Look before you regulate: Differential perceptual strategies underlying expressive suppression and cognitive reappraisal.

Successful emotion regulation is important for maintaining psychological well-being. Although it is known that emotion regulation strategies, such as cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression, may have divergent consequences for emotional responses, the cognitive processes underlying these differences remain unclear. Here we used eye-tracking to investigate the role of attentional deployment in emotion regulation success. We hypothesized that differences in the deployment of attention to emotional areas of complex visual scenes may be a contributing factor to the differential effects of these two strategies on emotional experience. Eye-movements, pupil size, and self-reported negative emotional experience were measured while healthy young adult participants viewed negative IAPS images and regulated their emotional responses using either cognitive reappraisal or expressive suppression. Consistent with prior work, reappraisers reported feeling significantly less negative than suppressers when regulating emotion as compared to a baseline condition. Across both groups, participants looked away from emotional areas during emotion regulation, an effect that was more pronounced for suppressers. Critically, irrespective of emotion regulation strategy, participants who looked toward emotional areas of a complex visual scene were more likely to experience emotion regulation success. Taken together, these results demonstrate that attentional deployment varies across emotion regulation strategies and that successful emotion regulation depends on the extent to which people look toward emotional content in complex visual scenes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of aging on experimentally instructed detached reappraisal, positive reappraisal, and emotional behavior suppression.

Emotion regulation includes multiple strategies that rely on different underlying abilities and that may be affected differently by aging. We assessed young, middle-aged, and older adults’ ability to implement 3 emotion regulation strategies (detached reappraisal, positive reappraisal, and behavior suppression) in a laboratory setting, using standardized emotional stimuli and a multimethod approach to assessing regulation success. Results revealed age-related decline in ability to implement detached reappraisal, enhancement of ability to implement positive reappraisal, and maintenance of ability to implement behavior suppression. We discuss these findings in terms of their implications for emotion theory and for promoting successful aging. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Individual differences in two emotion regulation processes: Implications for affect, relationships, and well-being.

Five studies tested two general hypotheses: Individuals differ in their use of emotion regulation strategies such as reappraisal and suppression, and these individual differences have implications for affect, well-being, and social relationships. Study 1 presents new measures of the habitual use of reappraisal and suppression. Study 2 examines convergent and discriminant validity. Study 3 shows that reappraisers experience and express greater positive emotion and lesser negative emotion, whereas suppressors experience and express lesser positive emotion, yet experience greater negative emotion. Study 4 indicates that using reappraisal is associated with better interpersonal functioning, whereas using suppression is associated with worse interpersonal functioning. Study 5 shows that using reappraisal is related positively to well-being, whereas using suppression is related negatively. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Emotion regulation and memory: The cognitive costs of keeping one's cool.

An emerging literature has begun to document the affective consequences of emotion regulation. Little is known, however, about whether emotion regulation also has cognitive consequences. A process model of emotion suggests that expressive suppression should reduce memory for emotional events but that reappraisal should not. Three studies tested this hypothesis. Study 1 experimentally manipulated expressive suppression during film viewing, showing that suppression led to poorer memory for the details of the film. Study 2 manipulated expressive suppression and reappraisal during slide viewing. Only suppression led to poorer slide memory. Study 3 examined individual differences in typical expressive suppression and reappraisal and found that suppression was associated with poorer self-reported and objective memory but that reappraisal was not. Together, these studies suggest that the cognitive costs of keeping one's cool may vary according to how this is done. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The costs and benefits of writing, talking, and thinking about life's triumphs and defeats.

Three studies considered the consequences of writing, talking, and thinking about significant events. In Studies 1 and 2, students wrote, talked into a tape recorder, or thought privately about their worst (N = 96) or happiest experience (N = 111) for 15 min each during 3 consecutive days. In Study 3 (N = 112), students wrote or thought about their happiest day; half systematically analyzed, and half repetitively replayed this day. Well-being and health measures were administered before each study's manipulation and 4 weeks after. As predicted, in Study 1, participants who processed a negative experience through writing or talking reported improved life satisfaction and enhanced mental and physical health relative to those who thought about it. The reverse effect for life satisfaction was observed in Study 2, which focused on positive experiences. Study 3 examined possible mechanisms underlying these effects. Students who wrote about their happiest moments--especially when analyzing them--experienced reduced well-being and physical health relative to those who replayed these moments. Results are discussed in light of current understanding of the effects of processing life events. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The Emotional Integration of Childhood Experience: Physiological, Facial Expressive, and Self-Reported Emotional Response During the Adult Attachment Interview.

