Context-Dependent Emotion Regulation: Suppression and Reappraisal at the Burning Man Festival

Understanding the pathways linking patient-centered communication to cancer survivors' emotional health: examining the mediating roles of self-efficacy and cognitive reappraisal

PURPOSE

Many cancer survivors commonly face psychological health issues upon cancer diagnosis, both during and after treatment. Patient-centered communication can play an important role in improving health outcomes among cancer survivors across the cancer continuum. The current study examined the influence of patient-centered communication on self-efficacy in managing health, cognitive reappraisal, and emotional distress among cancer survivors.

METHODS

The analysis was conducted on a subsample of 809 cancer survivors acquired from a nationally representative 2019 Health Information National Trends Survey 5 (Cycle 3). Multivariate regression analysis was conducted to explore the pathways through which patient-centered communication can be associated with cancer survivors' emotional distress, mediated by self-efficacy and cognitive reappraisal.

RESULTS

The results indicated that effective patient-centered provider communication led to higher self-efficacy in managing health, greater involvement in cognitive reappraisal, and decreased emotional distress among cancer survivors. Additionally, the results revealed that the effect of patient-centered communication that led to decreased emotional distress was fully mediated through self-efficacy and cognitive reappraisal.

CONCLUSIONS

Although patient-centered communication positively relates to various emotional health outcomes among cancer survivors, it does not affect their emotional health directly. Self-efficacy and cognitive reappraisal play a crucial role in explaining the underlying mechanisms of such effects.

IMPLICATIONS FOR CANCER SURVIVORS

Future interventions to promote patient-centered communication in cancer care should give more emphasis to managing patients' emotions. Providers should not only recognize, elicit, and respond to patient's emotions, but also develop emotional regulation skills among patients, and improve their ability to cope with emotional distress.

Preschool teachers' psychological wellbeing, emotion regulation, and emotional responsiveness: a US-Korea comparison

Introduction

Psychological wellbeing is an essential indicator of early care and education (ECE) teachers' positive practices across countries. Moreover, previous studies suggest that teachers' wellbeing and practice may be indirectly associated via emotion regulation. However, teachers in various contexts demonstrate different patterns of psychological wellbeing, emotion regulation, and emotional responsiveness, and the ways these factors associate with each other also vary.

Methods

The current study investigates whether the indirect associations between ECE teachers' psychological wellbeing (i.e., emotional exhaustion, job-related competence, and personal stress) and their responsiveness toward children's emotions via emotion regulation (i.e., reappraisal and suppression) appear differently in two national contexts, the United States (US) and South Korea (SK). Multi-group path analysis was conducted to compare the mediation models between US teachers (n = 1,129) and SK teachers (n = 322).

Results

We found significant indirect associations among wellbeing, emotion regulation, and responsiveness in both countries. However, significant associations were more prominent among SK teachers, and the patterns of indirect associations had substantial cross-country differences. Furthermore, the roles of reappraisal and suppression emotion regulation found to be different among ECE teachers in SK and US.

Discussion

The cross-country variations in the associations among wellbeing, emotion regulation, and responsiveness suggest that differential policy efforts and intervention strategies are needed for ECE teachers in the US and SK.

The relationship between cognitive reserve and the spontaneous use of emotion regulation strategies in older adults: a cross-sectional study

BACKGROUND

Several studies reported cognitive reserve (CR) as an important factor in promoting healthy aging within a non-clinical aging population.

AIMS

The main goal of the present study is to investigate the link between higher levels of CR and more effective emotion regulation. In more detail, we examine the association between a number of CR proxies and the habitual use of two emotion regulation strategies, cognitive reappraisal and emotional suppression.

METHODS

Three hundred and ten older adults aged between 60 and 75 (mean = 64.45, SD = 4.37; 69.4% female) joined this cross-sectional study by filling out self-report measures of CR and emotion regulation.² RESULTS: Reappraisal and suppression use were correlated. Practicing different leisure activities constantly over many years, being more original and having a higher education promoted more frequent use of cognitive reappraisal. These CR proxies were also significantly related to suppression use, even though the percentage of variance explained was lower.

