletes’ use of cognitive reappraisal was associated with perceptions of teammates’ cognitive reappraisal, but not with perceptions of coaches’ cognitive reappraisal. Athletes’ use of expressive suppression was not associated with their perceptions of social norms around the use of expressive suppression. Moderation results were mostly statistically nonsignificant, with one exception: perceptions of teammates’ use of expressive suppression were positively associated with athletes’ use of expressive suppression under conditions of lower levels, but not moderate or higher levels, of injunctive norms. Overall, the findings demonstrate that athletes’ emotion regulation may be associated with their perceptions of what their teammates do, and that normative influence may depend on the source of norms (e.g., teammates vs. coaches) and the visibility of target behaviour (e.g., cognitive reappraisal vs. expressive suppression).

Investigating the role of emotion regulation in the relationship between childhood trauma and alcohol problems in American Indian adults

Only very recently has research demonstrated that experimentally induced emotion regulation strategies (cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression) affect risky choice (e.g., Heilman et al., 2010). However, it is unknown whether this effect also operates via habitual use of emotion regulation strategies in risky choice involving deliberative decision making. We investigated the role of habitual use of emotion regulation strategies in risky choice using the “cold” deliberative version of the Columbia Card Task (CCT; Figner et al., 2009). Fifty-three participants completed the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ; Gross & John, 2003) and—one month later—the CCT and the PANAS. Greater habitual cognitive reappraisal use was related to increased risk taking, accompanied by decreased sensitivity to changes in probability and loss amount. Greater habitual expressive suppression use was related to decreased risk taking. The results show that habitual use of reappraisal and suppression strategies predict risk taking when decisions involve predominantly cognitive-deliberative processes.

People who make habitual use of an emotion regulation strategy such as cognitive reappraisal may be more sensitive to the emotion cues coming from a surrounding natural environment and, thus, get more benefits from virtual nature exposure such as enhanced subjective vitality. However, no previous study investigated the moderating role of cognitive reappraisal in the relationship between exposure to different types of natural environments (a national park, a lacustrine environment, and an arctic environment vs. an urban environment) and subjective vitality. We designed a between-subject design (four conditions, one per type of environment) with a sample of 187 university students (Mage = 21.17, SD = 2.55). Participants were exposed to four 360° panoramic photos of the environment for one minute each with a virtual reality head-mounted display. The results of a multicategorical moderation analysis attested that there were two significant interactions, respectively between lacustrine and arctic environments and cognitive reappraisal. More specifically, for participants with low levels of habitual use of cognitive reappraisal, the effects of virtual nature (vs. urban) exposure on subjective vitality were not significant, while for participants with high levels, the effects were significant and positive. Findings show how the potential of virtual nature may be boosted with training aimed at increasing the general use of cognitive reappraisal, supports enhancing the applications of virtual nature, and demonstrates the need to take individual differences into account when determining the benefits of these applications.

Cognitive reappraisal has been shown to be an effective emotion regulation strategy that contributes to mental health. Previous studies focused on sex differences in the frequency of use and ability to use this strategy, and the association of fequency of use and ability with executive functioning. However, there is a lack of behavioral studies examining whether the involvement of executive functions in cognitive reappraisal use and ability differs for men and women. Such a sex difference may inform the design of cognitive interventions directed at enhancing cognitive reappraisal use and ability. The present study used a sample of 125 Chinese university students and focused on one key component of executive functioning: working memory updating. Frequency of cognitive reappraisal use was assessed by self-report. Ability to use cognitive reappraisal and working memory updating capacity were each assessed with a laboratory task. The results revealed no sex difference in cognitive reappraisal use or ability. However, of primary interest, the ability to apply cognitive reappraisal was associated with working memory updating performance, but only for women. If confirmed in further studies, these findings suggest that cognitive interventions in general, and working memory updating trainings more specifically, are more likely to enhance the ability to use cognitive reappraisal as a means to regulate emotions in women than in men.

Ecosystems are under pressure due to global climate change. Empirical evidence showing how people can reduce their ecological footprint is needed. It has been shown that a consequence of the perception of climate change is an increase in ecologically responsible behavior, but little is known about the antecedents of this relationship. In two field studies, we examined whether an emotion‐regulation strategy (i.e., cognitive reappraisal) predicted both climate change perception and pro‐environmental behavior. Undergraduate students at two university campuses participated in Study 1 (n = 299). We found that individuals with a stronger tendency for habitual use of cognitive reappraisal showed both increased global climate change perception and a greater extent of pro‐environmental behavior compared with individuals with a lower such tendency. As expected, our results also showed the mediating role of climate change perception in the relationship between people's habitual use of cognitive reappraisal and pro‐environmental behavior. These findings were replicated in Study 2 (n = 81) with a non‐student sample. Implications for future studies and environmental risk communication strategies are discussed.

Veterans with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) exhibit marked deficits in emotion regulation. Past research has demonstrated underengagement of the prefrontal cortex during regulation of negative affect in those with PTSD, but has been unable to find evidence of impaired downregulation of the amygdala. One possibility is that there exists variability in amygdala reactivity that cuts across diagnostic status and which can be characterized using a continuous measure of individual differences. In healthy/nontraumatized volunteers, individual variability in amygdala engagement during emotion processing and regulation has been shown to relate to habitual use of regulation strategies. The current study examined whether self-reported use of cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression regulation strategies correlated with brain activation during cognitive reappraisal in combat-exposed veterans with (n = 28) and without PTSD (combat-exposed controls, CEC; n = 20). Results showed that greater self-reported use of cognitive reappraisal was associated with less activation in the right amygdala during volitional attempts to attenuate negative affect using reappraisal, irrespective of PTSD diagnosis. This finding is in line with prior work and extends evidence of an association between habitual use of regulation strategies and amygdala engagement during emotion regulation to a trauma-exposed sample of individuals both with and without PTSD. Furthermore, by providing evidence of individual differences in regulation-related amygdala response in a traumatized sample, this result may increase understanding of the neural mechanisms that support variability in symptom manifestation observed across individuals with PTSD.

