Search

Aim: Childhood sexual abuse (CSA) among women is an alarmingly prevalent traumatic experience that often leads to debilitating and treatment-refractory posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), raising the need for novel adjunctive therapies. Neuroimaging investigations systematically report that amygdala hyperactivity is the most consistent and reliable neural abnormality in PTSD and following childhood abuse, raising the potential of implementing volitional neural modulation using neurofeedback (NF) aimed at down-regulating amygdala activity. This study aimed to reliably probe limbic activity but overcome the limited applicability of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) NF by using a scalable electroencephalogram NF probe of amygdala-related activity, termed amygdala electrical-finger-print (amyg-EFP) in a randomized controlled trial., Method: Fifty-five women with CSA-PTSD who were in ongoing intensive trauma-focused psychotherapy for a minimum of 1 year but still met Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5) PTSD criteria were randomized to either 10 add-on sessions of amyg-EFP-NF training (test group) or continuing psychotherapy (control group). Participants were blindly assessed for PTSD symptoms before and after the NF training period, followed by self-reported clinical follow-up at 1, 3, and 6 months, as well as one session of amygdala real-time fMRI-NF before and after NF training period., Results: Participants in the test group compared with the control group demonstrated a marginally significant immediate reduction in PTSD symptoms, which progressively improved during the follow-up period. In addition, successful neuromodulation during NF training was demonstrated., Conclusion: This feasibility study for patients with treatment-resistant CSA-PTSD indicates that amyg-EFP-NF is a viable and efficient intervention., (© 2023 The Authors. Psychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences published by John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd on behalf of Japanese Society of Psychiatry and Neurology.)

Background: Contemporary views of emotion dysregulation in post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) highlight reduced ability to flexibly select regulatory strategies according to differing situational demands. However, empirical evidence of reduced regulatory selection flexibility in PTSD is lacking. Multiple studies show that healthy individuals demonstrate regulatory selection flexibility manifested in selecting attentional disengagement regulatory strategies (e.g. distraction) in high-intensity emotional contexts and selecting engagement meaning change strategies (e.g. reappraisal) in low-intensity contexts. Accordingly, we hypothesized that PTSD populations will show reduced regulatory selection flexibility manifested in diminished increase in distraction (over reappraisal) preference as intensity increases from low to high intensity., Methods: Study 1 compared student participants with high ( N = 22) post-traumatic symptoms (PTS, meeting the clinical cutoff for PTSD) and participants with low ( N = 22) post-traumatic symptoms. Study 2 compared PTSD diagnosed women ( N = 31) due to childhood sexual abuse and matched non-clinical women ( N = 31). In both studies, participants completed a well-established regulatory selection flexibility performance-based paradigm that involves selecting between distraction and reappraisal to regulate negative emotional words of low and high intensity., Results: Beyond demonstrating adequate psychometric properties, Study 1 confirmed that relative to the low PTS group, the high PTS group presented reduced regulatory selection flexibility ( p = 0.01, ŋ²ₚ= 0.14). Study 2 critically extended findings of Study 1, in showing similar reduced regulatory selection flexibility in a diagnosed PTSD population, relative to a non-clinical population ( p = 0.002, ŋ²ₚ= 0.114)., Conclusions: Two studies provide converging evidence for reduced emotion regulatory selection flexibility in two PTSD populations.

How do people choose how to regulate others' emotional responses? We extended previous work on how the intensity of an emotional situation influences which strategies people choose to regulate their emotions (i.e., intrapersonal emotion regulation choice) to also consider the effect of intensity on which strategies people choose to regulate other people's emotions (i.e., interpersonal emotion regulation choice). Studies 1a and 1b found that the intensity of the emotional situation influenced whether participants chose distraction or reappraisal in both intrapersonal and interpersonal regulation contexts, but also that the effect of intensity differed between the contexts (participants choose reappraisal more frequently for others in intense situations than for themselves). However, this difference was stronger (or only found) when participants helped the other person to control their emotions first. Two further studies examined whether differences in perceived intensity (Study 2) and/or the anticipated effort or effectiveness of the strategies (Study 3) could explain the difference between intrapersonal and interpersonal contexts. Together, the findings suggest that the regulation strategies that people choose depend on the intensity of the emotional situation, the target of regulation, and whether people choose how to regulate their own emotions before choosing how to regulate another person's emotions, with preliminary evidence that differences between intrapersonal and interpersonal emotion regulation choice may be associated with differences in the anticipated effort and effectiveness of regulation between these contexts. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