Attachment researchers claim that individual differences in how adults talk about their early memories reflect qualitatively distinct organizations of emotion regarding childhood experiences with caregivers. Testing this assumption, the present study examined the relationship between attachment dimensions and physiological, facial expressive, as well as self-reported emotional responses during the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI). Consistent with theoretical predictions, more prototypically secure adults behaviorally expressed and reported experiencing emotion consistent with the valence of the childhood events they described. Insecure adults also showed distinctive and theoretically anticipated forms of emotional response: Dismissing participants evidenced increased electrodermal activity during the interview, a sign of emotional suppression, whereas preoccupied adults showed reliable discrepancies between the valence of their inferred childhood experiences and their facial expressive as well as reported emotion during the AAI. Results substantiate a case that the AAI reflects individual differences in emotion regulation that conceptually parallel observations of attachment relationships in infancy. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Increasing emotional competence improves psychological and physical well-being, social relationships, and employability.

This study builds on earlier work showing that adult emotional competencies (EC) could be improved through a relatively brief training. In a set of 2 controlled experimental studies, the authors investigated whether developing EC could lead to improved emotional functioning; long-term personality changes; and important positive implications for physical, psychological, social, and work adjustment. Results of Study 1 showed that 18 hr of training with e-mail follow-up was sufficient to significantly improve emotion regulation, emotion understanding, and overall EC. These changes led in turn to long-term significant increases in extraversion and agreeableness as well as a decrease in neuroticism. Results of Study 2 showed that the development of EC brought about positive changes in psychological well-being, subjective health, quality of social relationships, and employability. The effect sizes were sufficiently large for the changes to be considered as meaningful in people's lives. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Service with a smile: Do emotional intelligence, gender, and autonomy moderate the emotional labor process?

This survey study of 176 participants from eight customer service organizations investigated how individual factors moderate the impact of emotional labor strategies on employee well-being. Hierarchical regression analyses indicated that gender and autonomy were significant moderators of the relationships between emotional labor strategies and the personal outcomes of emotional exhaustion, affective well-being, and job satisfaction. Females were more likely to experience negative consequences when engaging in surface acting. Autonomy served to alleviate negative outcomes for individuals who used emotional labor strategies often. Contrary to our hypotheses, emotional intelligence did not moderate the relationship between the emotional labor strategies and personal outcomes. Results demonstrated how the emotional labor process can influence employee well-being. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Mapping the domain of expressivity: Multimethod evidence for a hierarchical model.

Increased interest in emotional expressivity has led to a proliferation of conceptions and measures. It is unclear, however, whether they all refer to the same construct and whether the domain of emotional expressivity is best conceptualized as unidimensional or multifaceted. Study 1 examined 6 common expressivity questionnaires, yielding 5 factors: Expressive Confidence, Positive Expressivity, Negative Expressivity, Impulse Intensity, and Masking. To develop a nomological network for these factors, the factors were related to broader personality taxonomies and their differential relations to sex and ethnicity were tested. Study 2 provided further evidence of discriminant validity in relation to (a) typical emotion expression in peer relationships, (b ) ability to pose emotions in the laboratory (c) likability, and (d) regulation of emotion and mood. These findings support a hierarchical model of individual differences in emotional expressivity. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Implicit theories of emotion: Affective and social outcomes across a major life transition.

The authors demonstrate that people differ systematically in their implicit theories of emotion: Some view emotions as fixed (entity theorists), whereas others view emotions as more malleable (incremental theorists). Using a longitudinal and multimethod design, the authors show that implicit theories of emotion, as distinct from intelligence, are linked to both emotional and social adjustment during the transition to college. Before entering college, individuals who held entity (vs. incremental) theories of emotion had lower emotion regulation self-efficacy and made less use of cognitive reappraisal (Part 1). Throughout their first academic term, entity theorists of emotion had less favorable emotion experiences and received decreasing social support from their new friends, as evidenced by weekly diaries (Part 2). By the end of freshman year, entity theorists of emotion had lower well-being, greater depressive symptoms, and lower social adjustment as indicated in both self- and peer-reports (Part 3). The emotional, but not the social, outcomes were partially mediated by individual differences in emotion regulation self-efficacy (Part 4). Together, these studies demonstrate that implicit theories of emotion can have important long-term implications for socioemotional functioning. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Complicated grief and deficits in emotional expressive flexibility.