The bidirectional association of emotion regulation with sleep quality has received increased attention in recent years. In this research, we investigated the correlation between the habitual use of different emotion regulation strategies (i.e., Expressive Suppression and Cognitive Reappraisal) and different components of sleep quality. Considering that previous research revealed that using social media could influence emotion regulation and sleep quality in different ways, we controlled for the effect of social media usage duration on the interplay of emotion regulation strategies and sleep quality components. Our results showed that the habitual use of Cognitive Reappraisal was associated with improved daytime functioning; while, the tendency to use Expressive Suppression in various situations was associated with shorter sleep duration. Our findings supported the view that the habitual use of Cognitive Reappraisal and Expressive Suppression have different well-being consequences. We also observed that using any of the strategies was negatively correlated with more frequent use of sleeping medications. Additionally, we did not observe any correlation between social media usage duration and other variables. We proposed that understanding the role of social media usage on the interplay between sleep quality and emotion regulation requires a comprehensive evaluation of individual differences in using social media as well as a careful analysis of the social media platforms’ characteristics.

Abstract. In the present study, we examined whether individual differences in the use of cognitive reappraisal predict the experience of more positive and less negative emotions prior to an evaluative task, as well as whether reappraisal is associated with better performance. In a longitudinal design, 130 students were asked to report their spontaneous use of reappraisal as well as the emotions experienced at three time points prior to an academic exam. Results showed that the use of cognitive reappraisal measured when students began to study predicted less negative and more positive emotions in the following two weeks. Further, positive and negative affect were significant predictors of the grade achieved. Finally, cognitive reappraisal had a significant indirect effect on the grade students achieved. These findings suggest that cognitive reappraisal can be effective in regulating emotions while approaching evaluative stressors.

Objective Parental emotion regulation plays a central role in the socialisation of emotion, especially when teaching young children to cope with negative emotions. This study aimed to explore to what extent parental psychological distress contributes to difficulties in emotion regulation, the way parents respond to children’s expression of negative emotions and whether two emotion regulation strategies are mediating mechanisms through which psychological distress affects parental responses. Method A sample of 307 Australian parents with children aged 3 to 10 years completed an online questionnaire that explored recent symptoms of depression, anxiety, and stress, the use of expressive suppression and cognitive reappraisal as emotion regulation strategies, and hypothetical parental responses to scenarios related to children’s expression of negative emotions. Results Parents who reported higher levels of depression, anxiety, and stress reported more frequent use of expressive suppression and less frequent use of cognitive reappraisal as emotion regulation strategies. Mixed findings were noted, with expressive suppression and cognitive reappraisal acting as mediators of depression and stress symptoms but not anxiety. Conclusion The findings highlight the need for targeting overarching factors such as difficulties in parental emotion regulation, not only as intervention for parental psychological distress but also for detection and prevention of maladaptive parenting practices. KEY POINTS What is already known about this topic: (1) Parental emotion socialisation is of key importance to children’s development. (2) Parental emotion regulation is a vital component of adaptive parenting. (3) Psychological distress compromises emotion regulation and functional parenting behaviour. What this topic adds: (1) Maladaptive emotion regulation may be present even at subclinical levels of emotional distress, thus highlighting the need for emotion regulation skills to be addressed preventatively. (2) Emotion regulation skills training in interventions with parents experiencing psychological distress may offer benefit in terms of parenting and child outcomes. (3) Cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression may be two underlying processes which predict subsequent problems with parental emotion socialisation.

Important associations between emotional dysregulation (ED) and ADHD have been identified in adults, with a key manifestation of this being differential use of emotion regulation strategies: reduced use of cognitive reappraisal (CR), but elevated expressive suppression (ES). These associations have been observed at both behavioral and neuroimaging levels. The present study aims to explore the use of CR and ES in children with ADHD, and their relationship to ED. 148 children with ADHD and 265 healthy controls (age 9-16 years) were recruited and evaluated and correlated their ED, CR, and ES. Resting-state fMRI functional connectivity, with 6 amygdala subregions as regions-of-interest, were analyzed in a subsample to identify potential neural correlates. Children with ADHD showed significant higher ED, and lower use of both CR and ES. A significant negative correlation was found between CR and ED. Mediation analysis indicated that CR has an indirect influence on the relationship between ADHD diagnosis and ED. In the neuroimaging analyses, the functional connectivity between the right superficial amygdala and left middle occipital gyrus showed a significant group-by-ES interaction, highlighting potential neural correlates for elevated ED in children with ADHD. Children with ADHD expressed elevated levels of ED, and used less CR and ES compared to healthy controls. The lower use of ES may relate to abnormal amygdala connectivity in children with ADHD. This finding suggested that brain immaturity in children may preclude effective deployment of ES in emotion regulation processes.

The relationship between habitual use and real-time emotion regulation strategies in adolescents: Evidence from frontal EEG asymmetry