The influence of context on the implementation of adaptive emotion regulation strategies

Putatively adaptive emotion regulation strategies (e.g., acceptance, problem solving, reappraisal) show weaker associations with psychopathology than putatively maladaptive strategies (e.g., avoidance, self-criticism, hiding expression, suppression of experience, worry, rumination). This is puzzling, given the central role that adaptive strategies play in a wide range of psychotherapeutic approaches. We explored this asymmetry by examining the effects of context (i.e., emotion intensity, type of emotion, social vs. academic circumstances) on the implementation of adaptive and maladaptive strategies. We asked 111 participants to describe 8 emotion-eliciting situations and identify which strategies they used in order to regulate their affect. We found support for a contextual model of emotion regulation, in which adaptive strategies were implemented with more cross-situational variability than maladaptive strategies. In addition, the variability in implementation of two adaptive strategies (acceptance, problem solving) predicted lower levels of psychopathology, suggesting that flexible implementation of such strategies in line with contextual demands is associated with better mental health. We discuss these findings by underscoring the importance of adopting a functional approach to the delineation of contextual factors that influence the implementation of emotion regulation strategies.     

The face of love: spontaneous accommodation as social emotion regulation

The present research investigated whether accommodation, typically formulated as the tendency to deliberately inhibit a destructive reaction in response to a partner's destructive behavior, could also occur spontaneously. Supporting this notion, results of the first study revealed that participants respond to their partner's angry face with a spontaneous smile, whereas strangers' angry faces are mimicked and thus lead to a spontaneous frown. Importantly, the facial EMG data are moderated by participants' daily interaction styles: People perceiving themselves in a communal relationship show spontaneous acts of accommodation, whereas this is not the case for people in exchange relationships. The moderation occurred in our first (spontaneous) and third (forced accommodation) studies. The results of the second study replicated the first study in that participants in communal relationships frowned less toward partner's subliminally presented angry faces but more to their sad faces. The authors discuss their findings as spontaneous social emotion regulation.     

The influence of cognitive emotion regulation strategies and depression severity on deliberate self-harm

Elaborating on previous studies on emotion regulation and deliberate self-harm (DSH), in the present study we distinguish between strategies of cognitive content (e.g., suicidal cognitions of perceived burdensomeness, helplessness, poor distress tolerance) and cognitive process (e.g., nonacceptance of emotional responses, lack of awareness of emotional responses). Young women who harmed themselves (n = 85) were compared with young women without a history of DSH (n = 93) across a broad range of strategies. Significant group differences were found for all measures, even when depression severity was controlled for. In addition, logistic regression analyses showed that both cognitive content strategies and cognitive process strategies made significant independent contributions to the prediction of group membership. Controlling for depression severity, suicidal cognitions, and nonacceptance of emotional responses independently predicted DSH. The strong association between suicidal cognitions and DSH seems to indicate the important role of these cognitions in recurrent and chronic DSH. The strong association between nonacceptance of emotional responses and DSH underscores the notion that DSH can be a way to avoid emotional problems. These findings are discussed in relation to recent cognitive-behavioral interventions and specific therapeutic techniques to further insight into how these interventions might work.     

社会价值取向对自我-他人风险决策的影响及其机制

以往关于为自己和代他人决策的冒险行为研究结果不一致,这可能是因为以往的研究没有考虑决策情境和决策者人际特质等因素对于决策行为的影响。社会价值取向(social value orientation, SVO)是一种典型的人际特质,是个体在对自我和他人资源分配时所表现出的社会偏好,通常分为亲社会者和亲自我者。为探究SVO对自我-他人风险决策的影响及其机制,采用为自己和陌生人分别完成多轮混合赌博游戏的任务。结果发现亲自我比亲社会者代他人决策更冒险。用模型量化的损失厌恶和对潜在损失的敏感度部分中介了自我-他人风险决策差异,但只有对他人潜在损失的敏感度部分中介自我-他人决策的SVO效应。说明SVO会影响自我-他人风险决策,且该效应可以通过对他人利益的关心程度起作用,所以在自我-他人风险决策的研究中应将SVO这一决策者的人际特质因素考虑在内。     

The influence of mother-child emotion regulation strategies on children's expression of anger and sadness

In a sample of 153 children from preschool through second grade, relations between the use of emotion regulation strategy and children's expression of anger and sadness were coded during an observational task in which children were intentionally disappointed in the presence of the mother. Multilevel modeling was used to examine strategy use and current and subsequent expressions of anger and sadness. Results indicate that mothers' use of attention refocusing and joint mother-child cognitive reframing lead to lower intensity of expressed anger and sadness. Younger children expressed more sadness than older children, and maternal attention refocusing was less successful among older children than younger ones. Implications of these results for assessing the socialization of emotion regulation in preschool and school-age children are discussed.     

