1. Turning off hot feelings: Down-regulation of sexual desire using distraction and situation-focused reappraisal.
- Author
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Shafir R, Zucker L, and Sheppes G
- Subjects
- Adult, Analysis of Variance, Down-Regulation, Electroencephalography, Emotions physiology, Female, Humans, Male, Pilot Projects, Self Report, Young Adult, Attention, Evoked Potentials physiology, Libido
- Abstract
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 (pā=ā.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.)
- Published
- 2018
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