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS

Exploring the role played by the cognitive reserve on different emotion regulation techniques can be useful in understanding which variables predict the use of antecedent-focused (reappraisal) or response-focused (suppression) emotion regulation strategies in aging individuals.

Intensity of Chronic Low Back Pain and Activity Interference: A Daily Diary Study of the Moderating Role of Cognitive Pain Coping Strategies

OBJECTIVE

Chronic low back pain (CLBP) has a significant negative impact on daily functioning, particularly for those with challenges coping adaptively with ongoing pain. However, the dynamics of pain coping in daily life remain understudied. Therefore, we examined the extent to which pain intensity interferes with daily activities, and assessed whether pain coping strategies (as assessed using daily diaries) moderated this link.

METHOD

We analyzed diary data from a sample of 84 participants with CLBP who completed daily diaries for up to 30 days rating pain intensity, pain interference with daily activities, and their use of pain coping strategies, including pain rumination (i.e., repetitive thinking about the pain and its causes), reappraisal (i.e., evaluating one's pain less negatively or more positively), and distraction (i.e., diverting attention from the pain). We hypothesized that these coping strategies would moderate the associations between pain and pain interference with daily activities, although in different directions.

RESULTS

Results suggest that pain rumination strengthens the association between pain intensity and pain interference both on the person and day level, while pain reappraisal and distraction weaken this association, at the day and person levels, respectively.

CONCLUSION

Our findings suggest that those who are more preoccupied with their pain and those who are less likely to reappraise their pain have more pain interference with daily activities. These findings build on prior work on pain coping by using daily diaries and highlight two pain coping strategies that have particular relevance for reducing the impact of CLBP in daily life.

When and Where Do People Regulate Their Emotions? Patterns of Emotion Regulation in Unselected and Socially Anxious Young Adults

Introduction: The current studies examined how smartphone-assessed contextual features (i.e., location, time-of-day, social situation, and affect) contribute to the relative likelihood of emotion regulation strategy endorsement in daily life. Methods: Emotion regulation strategy endorsement and concurrent contextual features were assessed either passively (e.g., via GPS coordinates) or via self-report among unselected (Study 1: N = 112; duration = 2 weeks) and socially anxious (Study 2: N = 106; duration = 5 weeks) young adults. Results: An analysis of 2,891 (Study 1) and 12,289 (Study 2) mobile phone survey responses indicated small differences in rates of emotion regulation strategy endorsement across location (e.g., home vs. work/education settings), time-of-day (e.g., afternoon vs. evening), time-of-week (i.e., weekdays vs. weekends) and social context (e.g., with others vs. alone). However, emotion regulation patterns differed markedly depending on the set of emotion regulation strategies examined, which likely partly explains some inconsistent results across the studies. Also, many observed effects were no longer significant after accounting for state affect in the models. Discussion: Results demonstrate how contextual information collected with relatively low (or no) participant burden can add to our understanding of emotion regulation in daily life, yet it is important to consider state affect alongside other contextual features when drawing conclusions about how people regulate their emotions.

Emotion Regulation by Psychological Distance and Level of Abstraction: Two Meta-Analyses

Self-reflection is suggested to attenuate feelings, yet researchers disagree on whether adopting a distant or near perspective, or processing the experience abstractly or concretely, is more effective. Given the relationship between psychological distance and level of abstraction, we suggest the "construal-matching hypothesis": Psychological distance and abstraction differently influence emotion intensity, depending on whether the emotion's appraisal involves low-level or high-level construal. Two meta-analyses tested the effects of psychological distance (k = 230) and level-of-abstraction (k = 98) manipulations on emotional experience. A distant perspective attenuated emotional experience (g = 0.52) but with weaker effects for high-level (g = 0.29; for example, self-conscious emotions) than low-level emotions (g= 0.64; for example, basic emotions). Level of abstraction only attenuated the experience of low-level emotions (g = 0.2) and showed a reverse (nonsignificant) effect for high-level emotions (g = -0.13). These results highlight differences between distancing and level-of-abstraction manipulations and the importance of considering the type of emotion experienced in emotion regulation.