While attention to external visual stimuli has been extensively studied, attention directed internally towards mental contents (e.g., thoughts, memories) or bodily signals (e.g., breathing, heartbeat) has only recently become a subject of increased interest, due to its relation to interoception, contemplative practices and mental health. The present study aimed at expanding the methodological toolbox for studying internal attention, by examining for the first time whether the steady-state visual evoked potential (ssVEP), a well-established measure of attention, can differentiate between internally and externally directed attention. To this end, we designed a task in which flickering dots were used to generate ssVEPs, and instructed participants to count visual targets (external attention condition) or their heartbeats (internal attention condition). We compared the ssVEP responses between conditions, along with alpha-band activity and the heartbeat evoked potential (HEP) - two electrophysiological measures associated with internally directed attention. Consistent with our hypotheses, we found that both the magnitude and the phase synchronization of the ssVEP decreased when attention was directed internally, suggesting that ssVEP measures are able to differentiate between internal and external attention. Additionally, and in line with previous findings, we found larger suppression of parieto-occipital alpha-band activity and an increase of the HEP amplitude in the internal attention condition. Furthermore, we found a trade-off between changes in ssVEP response and changes in HEP and alpha-band activity: when shifting from internal to external attention, increase in ssVEP response was related to a decrease in parieto-occipital alpha-band activity and HEP amplitudes. These findings suggest that shifting between external and internal directed attention prompts a re-allocation of limited processing resources that are shared between external sensory and interoceptive processing., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare no conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

"Do what you do best" conveys an intuition about the association between ability and preference. In the field of emotion regulation, ability and preference are manifested in two central stages, namely, implementation and selection of regulatory strategies, which to date have been mainly studied separately. Accordingly, the present proof-of-concept study wished to provide preliminary evidence for an association between neural indices of implementation ability and behavioral selection preferences. In this pilot study, participants performed a classic neuroimaging regulatory implementation task that examined their ability (neurally reflected in the degree of amygdala modulation) to execute two central regulatory strategies, namely, attentional distraction and cognitive reappraisal while viewing negative images. Then participants performed a separate, classic behavioral selection task that examined their choice preferences for using distraction and reappraisal while viewing negative images. Confirming our conceptual framework, we found that exclusively for distraction, which has been associated with robust amygdala modulation, a decrease in amygdala activity during implementation (i.e., enhanced ability) was associated with enhanced preference to behaviorally select distraction [ r (15) = -0.69, p = 0.004]. These preliminary findings link between two central emotion regulatory stages, suggesting a clue of the adaptive association between neural ability and behavioral preference for particular regulatory strategies., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2022 Fine, Schwartz, Hendler, Gonen and Sheppes.)

The COVID-19 pandemic poses significant emotional challenges that individuals need to select how to regulate. The present study directly examined how during the pandemic, healthy individuals select between regulatory strategies to cope with varying COVID-19-related threats, and whether an adaptive flexible regulatory selection pattern will emerge in this unique threatening global context. Accordingly, this two-study investigation tested how healthy individuals during a strict state issued quarantine, behaviorally select to regulate COVID-19-related threats varying in their intensity. Study 1 created and validated an ecologically relevant set of low and high intensity sentences covering major COVID-19 facets that include experiencing physical symptoms, infection threats, and social and economic consequences. Study 2 examined the influence of the intensity of these COVID-19-related threats, on behavioral regulatory selection choices between disengagement via attentional distraction and engagement via reappraisal. Confirming a flexible regulatory selection conception, healthy individuals showed strong choice preference for engagement reappraisal when regulating low intensity COVID-19-related threats, but showed strong choice preference for disengagement distraction when regulating high intensity COVID-19-related threats. These findings support the importance of regulatory selection flexibility for psychological resilience during a major global crisis., (© 2021. The Author(s).)

Individuals sometimes use social media instead of sleeping or while driving. This fact raises the crucial need for-and challenge of-successfully self-regulating potent social-media temptations. To date, however, empirical evidence showing whether social-media temptations can be self-regulated and how self-regulation can be achieved remains scarce. Accordingly, the present within-participants study ( N = 30 adults) provided causal evidence for self-regulation of social-media content and identified a potential underlying neural mechanism. We tested the premise that successful self-regulation requires limiting the mental representation of temptations in working memory. Specifically, we showed that loading working memory with neutral contents via attentional distraction, relative to passively watching tempting social-media stimuli, resulted in reduced self-reported desire to use social media, reduced initial attention allocation toward social-media stimuli (reduced late-positive-potential amplitudes), and reduced online representation of social-media stimuli in working memory (reduced contralateral-delay-activity amplitudes). These results have important implications for successfully navigating a social-media-saturated environment.