情绪调节灵活性对负性情绪的影响：来自经验取样的证据

情绪调节灵活性是指个体根据不断变化的情境需求灵活部署情绪调节策略的能力。本研究采用经验取样方法,通过拟合个体在日常生活事件(如,未通过考试)和突发公共卫生事件(COVID-19)中的策略使用剖面结构和情境负性程度与策略使用程度的共变关系测量个体的情绪调节灵活性水平,并探讨其对个体后续负性情绪(抑郁和焦虑)的影响。两个独立样本结果表明：单一策略使用偏好(如沉浸偏好和表达抑制偏好)的个体在负性生活事件中和疫情期间经历了更高水平的抑郁和焦虑情绪。此外,当个体随情境负性程度提高使用更多分心策略,而随情境负性程度降低使用更多认知重评策略(意味较高的情绪调节灵活性),其抑郁和焦虑情绪水平更低。以上结果共同证实了情绪调节灵活性有利于减少个体的负性情绪体验。     

催产素对社会决策行为的影响

大量的研究已经证明催产素对人类社会决策起着重要的调节作用。以往研究者采用多种实验范式用于探讨催产素对社会决策的影响, 研究内容主要包括合作与保护行为、道德行为、信任行为和慷慨行为。研究者已提出三种关于催产素的可能的作用机制用来解释观察到的实验结果, 三种理论各有侧重。未来的研究中应关注鼻喷催产素和受体基因多态性等生理机制、并考虑催产素影响社会决策行为的性别差异、建立更完善并可供检验的理论模型。     

The influence of provocateurs' emotion displays on the social information processing of children varying in social adjustment and age

This study examined the effect of provocateurs' emotion displays on first through fourth graders' social information processing (SIP). Rating and nomination sociometric techniques were used to identify rejected-aggressive, rejected-nonaggressive, average-nonaggressive, and popular-nonaggressive groups. Children viewed videotaped ambiguous provocation situations in which provocateurs' emotion displays were varied systematically. After each vignette, children's recall of story details, attribution of intent, and problem-solving responses were obtained. Half of the children were randomly assigned to a condition where they were asked directly about provocateurs' emotions, and the remaining children were not asked about provocateurs' feelings. Results revealed both developmental and social adjustment differences in SIP. In addition, provocateurs' emotion displays and asking versus not asking about those displays influenced multiple aspects of SIP.     

The influence of emotion on face processing

According to the broaden-and-build theory, positive emotions broaden one's thought-action repertoire, which may manifest as a widened attentional scope in cognitive processing. The present study directly tests this hypothesis by examining the influences of induced emotions (positive, neutral and negative) on holistic processing of face (Experiment 1) and face discrimination (Experiment 2). In both experiments, emotions induced with images from the International Affective Picture System significantly interacted with face processing. That is, positive emotions engendered greater holistic face encoding in a composite-face task in Experiment 1 and more accurate face discrimination in Experiment 2, relative to the neutral condition. In contrast, negative emotions impaired holistic face encoding in the composite-face task and reduced face discrimination accuracy. Taken together, these results provide further support for the attentional broadening effect of positive affect by demonstrating that induced positive emotions facilitate holistic/configural processing.     

情绪对饮食行为的影响

人类的饮食行为受到诸多因素的影响, 包括生理因素、心理因素及社会文化因素等, 其中情绪对饮食行为的影响日益受到研究者的重视, 这种影响一般表现为摄入量的多少和食物(热量)的选择。通过探讨不同情绪下临床和非临床个体食物摄入量的表现, 总结发现消极情绪导致个体暴饮暴食的可能更大。积极情绪影响下的饮食行为的研究结果则存在分歧: 生理角度解释为积极情绪能够促进个体的享乐机制, 导致进食行为增加; 而自我控制理论则认为积极情绪增加了个人资源以抵制美食诱惑。此外, 进一步探讨了情绪影响下饮食行为的神经生理机制。未来在饮食相关的临床研究和治疗上, 需要对情绪影响下的饮食行为有更深入的神经机制方面的探究。     

Automatic emotion regulation after social exclusion: tuning to positivity

Nine experiments tested competing hypotheses regarding nonconscious affective responses to acute social exclusion and how such responses may relate to positive mental health. The results strongly and consistently indicated that acute social exclusion increased nonconscious positive affect. Compared to nonexcluded participants, excluded participants recalled more positive memories from childhood than did accepted participants (Experiment 1), gave greater weight to positive emotion in their judgments of word similarity (Experiments 2 and 3), and completed more ambiguous word stems with happy words (Experiments 4a and 4b). This process was apparently automatic, as participants asked to imagine exclusion overestimated explicit distress and underestimated implicit positivity (Experiment 3). Four final experiments showed that this automatic emotion regulation process was found among participants low (but not high) in depressive symptoms (Experiments 5 and 6) and among participants high (but not low) in self-esteem (Experiments 7 and 8). These findings suggest that acute exclusion sets in motion an automatic emotion regulation process in which positive emotions become highly accessible, which relates to positive mental health.     