Emotion Regulation in Close Relationships: The Role of Individual Differences and Situational Context

A substantial amount of research has examined the role of individual differences in the regulation of emotion and the impact of emotion regulation on mental health; however, few studies have covered the role of situational context in the selection of emotion regulation strategies. In this paper, we investigate the extent to which an individual's choice of emotion regulation strategy is affected by factors such as emotional intelligence, the person with whom one is in conflict, situational sense of control, and the individual's aim in dealing with the conflict. A total of 300 participants (46.67% female) between the ages of 21 and 35 were recruited from the community (female's mean age = 28.14, SD = 4.49; male's mean age = 28.12, SD = 4.32). Participants filled out a set of questionnaires related to their emotion intelligence and emotion regulations they used in two interpersonal incidents with parents and partner. Structural equation modeling was used for data analyses. Results showed that positive correlation between emotional intelligence and cognitive reappraisal, in contrast to previous studies, a positive correlation between emotional intelligence and repression was found. Moreover, the person one is interacting with influences the degree to which one's sense of control impacts the choice of emotion regulation strategy. For example, in the event of conflict with one's parents, the degree of situational control has little impact on emotion regulation; however, in conflicts with spouses or partners, women have more situational control and are more likely to use cognitive reappraisal or suppression. Regarding the relationship between the goal of emotion regulation and the strategies used, this study found that they are moderated by gender and the persons involved; for example, when maintaining the relationship is the primary goal of emotion regulation, cognitive reappraisal is more likely the strategy of choice for men involved in a conflict with their partner and for women involved in a conflict with their parents. Overall, the results confirm that emotion regulation is affected by both individual and situational factors, indicating the importance of adopting a dynamic approach when investigating emotion regulation.

Acting against your own interests: The tension between emotion regulation preference and efficacy and its implications for individuals with depressive symptoms

The aim of this study was twofold: first, to compare individuals' strategy choices in low and high intensity conditions and the actual efficacy of these strategies; second, to assess whether and how perceived intensity levels of aversive situations moderate the relationship between depressive symptoms and a strategies' efficacy. In Experiment 1A (N = 58), we replicated previous results, showing that individuals prefer distraction in high- and reappraisal in low-intensity conditions, irrespective of depressive symptom levels. Experiment 1B (N = 50) assessed the efficacy of distraction and reappraisal strategies in aversive conditions with low and high intensity. Contrary to our prediction, reappraisal was more effective than distraction, independent of the intensity of the aversive conditions. In Experiment 2 (N = 113), we tested the interactive relationship between perceived intensity levels and depression on the relative effectiveness of reappraisal and distraction. We found that while in perceived low-intensity situations the advantage of distraction over reappraisal increased as depressive symptoms increased, no such relationship was found in high-intensity situations. The results suggest that while all individuals prefer to apply reappraisal in both low- and high-intensity conditions, for those with high level of depressive symptoms, such a preference acts against their own interests. The study highlights the need to distinguish between emotion regulation preferences and their actual efficacy, while illuminating possible implications for individuals with depressive symptoms.

Welcome to Wonderland? A Population Study of Intimate Experiences and Safe Sex at a Transformational Mass Gathering (Burning Man)

Transformational festivals are socially immersive artistic mass gatherings that are said to promote a strong feeling of belonging and experiences of personal transformation. The purposes of the present study were (1) to investigate the social and intimate experiences of Burning Man participants and (2) to study the factors predicting safe sex practices in the context of that transformational festival. The study was based on data from two consecutive cycles (2013 and 2014) of the yearly post-event online survey done in collaboration with the Burning Man Project. Participants consisted of people who attended the event (N = 19,512). The results were weighted based on the sociodemographic characteristics of the population. A typology of social and intimate experiences was created using a k-means cluster analysis. Predictors of having had unprotected sex with someone met during the event were identified using a nested logistic regression. Five profiles of social and intimate experiences were identified. Profiles with high levels of emotionally and physically intimate experiences were associated with a strong feeling of belonging and a high proportion of personal transformation. Predictive analyses showed that unprotected sex was mainly predicted by variables associated with one of three factors: (1) a lower lever of preparation and practice in using protection, (2) sex education and/or subcultures, and (3) the perceived costs and benefits associated with protection. The results also indirectly suggest a positive effect of the event on safe sex. Implications in terms of public health intervention are discussed.