There is growing evidence that deficits in emotion regulation may be at the heart of maladaptive reactions after bereavement. Expressive flexibility, or the ability to flexibly enhance or suppress emotional expression, appears to be especially important for adjustment in the aftermath of highly aversive events (Bonanno, Papa, Lalande, Westphal, & Coifman, 2004). In this study, we compared expressive flexibility in a sample of bereaved adults who lost their spouse 1.5–3 years earlier and a comparable sample of married adults. Approximately half of the bereaved adults had Complicated Grief (CG) and half were asymptomatic. Using a within-subjects design, we asked all participants to either enhance or suppress their expressions of emotion or to behave normally while viewing evocative pictures at a computer screen. Observer ratings of expressiveness made blind to condition showed no group differences in overall emotion. However, bereaved adults suffering from CG exhibited deficits in expressive flexibility. Specifically, the CG group was less able to enhance and less able to suppress emotional expression relative to asymptomatic bereaved and married adults. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Emotional suppression: Physiology, self-report, and expressive behavior.

Examined the effects of emotional suppression, a form of emotion regulation defined as the conscious inhibition of emotional expressive behavior while emotionally aroused. Ss (43 men and 42 women) watched a short disgust-eliciting film while their behavioral, physiological, and subjective responses were recorded. Ss were told to watch the film (no suppression conditions) or to watch the film while behaving "in such a way that a person watching you would not know you were feeling anything" (suppression condition). Suppression reduced expressive behavior and produced a mixed physiological state characterized by decreased somatic activity and decreased heart rate, along with increased blinking and indications of increased sympathetic nervous system activity (in other cardiovascular measures and in electrodermal responding). Suppression had no impact on the subjective experience of emotion. There were no sex differences in the effects of suppression. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Sex differences in emotion: Expression, experience, and physiology.

Although previous studies of emotional responding have found that women are more emotionally expressive than men, it remains unclear whether men and women differ in other domains of emotional response. We assessed the expressive, experiential, and physiological emotional responses of men and women in 2 studies. In Study 1, undergraduates viewed emotional films. Compared with men, women were more expressive, did not differ in reports of experienced emotion, and demonstrated different patterns of skin conductance responding. In Study 2, undergraduate men and women viewed emotional films and completed self-report scales of expressivity, gender role characteristics, and family expressiveness. Results replicated those from Study 1, and gender role characteristics and family expressiveness moderated the relationship between sex and expressivity. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

To whom do people turn when things go poorly? Task orientation and functional social contacts.

Using experience-sampling data the authors examined distinct benefits and uses of social support. As expected, emotional support buffered negative psychological states, and informational support appeared to facilitate mastery-related states, among individuals who had previously reported low well-being. An examination of social pursuits revealed that these distinct kinds of support were sought by individuals who were especially likely to need them. Participants focused on outcomes in their social lives, and therefore especially likely to be emotionally distressed when social pursuits go poorly, responded to poor social well-being by spending time with emotional supporters. Participants focused on improvement in their social lives responded to poor social well-being by spending time with others who could provide information to facilitate self-improvement—people who personified their self-ideals. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Hiding feelings: The acute effects of inhibiting negative and positive emotion.

Emotion regulation plays a central role in mental health and illness, but little is known about even the most basic forms of emotion regulation. To examine the acute effects of inhibiting negative and positive emotion, we asked 180 female participants to watch sad, neutral, and amusing films under 1 of 2 conditions. Suppression participants (N?=?90) inhibited their expressive behavior while watching the films; no suppression participants (N?=?90) simply watched the films. Suppression diminished expressive behavior in all 3 films and decreased amusement self-reports in sad and amusing films. Physiologically, suppression had no effect in the neutral film, but clear effects in both negative and positive emotional films, including increased sympathetic activation of the cardiovascular system. On the basis of these findings, we suggest several ways emotional inhibition may influence psychological functioning. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Emotional salience, emotional awareness, peculiar beliefs, and magical thinking.