Exploring adolescent social media and internet gaming addiction: The role of emotion regulation

Behavioral addictions such as social media addiction and internet gaming disorder are prevalent among adolescent populations. Although studies have investigated predictors of these addictive behaviors with international samples of adolescents, less is known about American adolescents. In this study, we investigated the predictive nature of emotion regulation after controlling for age, gender, and race with regard to social media addiction and internet gaming disorder severity. Results indicate that gender and emotion regulation significantly predicted both forms of behavioral addictions with small to moderate effects. Specifically, female gender and lower emotion regulation significantly predicted social media addiction and male gender and lower emotion regulation significantly predicted internet gaming disorder severity. Implications for mental health professionals are discussed.     

Temperamental surgency and emotion regulation as predictors of childhood social competence

The primary aims of the current study were to longitudinally examine the direct relationship between children's temperamental surgency and social behaviors as well as the moderating role of children's emotion regulation. A total of 90 4.5-year-old children participated in a laboratory visit where children's temperamental surgency was rated by experimenters and children's emotion regulation abilities were assessed. The summer before entry into first grade, children's social behaviors with unfamiliar peers were observed in the laboratory and mothers completed a questionnaire about children's social behaviors. Supporting our hypotheses, results revealed that children high in temperamental surgency developed more negative peer behaviors, whereas children low in temperamental surgency were more likely to develop behavioral wariness with peers. Emotion regulatory behaviors were found to moderate the relation between temperamental surgency and aggression, where high-surgent children who showed high levels of social support seeking were less likely to be rated by their mothers as high in aggression. Furthermore, results revealed that low-surgent children who showed high levels of distraction/self-soothing were more likely to show behavioral wariness around unfamiliar peers, whereas high-surgent children who used more distraction/self-soothing behaviors were rated by their mothers as lower in social competence.     

The effect of emotion regulation strategies on anger

This study examined the effects of different emotion regulation strategies on the experience and expression of anger. Participants consisted of undergraduate students who endorsed at least a moderate level of state anger. As part of a laboratory experiment, they were instructed to reappraise (n = 24), suppress (n = 24), or accept (n = 25) their anger during a frustrating task. Reappraisal was more effective at reducing anger than attempts to suppress or accept it. Furthermore, participants in the reappraisal condition persisted significantly longer with the frustrating task than those who were instructed to suppress or accept their negative feelings. These findings suggest that reappraisal techniques are more effective than acceptance and suppression techniques for modulating the experience and expression of anger.     

The influence of depression symptoms on exploratory decision-making

People with symptoms of depression show impairments in decision-making. One explanation is that they have difficulty maintaining rich representations of the task environment. We test this hypothesis in the context of exploratory choice. We analyze depressive and non-depressive participants’ exploration strategies by comparing their choices to two computational models: (1) an “Ideal Actor” model that reflectively updates beliefs and plans ahead, employing a rich representation of the environment and (2) a “Naïve Reinforcement Learning” (RL) model that updates beliefs reflexively utilizing a minimal task representation. Relative to non-depressive participants, we find that depressive participants’ choices are better described by the simple RL model. Further, depressive participants were more exploratory than non-depressives in their decision-making. Depressive symptoms appear to influence basic mechanisms supporting choice behavior by reducing use of rich task representations and hindering performance during exploratory decision-making.     

The role of social cognition in emotion

Although recent research has shown that social cognition and emotion engage overlapping regions of the brain, few accounts of this overlap have been offered. What systems might be commonly or distinctively involved in each? The close functional relationship between social cognition and emotion might be understood in terms of a central role for mental state attribution in the understanding, learning and regulation of emotion. In each of these cases, mental state attributions might be supported by either stimulus-driven or more reflective processes.     

Sensory emotion regulation

Decades of evidence reveal intimate links between sensation and emotion. Yet, discussion of sensory experiences as tools that promote emotion regulation is largely absent from current theorizing on this topic. Here, we address this gap by integrating evidence from social-personality, clinical, cognitive-neuroscience, and animal research to highlight the role of sensation as a tool that can be harnessed to up- or downregulate emotion. Further, we review evidence implicating sensation as a rapid and relatively effortless emotion regulation modality and highlight future research directions. Notably, we emphasize the need to examine the duration of sensory emotion regulation effects, the moderating role of individual and cultural differences, and how sensory strategies interact with other strategies.     

不同情境中情绪预期对青少年道德决策的影响

为考察道德情绪对道德决策的影响,研究以123名13岁和16岁的青少年为被试,采用2(年龄：13岁、16岁)×2(情境类型：亲社会、反社会)×2(情绪预期：道德定向、自利定向)的混合实验设计,考察了在不同的情境中和不同定向的情绪预期下青少年的道德决策情况。结果表明,年龄和情境类型的交互效应显著,反社会情境中16岁青少年比13岁青少年更倾向于判断自己会做出道德行为,亲社会情境中两个年龄组的道德决策判断无显著差异。情境类型和情绪预期的交互作用也显著。反社会情境中,青少年在自利定向情绪预期下判断自己会做出道德行为的可能性显著大于道德定向情绪预期;亲社会情境中,两种预期下青少年的道德决策判断不存在显著差异。结果说明,道德情绪会影响青少年的道德决策,在不同的情境中对道德决策的影响不同。