Objective: The ability to select the most adaptive regulatory strategy as a function of the emotional context plays a pivotal role in psychological health. Recently, we showed that mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) can improve the sensitivity of regulatory strategy selection to emotional intensity. However, the mechanisms underlying this improvement are unclear. In this study, we tested the hypothesis that MBIs support adaptive regulatory selection by increasing sensitivity to interoceptive signals associated with the emotional stimuli., Methods: Participants (n = 84, mean [standard deviation {SD}] age = 30.9 [8.3] years; 54% women) were randomized to either a mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) program or a wait-list control condition. Before and after the MBSR program, physiological measures for autonomic nervous system activity were obtained, and participants performed a task examining emotion regulation selections (reappraisal versus distraction) when confronted with low or high negative intensity images. They also completed a battery of mindfulness, interoception, and well-being self-report measures. A cross-classified model was used for the main analyses., Results: The participants assigned to the MBSR were overall more likely to choose reappraisal than distraction (b = 0.26, posterior SD = 0.13, 95confidence interval = 0.02-0.52) after the program. Interoceptive signals in response to negative images were associated with subsequent regulatory selections (b = 0.02, posterior SD = 0.01, 95% confidence interval = 0.01-0.03) in the MBSR group. Specifically, lower cardiac reactivity was associated with the choice to reappraise, whereas higher cardiac reactivity was related to the choice to distract. Greater differences in cardiac reactivity between states that prompt reappraisal and states that prompt distraction were associated with higher well-being (Satisfaction With Life Scale, Pearson r (29) = 0.527, p = .003)., Conclusions: Mindfulness seems to increase the sensitivity of regulatory selections to interoceptive signals, and this is associated with subjective well-being. This may be a central pathway through which MBIs exert their positive effects on mental health and resilience., (Copyright © 2021 by the American Psychosomatic Society.)

Day-to-day life is inundated with attempts to control emotions and a wealth of research has examined what strategies people use and how effective these strategies are. However, until more recently, research has often neglected more basic questions such as whether and how people choose to regulate their emotions (i.e. emotion regulation choice). In an effort to identify what we know and what we need to know, we systematically reviewed studies that examined potential determinants of whether and how people choose to regulate their emotions. Eighteen determinants were identified across 219 studies and were categorised as being affective, cognitive, motivational, individual or social-cultural in nature. Where there were sufficient primary studies, meta-analysis was used to quantify the size of the associations between potential determinants and measures of whether and how people choose to regulate their emotions. Based on the findings, we propose that people's decisions about whether and how to regulate their emotions are determined by factors relating to the individual doing the regulating, the emotion that is being regulated, and both the immediate situation and the broader social context in which the regulation is taking place.

Within a relatively short time span, social media have transformed the way humans interact, leading many to wonder what, if any, implications this interactive revolution has had for people's emotional lives. Over the past 15 years, an explosion of research has examined this issue, generating countless studies and heated debate. Although early research generated inconclusive findings, several experiments have revealed small negative effects of social media use on well-being. These results mask, however, a deeper set of complexities. Accumulating evidence indicates that social media can enhance or diminish well-being depending on how people use them. Future research is needed to model these complexities using stronger methods to advance knowledge in this domain., (Copyright © 2020 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)

When confronted with unwanted negative emotions, individuals use a variety of cognitive strategies for regulating these emotions. The brain mechanisms underlying these emotion regulation strategies have not been fully characterized, and it is not yet clear whether these mechanisms vary as a function of emotion intensity. To address these issues, 30 community participants (17 females, 13 males, M age = 24.3 years) completed a picture-viewing emotion regulation task with neutral viewing, reacting to negative stimuli, cognitive reappraisal, attentional deployment, and self-distancing conditions. Brain and behavioral data were simultaneously collected in a 3T GE MRI scanner. Findings indicated that prefrontal regions were engaged by all three regulation strategies, but reappraisal showed the least amount of increase in activity as a function of intensity. Overall, these results suggest that there are both brain and behavioral effects of intensity and that intensity is useful for probing strategy-specific effects and the relationships between the strategies. Furthermore, while these three strategies showed significant overlap, there also were specific strategy-intensity interactions, such as frontoparietal control regions being preferentially activated by reappraisal and self-distancing. Conversely, self-referential and attentional regions were preferentially recruited by self-distancing and distraction as intensity increased. Overall, these findings are consistent with the notion that there is a continuum of cognitive emotion regulation along which all three of these strategies lie.