The Mediating Role of Implicit and Explicit Emotion Regulation in the Relationship Between Academic Emotions and Approaches to Learning: Do Defense Styles Matter?

The present study belongs to a new strand of research in learning in higher education focusing on emotions and emotion regulation, including defense mechanisms. The purpose of the study was to investigate the mediating role of implicit and explicit emotion regulation in the relationship between academic emotions and approaches to learning. Participants were composed of 226 undergraduates (40 males and 186 females studying in a social science department). They completed the following questionnaires: Emotion Regulation Questionnaire, Student Experience of Emotions Inventory, Defense Style Questionnaire, and Approaches to Learning and Studying Inventory. Both the moderating (interaction) and the mediational (indirect) effects were examined using the PROCESS program. Results failed to indicate the moderating role of emotion regulation in the association between academic emotions and approaches to learning. Instead, results revealed the dominant mediating role of emotion regulation and particularly the role of immature defense style in the relationship between negative emotions and approaches to learning. Moreover, reappraisal and suppression seemed to act as mediators in the relationship between positive and negative emotions with deep and surface approaches, respectively. The results of the study are discussed in the context of the recent literature. Implications for higher-education institutions regarding the role of unconscious cognitive processes are also discussed.

Flexible Emotion Regulation: How Situational Demands and Individual Differences Influence the Effectiveness of Regulatory Strategies

The number of studies and theoretical contributions on emotion regulation has grown rapidly. In this article we describe the concept of flexible emotion regulation. We argue that the effectiveness of specific emotion regulation strategies depends on the interaction of the features of a situation and personality characteristics of the individual regulating his/her emotions. We review a few recent theoretical contributions and studies that have attempted to capture some aspects of the flexibility of emotion regulation rather than distinguish between overly adaptive and maladaptive strategies. Moreover, we discuss potential personality determinants of effectiveness of particular regulatory strategies. We claim that further studies should address the interaction of situational and dispositional factors in shaping the effectiveness of particular emotion regulation strategies. So far, situational and personality determinants have been studied rather separately.

Contextual factors influence the selection of specific and broad types of emotion regulation strategies

An emerging focus in the emotion regulation (ER) literature is to consider the importance of context for people's ER strategy choice, given that ER responses that adapt to situational demands have been found to be highly beneficial. However, it remains unclear what (and in what way) contextual factors impact people's ER strategy selections. Also, only a limited number of ER strategies have been extensively studied and little is known about people's selection of broad ER strategy categories (we focus on covert vs. overt ER strategies based on Aldao & Dixon-Gordon's [2014] conceptualization). In the current study, 203 participants were recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk to imagine experiencing either positive or negative emotion in various contextual settings (location: home, social, vs. professional setting × social context: alone vs. with others) and to identify from 16 ER strategies the ones that they would in general deem applicable for each context. Results showed that the aforementioned factors, in various ways, uniquely or interactively predicted the selection of specific and broad ER strategies. Furthermore, personality (neuroticism and extraversion) also influenced participants' ER strategy selection. Overall, this study underscores the importance of including diverse strategies and considering context in the study of ER strategy choices.

Emotion Regulation of Events Central to Identity and Their Relationship With Concurrent and Prospective Depressive Symptoms

Dispositional emotion regulation is related to the severity and maintenance of depressive symptoms. However, whether emotion regulation specific to an event highly central for an individual's identity is predictive of depressive symptoms has not been examined. Nonclinical participants (N = 220) reported the extent to which they employed a selection of emotion regulation strategies when recalling low- and high-centrality events. Dispositional emotion regulation and depressive symptoms were also assessed. A 7-week follow-up was conducted. High-centrality events were associated with more emotion regulation efforts. Greater brooding and expressive suppression in relation to high-centrality memories predicted concurrent depressive symptoms after controlling for event valence and dispostional emotion regulation. Effects were absent for low-centrality memories. Emotion regulation in response to high-centrality memories did not predict depressive symptoms at follow-up beyond baseline depressive symptoms. Overall, the findings showed that maladaptive emotion regulation in response to memories of high-centrality events is important for explaining depressive symptomatology.

