Better together: a unified perspective on appraisal and emotion regulation

ABSTRACT

Advances in our understanding of appraisal processes and emotion regulation have been two of the most important contributions of research on cognition and emotion in recent decades. Interestingly, however, progress in these two areas has been less mutually informative than one might expect or desire. To help remedy this situation, we provide an integration of appraisal theory and the process model of emotion regulation by describing parallel, interacting and iterative systems for emotion generation and emotion regulation. Outputs of the emotion generation system are perceived by the emotion regulation system, and emotion regulation strategies then modulate emotion by intervening at specific stages of the emotion generation system, ultimately changing appraisal dimensions. We hope that our unified perspective will encourage and guide future research at the interface of cognition and emotion.     

"Feminine Protection": The Effects of Menstruation on Attitudes Towards Women

An experiment tested the hypothesis that reminders of a woman's menstrual status lead to more negative reactions to her and increased objectification of women in general. Participants interacted with a female confederate who ostensibly accidentally dropped either a tampon or hair clip out of her handbag. Dropping the tampon led to lower evaluations of the confederate's competence, decreased liking for her, and a marginal tendency to avoid sitting close to her. Furthermore, gender schematic participants responded to the reminder of menstruation with increased objectification of women in general, an effect we view as an effort to "protect" culturally sanitized views of the feminine. These findings are discussed from the perspective of feminist theory and a terror management perspective on the role of ambivalence about the human body in the objectification of women.