Individuals often receive preceding information concerning future unpleasant events that will require regulating emotions. However, conceptual accounts explaining how the presence of anticipatory information, as well as biases in the content of anticipatory information, influence subsequent emotion regulation are lacking. We propose a novel account that explains how the cognitive processing of anticipatory information influences subsequent cognitive regulatory strategies. Specifically, the presence (vs. absence) of anticipatory information, which primarily influences attention toward upcoming unpleasant events, largely impacts subsequent attention-modulation regulatory strategies. By contrast, biased (vs. unbiased) contents of anticipatory information, that primarily influence the meaning of upcoming unpleasant events, largely impact meaning-modulation regulatory strategies. Our account further argues that the fit between the direction of influence of anticipatory information on cognition and the underlying mechanisms of cognitive down-regulation strategies determines regulatory challenge (i.e., effort and effectiveness of regulation). When anticipatory information decreases attention to, or negative meaning of, upcoming unpleasant stimuli, it fits a subsequent down-regulation goal to decrease attention or negative meaning, resulting in low regulatory challenge. However, when anticipatory information enhances attention to, or negative meaning of, upcoming unpleasant stimuli, it conflicts with a counter down-regulation goal to decrease attention or negative meaning (i.e., no fit), resulting in high regulatory challenge. Broad implications and future directions are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Monitoring and deciding how to adjust an active regulatory strategy in order to maximize adaptive outcomes is an integral element of emotion regulation, yet existing evidence remains scarce. Filling this gap, the present study examined core factors that determine behavioral regulatory monitoring decisions and the neuro-affective consequences of these decisions. Using a novel paradigm, the initial implementation of central downregulation strategies (distraction, reappraisal) and the emotional intensity (high, low) were manipulated, prior to making a behavioral decision to maintain the initial implemented strategy or switch from it. Neuro-affective consequences of these behavioral decisions were evaluated using the Late Positive Potential (LPP), an electro-cortical measure of regulatory success. Confirming predictions, initial implementation of reappraisal in high intensity and distraction in low intensity (Strategy × Intensity combinations that were established in prior studies as non-preferred by individuals), resulted in increased behavioral switching frequency. Neurally, we expected and found that in high (but not low) emotional intensity, where distraction was more effective than reappraisal, maintaining distraction (relative to switching to reappraisal) and switching to distraction (relative to maintaining reappraisal) resulted in larger LPP modulation. These findings suggest that monitoring decisions are consistent with previously established regulatory preferences and are associated with adaptive short-term neural consequences., (© The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.)

Previous research has examined emotion regulation (ER) and trauma in the context of psychopathology, yet little research has examined ER in posttraumatic growth (PTG), the experience of positive psychological change following a traumatic event. ER typically involves decreasing negative affect by engaging (e.g. reappraisal) or disengaging (e.g. distraction) with emotional content. To investigate how ER may support PTG, participants who experienced a traumatic event in the past 6 months completed a PTG questionnaire and an ER choice task in which they down regulated their negative emotion in response to negative pictures of varying intensity by choosing to distract or reappraise. Latent growth curve analyses revealed that an increase in reappraisal choice from low to high subjective stimulus intensity predicted higher PTG , suggesting that individuals who chose reappraisal more as intensity increased reported higher PTG. Findings suggest that reappraisal of negative stimuli following a traumatic event may be a key component of PTG.

Being able to resist temptation at a young age is crucial for successful functioning yet it can be challenging. According to the Selection, Optimization, and Compensation with Emotion Regulation (SOC-ER) framework, one central element of successful functioning is selection which involves choosing among regulatory options whose resource requirements fits with the amount of available resources an individual possesses. Although conceptually important, direct empirical evidence is lacking. Accordingly, the present study utilised performance based measures to examine the interactive effect of regulatory selection to resist temptation, and individual differences in executive resources, on functioning in young children. Specifically, 39 first grade children that varied in executive resources (working memory capacity, WMC), selected between two major regulatory strategies (reappraisal and distraction) to resist temptation, that varied in their resource demands, and were evaluated on successful functioning (via questionnaires completed by parents, that assess daily-life behaviours requiring executive functioning). Supporting SOC-ER predictions, we found that among children with low (but not high) WMC, choosing the less effortful distraction regulatory strategy was associated with adaptive functioning. Additionally, regulatory choice preferences previously obtained with adults were extended to children. Broad implications are discussed.

Although selecting emotion regulation strategies constitutes means to achieve emotion goals (i.e., desired emotional states), strategy selection and goals have been studied independently. We propose that the strategies people select are often dictated by what they want to feel. We tested the possibility that emotion regulation involves choosing strategies that match emotion goals. We expected people who are motivated to decrease emotional intensity to select strategies that are tailored for decreasing emotions (e.g., distraction), whereas those who are motivated to increase emotional intensity to select strategies that are tailored for increasing emotions (e.g., rumination). We expected this pattern to be evident both in the lab and in everyday life. We first verified that some strategies (i.e., distraction) are more effective in decreasing, and other strategies (i.e., rumination) more effective in increasing emotions (Study 1). Next, we tested whether emotion goals (decrease vs. increase emotion) direct the selection of strategies inside (Studies 2-3) and outside (Study 4) the laboratory. As predicted, participants were more likely to select strategies that decrease emotions (e.g., distraction, suppression) when motivated to decrease, and strategies that increase emotions (e.g., rumination) when motivated to increase negative (Studies 2-4) and positive (Study 3) emotions. Finally, in Study 5, we demonstrated that emotional dysfunction is linked to less flexibility in matching strategies to goals. Compared to healthy participants, depressed participants selected rumination less for increasing emotions and selected distraction less for decreasing emotions. Our findings show that what people want to feel can determine how they regulate emotions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