Distraction and Expressive Suppression Strategies in Regulation of High- and Low-Intensity Negative Emotions

The current study compared the effectiveness of distraction, an antecedent-focused strategy that involves diverting an individual’s attention away from affective terms, and expressive suppression, a response-focused strategy that involves inhibiting conscious emotion-expressive behavior during an emotionally aroused state, in the regulation of high- and low-intensity unpleasant stimuli, using event-related potentials (ERPs). Sixteen participants completed an emotion regulation experiment in which they passively viewed high- or low-intensity unpleasant images (view), solved a mathematical equation presented on high- or low-intensity negative images (distraction), or suppressed their emotional expression in response to high- or low-intensity unpleasant images (suppression). Their negative experiences after implementation of these strategies were rated by participants on a 1–9 scale. We mainly found that compared with expressive suppression, distraction yielded greater attenuation of the early phase of centro-parietal LPP when the participants responded to high-intensity stimuli. In the low-intensity condition, distraction, but not expressive suppression, effectively decreased the early phase of LPP. The findings suggest that expressive suppression works as early as distraction in the high-intensity condition; more importantly, distraction is superior to expressive suppression in regulating negative emotion, which is influenced by emotional intensity.

Individual Differences in Cognitive Reappraisal Predict Emotional Experience Prior to Achievement Situations

Abstract. In the present study, we examined whether individual differences in the use of cognitive reappraisal predict the experience of more positive and less negative emotions prior to an evaluative task, as well as whether reappraisal is associated with better performance. In a longitudinal design, 130 students were asked to report their spontaneous use of reappraisal as well as the emotions experienced at three time points prior to an academic exam. Results showed that the use of cognitive reappraisal measured when students began to study predicted less negative and more positive emotions in the following two weeks. Further, positive and negative affect were significant predictors of the grade achieved. Finally, cognitive reappraisal had a significant indirect effect on the grade students achieved. These findings suggest that cognitive reappraisal can be effective in regulating emotions while approaching evaluative stressors.

Emotion regulation strategy selection in daily life: The role of social context and goals

Recent studies have begun to document the diversity of ways people regulate their emotions. However, one unanswered question is why people regulate their emotions as they do in everyday life. In the present research, we examined how social context and goals influence strategy selection in daily high points and low points. As expected, suppression was particularly tied to social features of context: it was used more when others were present, especially non-close partners, and when people had instrumental goals, especially more interpersonal ones (e.g., avoid conflict). Distraction and reappraisal were used more when regulating for hedonic reasons (e.g., to feel better), but these strategies were also linked to certain instrumental goals (e.g., getting work done). When contra-hedonic regulation occurred, it primarily took the form of dampening positive emotion during high points. Suppression was more likely to be used for contra-hedonic regulation, whereas reappraisal and distraction were used more for pro-hedonic regulation. Overall, these findings highlight the social nature of emotion regulation and underscore the importance of examining regulation in both positive and negative contexts.

Self-Construals, Anger Regulation, and Life Satisfaction in the United States and Japan

Previous studies have reported evidence that indicates differences between Western and East Asian cultures in anger regulation and its psychological consequences. However, many of these studies have focused on a specific anger regulation strategy and its relation with a psychological consequence. Here, we developed an integrated model that can comprehensively examine three different anger regulation strategies (anger suppression, expression, and control), independent and interdependent self-construals as the psychological antecedent, and life satisfaction as the psychological consequence. We estimated the model using large samples of American and Japanese adults to examine the associations between the two self-construals, three anger regulation strategies, and life satisfaction. We compared the difference in the patterns of relationships among the key constructs between the American and Japanese samples. The results confirmed previously suggested cultural differences while also discovering new culturally different paths. The results generally suggest that individual-level self-construals matter more when anger is a culturally condoned emotion (vs. condemned). The implications and limitations of the integrated model are discussed.