Two studies with college student participants (Ns = 271 and 185) tested whether peculiar beliefs and magical thinking were associated with (a) the emotional salience of the stimuli about which individuals may have peculiar beliefs or magical thinking, (b) attention to emotion, and (c) clarity of emotion. Study 1 examined belief that a baseball team was cursed. Study 2 measured magical thinking using a procedure developed by P. Rozin and C. Nemeroff (2002). In both studies, peculiar beliefs and magical thinking were associated with Salience × Attention × Clarity interactions. Among individuals for whom the objects of the belief–magical thinking were highly emotionally salient and who had high levels of attention to emotion, higher levels of emotional clarity were associated with increased peculiar beliefs–magical thinking. In contrast, among individuals for whom the objects of the belief–magical thinking were not emotionally salient and who had high levels of attention to emotion, higher levels of emotional clarity were associated with diminished peculiar beliefs–magical thinking. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Don't hide your happiness! Positive emotion dissociation, social connectedness, and psychological functioning.

It is now clear that positive emotion leads to enhanced psychological functioning. What is less clear, however, is just why this is so. Drawing on a social-functional perspective, we argue that positive emotional behavior that accurately signals to others the individual's internal state will enhance social connectedness. Positive emotional behavior that does not accurately signal a person's experience—such as a smile that is not felt—may impede social connectedness and, in turn, psychological functioning. This perspective suggests that (a) the degree to which experience and behavior are dissociated during positive emotional episodes, over and above level of positive behavior, should predict worse psychological functioning and (b) the effect of dissociation should be mediated by social connectedness. To test these hypotheses, we conducted a short-term prospective longitudinal study, with a baseline assessment of depressive symptoms and well-being at Time 1. Six months later, at Time 2, we used a novel within-individual laboratory paradigm to measure the degree to which positive emotional behavior was dissociated from (vs. coherent with) a participant's positive emotional experience. We also assessed level of positive behavior and experience. Then, another 6 months later, we assessed social connectedness as a mediator and depressive symptoms and well-being as outcomes at Time 3. Even when controlling for baseline functioning and for level of positive emotion behavior and experience, we found that greater positive experience–behavior dissociation at Time 2 predicted higher levels of depressive symptoms and lower levels of well-being at Time 3. As predicted, these associations were mediated by social connectedness. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Development and Validation of a Measure of Display Rule Knowledge: The Display Rule Assessment Inventory.

As one component of emotion regulation, display rules, which reflect the regulation of expressive behavior, have been the topic of many studies. Despite their theoretical and empirical importance, however, to date there is no measure of display rules that assesses a full range of behavioral responses that are theoretically possible when emotion is elicited. This article reports the development of a new measure of display rules that surveys 5 expressive modes: expression, deamplification, amplification, qualification, and masking. Two studies provide evidence for its internal and temporal reliability and for its content, convergent, discriminant, external, and concurrent predictive validity. Additionally, Study 1, involving American, Russian, and Japanese participants, demonstrated predictable cultural differences on each of the expressive modes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Strength and vulnerability integration: A model of emotional well-being across adulthood.

The following article presents the theoretical model of strength and vulnerability integration (SAVI) to explain factors that influence emotion regulation and emotional well-being across adulthood. The model posits that trajectories of adult development are marked by age-related enhancement in the use of strategies that serve to avoid or limit exposure to negative stimuli but by age-related vulnerabilities in situations that elicit high levels of sustained emotional arousal. When older adults avoid or reduce exposure to emotional distress, they often respond better than younger adults; when they experience high levels of sustained emotional arousal, however, age-related advantages in emotional well-being are attenuated, and older adults are hypothesized to have greater difficulties returning to homeostasis. SAVI provides a testable model to understand the literature on emotion and aging and to predict trajectories of emotional experience across the adult life span. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Metacognitive emotion regulation: Children's awareness that changing thoughts and goals can alleviate negative emotions.

Metacognitive emotion regulation strategies involve deliberately changing thoughts or goals to alleviate negative emotions. Adults commonly engage in this type of emotion regulation, but little is known about the developmental roots of this ability. Two studies were designed to assess whether 5- and 6-year-old children can generate such strategies and, if so, the types of metacognitive strategies they use. In Study 1, children described how story protagonists could alleviate negative emotions. In Study 2, children recalled times that they personally had felt sad, angry, and scared and described how they had regulated their emotions. In contrast to research suggesting that young children cannot use metacognitive regulation strategies, the majority of children in both studies described such strategies. Children were surprisingly sophisticated in their suggestions for how to cope with negative emotions and tailored their regulatory responses to specific emotional situations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)