Is Facebook usage bad for mental health? Existing studies provide mixed results, and direct evidence for neural underlying moderators is lacking. We suggest that being able to filter social-network information from accessing working memory is essential to preserve limited cognitive resources to pursue relevant goals. Accordingly, among individuals with impaired neural social-network filtering ability, enhanced social-network usage would be associated with negative mental health. Specifically, participants performed a novel electrophysiological paradigm that isolates neural Facebook filtering ability. Participants' actual Facebook behavior and anxious symptomatology were assessed. Confirming evidence showed that enhanced Facebook usage was associated with anxious symptoms among individuals with impaired neural Facebook filtering ability. Although less robust and tentative, additional suggestive evidence indicated that this specific Facebook filtering impairment was not better explained by a general filtering deficit. These results involving a neural social-network filtering moderator, may help understand for whom increased online social-network usage is associated with negative mental health.

Despite the frequent need to down-regulate sexual desire, existing studies are scarce, and focus on strategies that involve disengagement from processing sexual stimuli. Accordingly, the present study compared the efficacy of down-regulating sexual desire via disengagement (attentional distraction) and engagement (situation-focused reappraisal) strategies. Utilizing Event Related Potentials, we measured the Late Positive Potential (LPP) - an electro-cortical component that denotes processing of arousing stimuli, showing decreased amplitudes during successful down-regulation. Additionally, we explored whether the sexual-intensity level of stimuli (validated in a pilot study) impacts the efficacy of, and individuals' behavioral preferences for distraction and situation-focused reappraisal. Supporting our predictions, relative to passive watching, both strategies successfully attenuated self-reported desire and LPP amplitudes, with a marginal trend (p = .07) showing stronger LPP attenuation during distraction compared to reappraisal. While sexual-intensity did not moderate regulatory efficacy, as predicted, disengagement-distraction preference increased for sexually-intense relative to sexually-mild stimuli. Broad implications are discussed., (Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Empathy represents a fundamental ability that allows for the creation and cultivation of social bonds. As part of the empathic process, individuals use their own emotional state to interpret the content and intensity of other people's emotions. Therefore, the current study was designed to test two hypotheses: (1) empathy for the pain of another will result in biased emotional intensity judgment; and (2) changing one's emotion via emotion regulation will modulate these biased judgments. To test these hypotheses, in experiment one we used a modified version of a well-known task that triggers an empathic reaction We found that empathy resulted in biased emotional intensity judgment. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first demonstration of a bias in the recognition of emotional facial expressions as a function of empathy for pain. In experiment two, we replicated these findings in an independent sample, and further found that this biased emotional intensity judgment can be moderated via reappraisal. Taken together, our findings suggest that the novel task used here can be employed to further explore the relation between emotion regulation and empathy.

Common wisdom suggests that knowledge is power. The present investigation tested the boundary conditions of this quote by asking how knowledge, in the form of anticipatory information regarding future emotional events, can be maladaptive for certain forms of subsequent coping. Therefore, Study 1 tested our hypothesis that anticipatory information selectively conflicts with and impairs subsequent emotion regulation that involves disengagement from processing emotional information (distraction). Importantly, utilizing event-related potentials enabled tracking the temporal neural processing stages underlying this selective regulatory impairment. Study 2 provided an important behavioral extension by exploring individuals' knowledge regarding the influence of anticipatory information on subsequent regulation and the experiential consequences of this knowledge. Results of Study 1 confirmed that anticipatory information amplified initial attention toward emotional stimuli, selectively conflicting with continuous efforts to disengage attention via distraction (enhanced sustained late positive potentials amplitudes). Converging evidence demonstrated that even prior to regulation, receiving anticipatory information when expecting to distract produced a strong conflict (enhanced stimulus preceding negativity amplitudes). Moreover, results of Study 2 showed that individuals adequately chose to refrain from anticipatory information when expecting to distract, with suggestive evidence for resultant decreased negative experience. Counter to our prediction, anticipatory information did not facilitate subsequent regulation that involves engaging with emotional information processing (reappraisal). Nonetheless, individuals strongly preferred to receive anticipatory information when about to reappraise. Taken together, these findings suggest that knowledge is not power when it comes to disengagement coping, but individuals seem to recognize this maladaptive link and adjust their information-seeking behavior accordingly. (PsycINFO Database Record, ((c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).)

Which emotion regulation strategy one uses in a given context can have profound affective, cognitive, and social consequences. It is therefore important to understand the determinants of emotion regulation choice. Many prior studies have examined person-specific, internal determinants of emotion regulation choice. Recently, it has become clear that external variables that are properties of the stimulus can also influence emotion regulation choice. In the present research, we consider whether reappraisal affordances, defined as the opportunities for re-interpretation of a stimulus that are inherent in that stimulus, can shape individuals' emotion regulation choices. We show that reappraisal affordances have stability across people and across time (Study 1), and are confounded with emotional intensity for a standardised set of picture stimuli (Study 2). Since emotional intensity has been shown to drive emotion regulation choice, we construct a context in which emotional intensity is separable from reappraisal affordances (Study 3) and use this context to show that reappraisal affordances powerfully influence emotion regulation choice even when emotional intensity and discrete emotions are taken into account (Study 4).