Regulatory skill as a resilience factor for adults with a history of foster care: a pilot study

Individuals with a history of foster care (FC) are at elevated risk for emotion regulation-related mental illness. The purpose of the current study was to characterize regulatory function in a group of adults with a history of FC (N = 26) relative to those without a history of FC (N = 27) and how regulatory function moderates adverse caregiving-related outcomes (daily cortisol production and trait anxiety). Self-report items (anxiety, emotion regulation strategies, inhibitory control, caregiving history) were collected along with more objective measures (computerized task and salivary cortisol). Inhibitory control was assessed via self-report and a computerized task (emotional face go/nogo). Results showed that for adults with a history of FC, higher levels of inhibitory control were associated with higher accuracy on the emotional face go/nogo task and greater reported use of the emotion regulation strategy cognitive reappraisal. Greater use of cognitive reappraisal in turn was associated with healthier stress-related outcomes (decreased trait anxiety and steeper sloped cortisol production throughout the day). Dose-response associations were observed between self-reported regulatory skills and FC experiences (i.e., number of placements and age when exited foster care). These findings suggest that adverse caregiving can have long-term influences on mental health that extend into adulthood; however, individual differences in regulatory skills moderate these outcomes and may be an important target for intervention following caregiving adversity.

Emotionsregulation: Überblick und kritische Reflexion des aktuellen Forschungsstandes

Die Forschung zum Thema Emotionsregulation erfreut sich auch im Bereich der Klinischen Psychologie einer zunehmenden Beliebtheit. Allerdings stellt sich die Frage, inwieweit die Popularität des Konstrukts im Einklang mit dessen Validität und tatsächlicher heuristischer Fruchtbarkeit steht. Vor diesem Hintergrund ist es Ziel der vorliegenden Arbeit, einen aktuellen Überblick über Konzeptualisierungen, Erfassungsmethoden, Befunde zum Zusammenhang mit psychischen Störungen sowie Möglichkeiten der therapeutischen Nutzung des Konzeptes Emotionsregulation zu geben. Aufbauend auf einer kritischen Reflexion bisheriger Konzepte, Vorgehensweisen und Befunde werden Vorschläge gemacht, wie die Validität und die heuristische Fruchtbarkeit des Emotionsregulationsparadigmas weiter gefördert werden können.

Positive emotion regulation in emotional disorders: a theoretical review

Conceptualizations of emotion regulation have led to the identification of cognitive and behavioral regulatory abnormalities that contribute to the development and maintenance of emotional disorders. However, existing research on emotion regulation in anxiety and mood disorders has primarily focused on the regulation of negative emotions rather than positive emotions. Recent findings indicate that disturbances in positive emotion regulation occur across emotional disorders, and may be a generative target for treatment research. The aims of this paper are to: 1. Present a transdiagnostic model of positive emotion disturbances in emotional disorders; 2. Review evidence for disturbances in positive emotion regulation in emotional disorders across categories of emotion regulation; and 3. Propose treatment strategies that may address these disturbances.

The presence of a culturally similar or dissimilar social partner affects neural responses to emotional stimuli

Background

Emotional responding is sensitive to social context; however, little emphasis has been placed on the mechanisms by which social context effects changes in emotional responding.

Objective

We aimed to investigate the effects of social context on neural responses to emotional stimuli to inform on the mechanisms underpinning context-linked changes in emotional responding.

Design

We measured event-related potential (ERP) components known to index specific emotion processes and self-reports of explicit emotion regulation strategies and emotional arousal. Female Chinese university students observed positive, negative, and neutral photographs, whilst alone or accompanied by a culturally similar (Chinese) or dissimilar researcher (British).

Results

There was a reduction in the positive versus neutral differential N1 amplitude (indexing attentional capture by positive stimuli) in the dissimilar relative to alone context. In this context, there was also a corresponding increase in amplitude of a frontal late positive potential (LPP) component (indexing engagement of cognitive control resources). In the similar relative to alone context, these effects on differential N1 and frontal LPP amplitudes were less pronounced, but there was an additional decrease in the amplitude of a parietal LPP component (indexing motivational relevance) in response to positive stimuli. In response to negative stimuli, the differential N1 component was increased in the similar relative to dissimilar and alone (trend) context.

Conclusion

These data suggest that neural processes engaged in response to emotional stimuli are modulated by social context. Possible mechanisms for the social-context-linked changes in attentional capture by emotional stimuli include a context-directed modulation of the focus of attention, or an altered interpretation of the emotional stimuli based on additional information proportioned by the context.