Implications For Emotion Regulation Research Articles

Bodily awareness: Religious culture's associations with interoceptive sensibility.

Religions, as cultural systems, influence how people view and attune to their body. This research explores whether individual differences in various dimensions of religiosity are associated with interoceptive sensibility (IS), i.e., one's perceived ability to detect and interpret bodily signals. In Study 1, Christians, Muslims, and Hindus (N = 1570) reported their religiosity and completed the Multidimensional Assessment of Interoceptive Awareness, a well-validated measure of IS. Results show that religious identity moderates the relationship between the centrality of religion in one's life and IS such that the association is positive and medium for Christians, large for Muslims and Hindus. In addition, the medium positive correlation between frequency of religious practice and IS was similar across religious groups. Study 2 (N = 450) extended these results by measuring additional dimensions of religiosity and spirituality as well as investigating religious-related beliefs about the body, both positive (e.g., My body is holy) and negative (e.g., My body is sinful). Associations between religiosity and IS are replicated and found for spirituality as well. Interestingly, mediation analyses reveal that belief in the body as holy partially explains the association between religiosity and IS, but belief in the body as sinful suppresses such association. We discuss how religion, as a cultural factor, may influence beliefs about the body and bodily awareness, with implications for emotion regulation and mental health.

Out of sight but in mind: Experimentally activating partner representations in daily life buffers against common stressors.

Lab experiments have shown that reminders of romantic partners buffer against stressors. Yet, tightly controlled experiments do not mimic what transpires in people's actual lives. Thus, an important question is as follows: To what extent do reminders of romantic partners confer affective benefits when they occur "in the wild" as people experience their daily activities? To capture people's emotional experience in real time, two studies, each spanning 3 months, used event-contingent ecological momentary assessments with a within-subject experimental manipulation. Prior to encountering a stressful event (taking an exam), participants received either a supportive text message from their partner or no message (Studies 1 and 2), or a supportive text message from the research team (Study 2). Receiving supportive partner messages, compared to no messages or messages from the research team, led to less negative affect and greater positive affect, and to less negative affect and greater positive affect about the exam itself. Receiving supportive partner messages had no statistically significant effects on subjective stress. Interestingly, the quality of the partner messages, as coded by independent raters, did not significantly predict the magnitude of the affective benefits. These findings suggest that receiving any supportive partner message, and not necessarily more subtle differences in the quality of the message, may be the key ingredient for these benefits to occur. The present work advances understanding of how the symbolic presence of partners confers affective regulatory benefits in everyday life. Implications for emotion regulation and the utility of integrating perspectives from adult attachment are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Emotions and ensuing motor performance are altered by regulating breathing frequency: Implications for emotion regulation and sport performance.

Breathing interventions have been shown to improve sport performance. Although evidence exists to support the role of perceived arousal as a critical underlying mechanism of breathing interventions, methodological differences in the literature preclude clear understanding of potential contributing factors to the effectiveness of such interventions. Under neutral contexts, we have demonstrated attention, dyspnea, and hindrance may need to be considered as mediators of how breathing frequency affects motor performance. We sought to extend our previous findings to determine how breathing frequency affects motor performance under varying emotional conditions. Participants (N = 35, Mage = 21.68, SD = 2.96; 20 females) performed slow, normal, and fast metronome-paced breathing while viewing pleasant and unpleasant stimuli prior to executing a pinch grip task. Performance was assessed via reaction time (RT), variability (V) and error (AE). Assessment of indices of perceived arousal included measuring heart rate variability (HRV) and visual analog scale responses. Visual analog scales were also used to assess attention, dyspnea, and hindrance. Repeated measures ANOVAs showed slow breathing increased RT and HRV compared to normal and fast breathing under emotional conditions (all p’s < 0.05). Hierarchical multiple regression models revealed that decreased breathing frequency predicted increases in RT (β = −0.25, p < 0.05) under pleasant conditions, while predicting increases in HRV for unpleasant conditions (β = −0.45, p < 0.001). Increases in dyspnea (β = 0.29, p < 0.05) and hindrance (β = 0.35, p < 0.01) predicted increases in RT under pleasant conditions, while only increases in hindrance predicted increases in RT under unpleasant conditions (β = 0.41, p < 0.01). Decreases in breathing frequency predicted increases in HRV under unpleasant conditions (β = −0.45, p < 0.001). Overall, our findings suggest under varying emotional contexts breathing frequency differentially affects movement, potentially mediated by factors other than perceived arousal. In addition, these results inform the use of breath regulation as an antecedent emotion regulation strategy.