Objectives: Previous research demonstrates that younger and older adults prefer distraction over engagement (reappraisal) when regulating high-intensity negative emotion. Older adults also demonstrate a greater bias for positive over negative information in attention and memory compared with younger adults. In this study, we investigated whether emotion regulation choice preferences may differ as a function of stimulus valence with age., Method: The effect of stimulus intensity on negative and positive emotion regulation strategy preferences was investigated in younger and older men. Participants indicated whether they favored distraction or reappraisal to attenuate emotional reactions to negative and positive images that varied in intensity., Results: Men in both age-groups preferred distraction over reappraisal when regulating high-intensity emotion. As no age-related strategic differences were found in negative emotion regulation preferences, older men chose to distract less from high-intensity positive images than did younger men., Discussion: Older men demonstrated greater engagement with highly positive emotional contexts than did younger men. Thus, age differences in emotion regulation goals when faced with intense emotional stimuli depend on the valence of the emotional stimuli.

Do rightists and leftists experience information about suffering and harm with differing emotional intensities, depending on the identity of target depicted? Do they consequently choose differently how to regulate or cope with these emotions? Research has identified ideological differences in emotional processes, but it has yet to identify what types of content lead to ideological differences in emotional intensity or whether these content-dependent differences relate to differing preferences for engaging versus disengaging emotion-regulation strategies. We posited that right-left differences in experienced emotional intensity would be context-dependent, emerging mostly in response to depictions of harm to the outgroup, in accordance with the centrality of intergroup attitudes to ideological self-placement in conflict. Study 1 (N = 83) supported this hypothesis, with leftists (vs. rightists) experiencing outgroup harm (but not ingroup harm or conflict-irrelevant harm) with greater emotional intensity. Study 2 (N = 101), which replicated this finding, additionally examined whether behavioral differences in regulatory choice consequently emerge mostly regarding outgroup harm. We tested 2 competing hypotheses as to the nature of these differences: (a) the intensity hypothesis, positing that leftists (more than rightists) would regulate their intensified reactions to outgroup harm through disengagement-distraction (vs. engagement-reappraisal) due to a documented greater preference for disengaging coping strategies as intensity increases, and (b) the motivation hypothesis, positing that leftists (more than rightists) would prefer engagement-reappraisal (vs. disengagement-distraction), consistent with leftists' documented greater preference for intergroup empathy. Results exclusively supported the intensity hypothesis, and the significance of both studies is discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record, ((c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).)

Feeling, or the subjective emotional experience, is a fundamental element of the emotional reaction, yet past attempts to understand the mechanisms of feeling generation remain limited. The current study presents a signal detection theory (SDT) conceptualization of feeling generation. Accordingly, feeling, like other sensations, reflects an outcome of an inner decision regarding the emotional evidence, and, therefore, can be evaluated via 2 processes: e vidence differentiation ( d' )-the ability to emotionally differentiate between external stimuli, given the essentially noisy evidence-and criterion (c)-the report threshold , or amount of evidence needed to have an intense reportable feeling. According to the model, feelings can be disproportionally intense (false alarms; e.g., emotional overreaction) or disproportionally weak (misses; e.g., failing to detect danger), with the criterion controlling the relative proportion of these "errors." Results from a novel task indicate that our conceptualization provides a suitable model for valence (pleasant-unpleasant) feeling generation, as reflected in superior model fit relative to plausible alternative models, nonsignificant lack of fit, and by successful experimental tests of a novel prediction regarding contextual influences and related uncertainty. Additional evidence for the external validity of the model shows that SDT parameters, especially the criterion, were meaningfully correlated with relevant emotion regulation and affective style constructs. Implications for the understanding of feeling generation, in general, and in psychopathology, in particular, are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record, ((c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).)

Evaluative contexts can be stressful, but relatively little is known about how different individuals who vary in responses to self-evaluation make emotion regulatory choices to cope in these situations. To address this gap, participants who vary in self-esteem gave an impromptu speech, rated how they perceived they had performed on multiple evaluative dimensions, and subsequently chose between disengaging attention from emotional processing (distraction) and engaging with emotional processing via changing its meaning (reappraisal), while waiting to receive feedback regarding these evaluative dimensions. According to our framework, distraction can offer stronger short-term relief than reappraisal, but, distraction is costly in the long run relative to reappraisal because it does not allow learning from evaluative feedback. We predicted and found that participants with lower (but not higher) self-esteem react defensively to threat of failure by seeking short-term relief via distraction over the long-term benefit of reappraisal, as perceived failure increases. Implications for the understanding of emotion regulation and self-esteem are discussed.

