Acceptance versus reappraisal: Behavioral, autonomic, and neural effects

Abstract

Emotion regulation (ER) is an important skill for well-being. Cognitive reappraisal is a goal-oriented cognitive change strategy. Acceptance involves decentering from immediate habits of reactivity, observing moment-to-moment shifts in thoughts, emotions, and sensations. These two regulation strategies are thought to have different effects on emotion; however, no study has examined the differential effects of reappraisal and acceptance on behavioral, autonomic, and brain responses in the context of ideographic personally salient negative self-beliefs. Thirty-five right-handed, healthy adults were presented idiographic negative self-beliefs embedded in autobiographical scripts. We measured negative emotion ratings, autonomic psychophysiology, and functional magnetic resonance imaging blood oxygen-level dependent responses while participants read neutral statements, reacted to their own negative self-beliefs, and implemented reappraisal and acceptance strategies. Compared with react, reappraisal resulted in significantly lesser negative emotion and respiration rate; no differences in heart rate and skin conductance level; greater brain responses implicated in cognitive control, language, and social cognition; and lesser amygdala responses. Compared with react, acceptance resulted in significantly lesser negative emotion, respiration rate, and heart rate; no difference in skin conductance level; and greater brain responses in networks implicated in cognitive control and attention. Compared with acceptance, reappraisal resulted in significantly lesser negative emotion; no difference in respiration rate and skin conductance level; higher heart rate; greater brain responses in brain regions implicated in cognitive control; and lesser brain responses in amygdala. Reappraisal is more effective than acceptance in down-regulating negative emotion, but may require greater recruitment of autonomic, cognitive, and brain resources. ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT02036658

Psychophysiological Effects of Downregulating Negative Emotions: Insights From a Meta-Analysis of Healthy Adults

“…In contrast, we observed tremendous variation in the quantification of the autonomic indices. For example, studies on skin conductance level during reappraisal assessed baseline activity during a neutral condition that included the presentation of neutral stimuli (Wolgast et al, 2011;Lohani and Isaacowitz, 2014), right before stimulus onset (e.g., Shiota and Levenson, 2009), right before instruction (Opitz et al, 2014), after instruction , or reported no baseline assessment (Goldin et al, 2019). These studies then either subtracted mean activity of the respective baseline from mean activity during the regulation period (e.g., Shiota and Levenson, 2009;Opitz et al, 2014), calculated raw means (Goldin et al, 2019), or area under the curve .…”

“…When looking at individual psychophysiological measures, findings are mixed with respect to the effects of emotion regulation on autonomic physiology. Reappraisal instructions focusing on decreasing negative emotions compared to a control condition have been shown to have no effect on (Gross, 1998a;Kalisch et al, 2005;Goldin et al, 2019), increase (Sheppes et al, 2009;Lohani and Isaacowitz, 2014), or decrease ) skin conductance and to increase (Urry et al, 2006;van Reekum et al, 2007) or decrease (Bebko et al, 2011) pupil diameter. Contradictory patterns can also be found for suppression strategies.…”

Neurobiological models of emotion regulation: a meta-analysis of neuroimaging studies of acceptance as an emotion regulation strategy

“…It consists of a mental stance characterized by openness and a non-judgemental attitude towards on-going emotional experiences ( Grecucci et al. , 2015 ; Goldin et al. , 2019 ), without trying to control, change, suppress or avoid them.…”

Hippocampal Functional Connectivity Mediates the Impact of Acceptance on Posttraumatic Stress Symptom Severity

“…Clinically, acceptance involves decentering from immediate, habitual reactivity, observing moment-to-moment transitions in thoughts, sensations, and emotions (48). LOC is involved in object perception (49) and SPC serves functions related primarily to somatosensory system, or tactile perception (50).…”