Aversive anticipations modulate electrocortical correlates of decision-making and reward reversal learning, but not behavioral performance.

Predicting the consequences of one’s own decisions is crucial for organizing future behavior. However, when reward contingencies vary frequently, flexible adaptation of decisions is likely to depend on the situation. We examined the effects of an instructed threat context on choice behavior (i.e., reversal learning) and its electrocortical correlates. In a probabilistic decision-making task, 30 participants had to choose between two options that were either contingent on monetary gains or losses. Reward contingencies were reversed after reaching a probabilistic threshold. Decision-making and reversal learning were examined with two contextual background colors, which were instructed as signals for threat-of-shock or safety. Self-report data confirmed the threat context as more unpleasant, arousing, and threatening relative to safety condition. However, against our expectations, behavioral performance was comparable during the threat and safety conditions (i.e., errors-to-criterion, number of reversal, error rates, and choice times). Regarding electrocortical activity, feedback processing changed throughout the visual processing stream. The feedback-related negativity (FRN) reflected expectancy-driven processing (unexpected vs. congruent losses and gains), and the threat-selective P3 component revealed non-specific discrimination of gains vs. losses. Finally, the late positive potentials (LPP) showed strongly valence-specific processing (unexpected and congruent losses vs. gains). Thus, regardless of contextual threat, early and late cortical activity reflects an attentional shift from expectation- to outcome-based feedback processing. Findings are discussed in terms of reward, threat, and reversal-learning mechanisms with implications for emotion regulation and anxiety disorders.

Retrospective Reports of Parental Problem Drinking and Parent Reactions to Child Negative Emotions: Implications for Emotion Regulation in the Transition to Adulthood

Exposure to parental problem drinking (PPD)—symptoms of alcohol use disorder, heavy and hazardous drinking—is associated with mental health problems in emerging adults, but mechanisms of risk are not fully explicated. The current study explores the role of parental emotion socialization, a key factor in the development of emotion regulation, in the context of PPD. A sample of 377 U.S. college students reported retrospectively on PPD, parent reactions to participant negative emotions, and participants’ own current depressive and anger rumination. Both mother and father PPD were related to greater same-parent minimization, distress and punitive reactions, and less problem-focused, emotion-focused, and encouragement of expression of negative emotions. Supportive and nonsupportive parental reactions to negative emotions intervened in associations between PPD and emerging adult depressive and anger rumination. Findings suggest that emotion dysregulation may be a key mechanism of risk for mental health problems among emerging adults exposed to PPD.

The relationship between smartphone overuse and sleep in younger children: a prospective cohort study.

Younger children and adolescents are exposed to various smart devices in the modern world, and their use of smart devices is rapidly increasing worldwide. Although smart devices have often been considered to have negative effects on sleep of children and adolescents, such effects have not been studied among younger children. Sleep is considered particularly important for learning and memory, and also has implications for emotional regulation and behavior. Therefore, this study was conducted to examine the effects of smartphone overuse on sleep in 5- to 8-year-old children. Participants were from the Kids Cohort for Understanding of Internet Addiction Risk Factors in Early Childhood (K-CURE) Study, an observational prospective cohort study in Korea. Smartphone screen time and total sleep time were assessed using parental questionnaires. Sleep problems of children were assessed using the Children's Sleep Habits Questionnaire (CSHQ). Analysis of covariance was used to examine the association between smartphone overuse and sleep habits in children. All statistical analyses were conducted using SPSS version 21.0 (IBM Corporation, Armonk, NY). Total sleep time of the smartphone overuse group (smartphone use over 1 hour daily) was shorter than that of the control group (F = 6.362, P < .05). Children in the smartphone overuse group showed statistically significant higher scores in the CSHQ total score and nocturnal awakening subscale score (P < .05). Excessive smartphone use was related to shorter total sleep time in children. Use of a smartphone was also associated with significant reductions in the quality of sleep in younger children.

Positive fantasies and negative emotions in soccer fans

ABSTRACT Positive thinking is often assumed to foster effort and success. Research has shown, however, that positive thinking in the form of fantasies about achieving an idealised future predicts less (not more) effort and success and more (not less) depressive symptoms over time. This relationship was mediated by people having invested little effort and achieved little success. Here, we ask a different question. We investigate the emotional consequences of positive fantasies about futures that people cannot act on. Specifically, we analyse these consequences when the future fantasies fail to come true (one’s favourite soccer team loses). Study 1 provided correlational evidence. The more positively soccer fans fantasised about their favourite team winning an upcoming match, the stronger were their negative emotions when their team lost. That is, the more sad, disappointed, and frustrated they felt. Study 2 provided experimental evidence. Soccer fans who were led to fantasise positively about their team winning an upcoming match reported feeling stronger negative emotions after their team lost than those who were led to fantasise negatively. Positive fantasies were not related to how positive participants felt after their team won (joy, happiness, relief). We discuss theoretical and applied implications for emotion regulation in everyday life.