Research in several domains suggests that having strategic options is not always beneficial. In this paper, we tested whether having strategic options (vs. not) is helpful or harmful for regulating negative emotions. In 5 studies (N = 151) participants were presented with 1 or more strategic options prior to watching aversive images and using the selected strategic option. Across studies, we found that people reported less intense negative emotions when the strategy they used to regulate their emotions was presented as a single option, rather than as 1 of several options. This was regardless of whether people could choose between the options (Studies 3-5) or not (Studies 1, 2, and 4), and specific to negative (but not neutral) images (Study 5). A sixth study addressed an explanation based on demand characteristics, showing that participants expected to feel more positive when having more than 1 option. The findings indicate that having strategic options for regulating negative emotions can sometimes be costly. (PsycINFO Database Record, ((c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).)

Emotional-intensity is a core characteristic of affective events that strongly determines how individuals choose to regulate their emotions. Our conceptual framework suggests that in high emotional-intensity situations, individuals prefer to disengage attention using distraction, which can more effectively block highly potent emotional information, as compared with engagement reappraisal, which is preferred in low emotional-intensity. However, existing supporting evidence remains indirect because prior intensity categorization of emotional stimuli was based on subjective measures that are potentially biased and only represent the endpoint of emotional-intensity processing. Accordingly, this study provides the first direct evidence for the role of online emotional-intensity processing in predicting behavioral regulatory-choices. Utilizing the high temporal resolution of event-related potentials, we evaluated online neural processing of stimuli's emotional-intensity (late positive potential, LPP) prior to regulatory-choices between distraction and reappraisal. Results showed that enhanced neural processing of intensity (enhanced LPP amplitudes) uniquely predicted (above subjective measures of intensity) increased tendency to subsequently choose distraction over reappraisal. Additionally, regulatory-choices led to adaptive consequences, demonstrated in finding that actual implementation of distraction relative to reappraisal-choice resulted in stronger attenuation of LPPs and self-reported arousal., (© The Author (2016). Published by Oxford University Press. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.)

Emotion dysregulation is a core feature of borderline personality disorder (BPD). So far, many studies have tested the consequences of the implementation of certain emotion regulation (ER) strategies, but there have been no investigations about ER choices in BPD. Thus, the aim of this study was to investigate habitual ER choices by self-report questionnaires and experimentally by testing the preference to select between distraction and reappraisal when facing different emotional intensities (high vs. low) and contents (borderline-specific vs. unspecific negative) in patients with BPD (n=24) compared with clinical controls (patients with major depression, n=19) and a healthy control group (n=32). Additionally, heart rate (HR) responses were continuously assessed. Main results revealed that both patient groups showed maladaptive self-reported ER choice profiles compared with HC. We found, however, no differences between the groups in the choice of distraction and reappraisal on the behavioral level and in HR responses. In BPD, within-group analyses revealed a positive correlation between symptom severity and the preference for distraction under high-intensity borderline-specific stimuli. Our findings provide preliminary evidence of ER choices in BPD and show the robustness of the choice effect in patients with affective disorders., (Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Does aging impact strategy choice with regard to regulating negative emotions? Based on the assumption that older adults are highly motivated to quickly defuse negative states, we predicted that older adults, relative to young adults, would show an increased preference for distraction (a cognitive disengagement strategy) over reappraisal (a cognitive engagement strategy) in the face of negative material. A stronger preference for distraction, in turn, should be associated with higher affective well-being at older ages, as it helps to avoid high physiological arousal. Young (19-28 years, n = 38) and older (65-75 years, n = 39) adults completed a laboratory task of emotion-regulation choice in which they viewed negative pictures of high and low intensity and chose between distraction and reappraisal to regulate their emotional response. Confirming predictions, age was associated with an increased preference to choose distraction over reappraisal. Among older but not young adults, the relative preference for distraction to reappraisal predicted higher state-affective well-being. In addition, across age groups, the preference for distraction over reappraisal was positively predicted by stimulus intensity and negatively by cognitive resources. Findings support the notion of an age-related shift toward disengagement strategies to regulate negative emotions, which maps onto older adults' prohedonic orientation and holds affective benefits., ((c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved).)

According to many theories of motivation and decision making, the principal driver of human behavior is the valuation of actions. Action value is computed as the difference between stimulus value (the benefits and costs inherent in the stimulus that is the target of the action) and action costs (the effort required to perform the action). In the present work, we propose that action costs are crucially influenced by the readiness to perform a given action. We define action readiness as the ease with which an action may be initiated given the preaction launch state of the individual. An action that has been frequently or recently performed or rehearsed has a high level of action readiness, whereas an action that has not been frequently or recently performed or rehearsed has a low level of action readiness. By our account, if action readiness levels are high for a given action, decreased action costs may result in action even when the stimulus value is relatively low. Conversely, if action readiness levels are low for a given action, even action costs that appear negligible can dominate positive stimulus values, resulting in seemingly puzzling instances of inaction. We develop and test these ideas in 3 studies across 233 participants using an image-viewing decision context and a logistic prediction model., ((c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved).)