The demanding world of emotion: A Gestalt approach to emotion experience

Psychology is biased towards thinking of emotions as feelings rather than as an experiences of the world. But they are both. World-focused emotion experiences (WFEE) are how the world appears or is consciously perceived in one's emotion experience. For example, when happy the world may seem welcoming, or when sad the world may seem barren of possibilities. What explains these experiences? This article discusses explanations of WFEE from phenomenology and Gestalt psychology. Influenced by Lewin, I propose an “emotional demand model” of WFEE. The emotional demand character of objects (e.g. bear-to-be-run-from) is distinguished from their expressive character (e.g. angry bear). It is a mistake to think of emotion faces only as expressions—they are also demands. This distinction explains some anomalous findings in infancy and autism research. The model highlights another tool for recognizing our own emotions: noticing when we feel “demanded of” by the world, with implications for emotion regulation.

Collaborative remembering of emotional autobiographical memories: Implications for emotion regulation and collective memory.

People frequently engage in conversation about shared autobiographical events from their lives, particularly those with emotional significance. The pervasiveness of this practice raises the question whether shared memory reconstruction has the power to influence the memory and emotions associated with such events. We developed a novel paradigm that combined the strengths of the methods from autobiographical and collaborative memory research traditions to examine such consequences. We selected a shared, real-life autobiographical event of an exam, and asked students to recall their memory of taking a recent exam where they provided a group and/or personal narrative of this autobiographical event. Students first recalled the event either collaboratively (C) or individually (I), followed by a final individual (I) recall by all. Valence ratings as well as the emotional tone of the narratives converged to show that prior collaborative remembering down-regulated negative emotion and enhanced the positive emotional tone of the memories. The recalled detail in the narratives indicated that at initial recall members of collaborative groups reported fewer internal details than those who recalled alone, and reported more external details in a later recall when working alone. Earlier collaboration also increased collective memory such that more of these details were shared among prior group members in their later individual recall compared with those who did not collaborate before. We discuss the influence of collaborative remembering on shaping memory and emotion for autobiographical events as well as the potential mechanisms that promote collective autobiographical memory. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

T86. Reduced Functional Connectivity in the Executive Control Network Following Mild Traumatic Brain Injury: Implications for Emotional Regulation

T86. Reduced Functional Connectivity in the Executive Control Network Following Mild Traumatic Brain Injury: Implications for Emotional Regulation

Abnormal Default System Functioning in Depression: Implications for Emotion Regulation.

Depression is widely seen as the result of difficulties in regulating emotions. Based on neuroimaging studies on voluntary emotion regulation, neurobiological models have focused on the concept of cognitive control, considering emotion regulation as a shift toward involving controlled processes associated with activation of the prefrontal and parietal executive areas, instead of responding automatically to emotional stimuli. According to such models, the weaker executive area activation observed in depressed patients is attributable to a lack of cognitive control over negative emotions. Going beyond the concept of cognitive control, psychodynamic models describe the development of individuals’ capacity to regulate their emotional states in mother-infant interactions during childhood, through the construction of the representation of the self, others, and relationships. In this mini-review, we link these psychodynamic models with recent findings regarding the abnormal functioning of the default system in depression. Consistently with psychodynamic models, psychological functions associated with the default system include self-related processing, semantic processes, and implicit forms of emotion regulation. The abnormal activation of the default system observed in depression may explain the dysfunctional aspects of emotion regulation typical of the condition, such as an exaggerated negative self-focus and rumination on self-esteem issues. We also discuss the clinical implications of these findings with reference to the therapeutic relationship as a key tool for revisiting impaired or distorted representations of the self and relational objects.

Neurophysiological correlates of attention behavior in early infancy: Implications for emotion regulation during early childhood

Current theoretical conceptualizations of regulatory development suggest that attention processes and emotion regulation processes share common neurophysiological underpinnings and behavioral antecedents such that emotion regulation abilities may build on early attentional skills. To further elucidate this proposed relationship, we tested whether early neurophysiological processes measured during an attention task in infancy predicted in-task attention behavior and whether infants’ attention behavior was subsequently associated with their ability to regulate emotion during early childhood (N=388). Results indicated that greater electroencephalogram (EEG) power change (from baseline to task) at medial frontal locations (F3 and F4) during an attention task at 10months of age was associated with concurrent observed behavioral attention. Specifically, greater change in EEG power at the right frontal location (F4) was associated with more attention and greater EEG power at the left frontal location (F3) was associated with less attention, indicating a potential right hemisphere specialization for attention processes already present during the first year of life. In addition, after controlling for 5-month attention behavior, increased behavioral attention at 10months was negatively associated with children’s observed frustration to emotional challenge at 3years of age. Finally, the indirect effects from 10-month EEG power change at F3 and F4 to 3-year emotion regulation via infants’ 10-month behavioral attention were significant, suggesting that infants’ attention behavior is one mechanism through which early neurophysiological activity is related to emotion regulation abilities during childhood.