Although emotional intensity powerfully challenges regulatory strategies, its influence remains largely unexplored in affective-neuroscience. Accordingly, the present study addressed the moderating role of emotional intensity in two regulatory stages--implementation (during regulation) and pre-implementation (prior to regulation), of two major cognitive regulatory strategies--distraction and reappraisal. According to our framework, because distraction implementation involves early attentional disengagement from emotional information before it gathers force, in high-intensity it should be more effective in the short-term, relative to reappraisal, which modulates emotional processing only at a late semantic meaning phase. Supporting findings showed that in high (but not low) intensity, distraction implementation resulted in stronger modulation of negative experience, reduced neural emotional processing (centro-parietal late positive potential, LPP), with suggestive evidence for less cognitive effort (frontal-LPP), relative to reappraisal. Related pre-implementation findings confirmed that anticipating regulation of high-intensity stimuli resulted in distraction (over reappraisal) preference. In contrast, anticipating regulation of low-intensity stimuli resulted in reappraisal (over distraction) preference, which is most beneficial for long-term adaptation. Furthermore, anticipating cognitively demanding regulation, either in cases of regulating counter to these preferences or via the more effortful strategy of reappraisal, enhanced neural attentional resource allocation (Stimulus Preceding Negativity). Broad implications are discussed., (© The Author (2015). Published by Oxford University Press. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.)

Individuals with bipolar disorder experience emotion regulation difficulties, even during remission, but are able to effectively employ emotion regulation strategies when instructed. We hypothesized that this puzzling discrepancy might be due to their maladaptive emotion regulation choices. To test this hypothesis, we used a previously validated paradigm (Sheppes, Scheibe, Suri, & Gross, 2011; Sheppes et al., 2014), and asked remitted individuals with bipolar I disorder (n = 25) and healthy individuals (n = 26) to view standardized positive and negative images of high and low intensity, and choose reappraisal or distraction to decrease their emotion intensity. Replicating and extending prior results, participants across both groups showed a pattern of choosing distraction more for high versus low intensity positive and negative images, but no between-groups differences were evident. These results suggest that emotion regulation choice patterns may be robust across samples, and add to growing evidence that several basic emotion regulation elements may remain intact in bipolar disorder., ((c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved).)

Emotional problems figure prominently in many clinical conditions. Recent efforts to explain and treat these conditions have emphasized the role of emotion dysregulation. However, emotional problems are not always the result of emotion dysregulation, and even when emotional problems do arise from emotion dysregulation, it is necessary to specify precisely what type of emotion dysregulation might be operative. In this review, we present an extended process model of emotion regulation, and we use this model to describe key points at which emotion-regulation difficulties can lead to various forms of psychopathology. These difficulties are associated with (a) identification of the need to regulate emotions, (b) selection among available regulatory options, (c) implementation of a selected regulatory tactic, and (d) monitoring of implemented emotion regulation across time. Implications and future directions for basic research, assessment, and intervention are discussed.

To encourage an increase in daily activity, researchers have tried a variety of health-related communications, but with mixed results. In the present research-using the stair escalator choice context-we examined predictions derived from the Heuristic Systematic Model (HSM), Self Determination Theory (SDT), and related theories. Specifically, we tested whether (as predicted by HSM) signs that encourage heuristic processing ("Take the Stairs") would have greatest impact when placed at the stair/escalator point of choice (when processing time is limited), whereas signs that encourage systematic processing ("Will You Take the Stairs?") would have greatest impact when placed at some distance from the point of choice (when processing time is less limited). We also tested whether (as predicted by SDT) messages promoting autonomy would be more likely to result in sustained motivated behavior (i.e., stair taking at subsequent uncued choice points) than messages that use commands. A series of studies involving more than 9,000 pedestrians provided support for these predictions., ((PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved).)

Although emotions and ideology are important factors guiding policy support in conflict, their interactive influence remains unclear. Based on prior findings that ideological leftists' beliefs are more susceptible to change than rightists' beliefs, we tested a somewhat counterintuitive extension that leftists would be more susceptible to influence by their emotional reactions than rightists. In three laboratory studies, inducing positive and negative emotions affected Jewish-Israeli leftists', but not rightists', support for conciliatory policies toward an adversarial (Studies 1 and 3) and a non-adversarial (Study 2) outgroup. Three additional field studies showed that positive and negative emotions were related to leftists', but not rightists', policy support in positive as well as highly negative conflict-related contexts, among both Jewish (Studies 4 and 5) and Palestinian (Study 6) citizens of Israel. Across different conflicts, emotions, conflict-related contexts, and even populations, leftists' policy support changed in accordance with emotional reactions more than rightists' policy support., (© 2014 by the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc.)