A dual process for the cognitive control of emotional significance: implications for emotion regulation and disorders of emotion

A dual process for the cognitive control of emotional significance: implications for emotion regulation and disorders of emotion

Will they like me? Adolescents’ emotional responses to peer evaluation

Relative to children and adults, adolescents are highly focused on being evaluated by peers. This increased attention to peer evaluation has implications for emotion regulation in adolescence, but little is known about the characteristics of the evaluatee and evaluator that influence emotional reactions to evaluative outcomes. The present study used a computer-based social evaluation task to examine predictors of adolescents’ emotional responses to feedback from unknown peers. Nine-to-seventeen-year-olds (N = 36) completed the “chatroom task” and indicated the degree to which each peer would be interested in interacting with them and how good they felt after receiving acceptance and rejection feedback from peers. We examined whether adolescents’ age and gender impacted their emotional responses to being accepted or rejected by peers of different age groups (i.e., early or middle adolescence) and genders. We also tested whether expectations about peers’ interest was associated with variability in adolescents’ emotional responses to the evaluative outcome. Upon being accepted by middle adolescent male peers, females in the middle relative to early years of adolescence reported greater well-being, whereas males reported similar levels of well-being regardless of their own age. Following acceptance from middle adolescent female peers, females reported greater well-being than males. Adolescents with high expectations for being liked by peers felt better after being accepted versus rejected relative to those with low expectations. For adolescents with low expectations, acceptance and rejection were associated with similar levels of well-being. Adolescents’ emotional responses to peer evaluation are influenced by specific individual characteristics and antecedent preparation for evaluation that may serve an emotion regulatory purpose.

Psychological distance and emotional experience: What you see is what you get.

Recent research suggests that perceiving negative emotion-eliciting scenes approaching intensifies the associated felt emotion, while perceiving emotion-eliciting scenes receding weakens the associated felt emotion (Muhlberger, Neumann, Wieser, & Pauli, 2008). In the present studies, we sought to extend these findings by examining the effects of imagining rather than perceiving such changes to negative emotion-eliciting scenes. Across three studies, we found that negative scenes generally elicited less negative responses and lower levels of arousal when imagined moving away from participants and shrinking, and more negative responses and higher levels of arousal when imagined moving toward participants and growing, as compared to the responses elicited by negative scenes when imagined unchanged. Patterns in responses to neutral scenes undergoing the same imagined transformations were similar on ratings of emotional arousal, but differed on valence-generally eliciting greater positivity when imagined moving toward participants and growing, and less positivity when imagined moving away from participants and shrinking. Moreover, for these effects to emerge, participants reported it necessary to explicitly imagine scenes moving closer or farther. These findings have implications for emotion regulation, and suggest that imagined spatial distance plays a role in mental representations of emotionally salient events.

Bottom-up and top-down emotion generation: implications for emotion regulation

Emotion regulation plays a crucial role in adaptive functioning and mounting evidence suggests that some emotion regulation strategies are often more effective than others. However, little attention has been paid to the different ways emotions can be generated: from the 'bottom-up' (in response to inherently emotional perceptual properties of the stimulus) or 'top-down' (in response to cognitive evaluations). Based on a process priming principle, we hypothesized that mode of emotion generation would interact with subsequent emotion regulation. Specifically, we predicted that top-down emotions would be more successfully regulated by a top-down regulation strategy than bottom-up emotions. To test this hypothesis, we induced bottom-up and top-down emotions, and asked participants to decrease the negative impact of these emotions using cognitive reappraisal. We observed the predicted interaction between generation and regulation in two measures of emotional responding. As measured by self-reported affect, cognitive reappraisal was more successful on top-down generated emotions than bottom-up generated emotions. Neurally, reappraisal of bottom-up generated emotions resulted in a paradoxical increase of amygdala activity. This interaction between mode of emotion generation and subsequent regulation should be taken into account when comparing of the efficacy of different types of emotion regulation, as well as when reappraisal is used to treat different types of clinical disorders.

Laboratory stressors in clinically anxious and non-anxious individuals: The moderating role of mindfulness

Objective Mindfulness forms the basis for multiple clinical interventions and has been induced in laboratory settings. However, few studies have examined the effects of dispositional or trait mindfulness. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship of trait mindfulness to laboratory stressor responding across fear-based anxiety disorder and non-anxious samples. We hypothesized that trait mindfulness would be associated with diminished stressor responding above and beyond the contribution of anxiety and depression-related variables, and to a greater extent in high anxiety than low anxiety individuals. Methods 90 participants, including 46 with anxiety disorders and 44 non-anxious controls, were assessed on hyperventilation and relaxation stressors. The relationship of trait mindfulness to stressor-related anxiety, negative affect, and duration was investigated in a hierarchical multiple regression model. Results Trait mindfulness predicted stressor responding in over 80% of measured outcomes, and predicted to a greater extent among high anxiety individuals in 50% of outcomes. Conclusions Trait mindfulness was associated with diminished responses to laboratory stressors in clinically anxious and non-anxious samples. Implications for emotion regulation and clinical interventions are discussed.

The Beliefs about Emotions Scale: Validity, reliability and sensitivity to change

Objective Beliefs about the unacceptability of experiencing or expressing negative emotions have been noted in individuals with a range of problems, including chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), irritable bowel syndrome, somatization disorder, depression, eating disorders, social phobia, posttraumatic stress disorder, and borderline personality disorder. These beliefs are likely to have implications for emotion regulation and processing, and are addressed explicitly or implicitly within many therapies including cognitive behavior therapy (CBT), mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT), and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). This article describes the development, validation, and internal reliability of the Beliefs about Emotions Scale (BES), a self-report questionnaire to assess such beliefs. Methods The new scale was completed by people with CFS ( n=121) and healthy controls ( n=73). Twenty-two individuals with CFS completed the scale before and after CBT. Results People with CFS had significantly higher scores on this new questionnaire than healthy controls. Principal components analysis identified one factor, and the scale had high internal consistency (0.91). Scores on the BES were most highly correlated with a measure of negative perfectionism ( r=0.59) and also showed significant correlations with measures of dysfunctional attitudes, self-sacrifice, depression, anxiety, and fatigue. When completed before and after CBT for CFS, the questionnaire was sufficiently sensitive to detect a significant reduction in endorsement of unhelpful beliefs about emotions. Conclusion The new Beliefs about Emotions Scale showed good internal reliability, validity and sensitivity to change.

Frustration in Infancy: Implications for Emotion Regulation, Physiological Processes, and Temperament.

A study sample of 162 six-month-old children was selected from a larger sample of 346 infants on the basis of parents' report of their infants' temperament and a laboratory assessment of temperament. Infants were classified as easily frustrated and less easily frustrated and compared on a number of emotion regulation, physiology, and temperament measures. Results indicated that male and female infants were equally likely to be classified as frustrated and less easily frustrated; however, male infants were less able to regulate physiologically. Easily frustrated infants used different emotion regulation strategies and were observed to be less attentive and more active than less easily frustrated infants when observed in the laboratory. These infants were also characterized by their parents as more active, less attentive, and more distressed to novelty. Infants classified as easily frustrated were more reactive physiologically and less able to regulate physiological reactivity than their less easily frustrated counterparts. It is hypothesized that this cluster of characteristics may constitute a unique temperamental type that may have implications for other types of behavioral functioning. Limitations of the study are that observations are based on a single brief assessment of the infant, modest effect sizes were found, and the study is cross-sectional.

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MAGNITUDE OF CEREBRAL ACTIVATION AND INTENSITY OF EMOTIONAL AROUSAL

There is considerable knowledge concerning the cerebral localization of positive and negative emotions; however, relatively little is known about the cerebral representation of subjective emotional intensity. Indeed, few studies to date seem to have been conducted on the cerebral effects of increased emotional intensity. The purpose of the present investigation was to investigate the relationship between the intensity of cerebral activation and emotional arousal using quantitative electroencephalography (QEEG). Participants were asked to recollect an angry memory while QEEG was recorded from 19 electrode sites arranged according to the International 10/20 System. Significant positive correlations were found between subjective intensity of angry memories and changes in low beta (13-21 Hz) and high beta (21-32 Hz) magnitude (µV) at the F8, T6, and O1 electrode sites among the male participants. Additionally, a significant positive correlation between emotion intensity and changes in high beta at the T6 electrode site was found among female participants. Results are discussed in terms of implications for emotional regulation and dysfunction.