Antecedent- and response-focused emotion regulation: Divergent consequences for experience, expression, and physiology.

Abstract

Using a process model of emotion, a distinction between antecedent-focused and response-focused emotion regulation is proposed. To test this distinction, 120 participants were shown a disgusting film while their experiential, behavioral, and physiological responses were recorded. Participants were told to either (a) think about the film in such a way that they would feel nothing (reappraisal, a form of antecedent-focused emotion regulation), (b) behave in such a way that someone watching them would not know they were feeling anything (suppression, a form of response-focused emotion regulation), or (c) watch the film (a control condition), Compared with the control condition, both reappraisal and suppression were effective in reducing emotion-expressive behavior. However, reappraisal decreased disgust experience, whereas suppression increased sympathetic activation. These results suggest that these 2 emotion regulatory processes may have different adaptive consequences.

Cardiovascular costs of emotion suppression cross ethnic lines

“…Although some previous research has found suppression to be associated with electrodermal increases (e.g., Gross & Levenson, 1997), our lack of findings may be attributable in part to the fact that our sample included a relatively sizeable proportion of African Americans and other individuals with dark skin tones, who often show lower levels of electrodermal activation in laboratory provocations of emotion (Brown, Bradley, & Lang, 2006). Suppression also was not associated with changes in selfreported disgust experience, consistent with previous findings that suppressing emotional facial behavior does not reduce negative emotional experience (Demaree, et al, 2006;Gross, 1998;Gross & Levenson, 1993. Importantly, none of these effects were moderated by participant ethnicity.…”

“…Based on previous findings that Asian Americans, African Americans, and Latino Americans report using suppression more than European Americans (Gross & John, 2003), we hypothesized that African Americans, Chinese Americans, and Mexican Americans would be more successful than European Americans at suppressing emotional facial behavior (i.e., expressions of disgust) and would incur less attendant physiological cost (i.e., smaller increases in sympathetic activation). Suppression has not affected negative emotional experience in previous studies (Demaree, et al, 2006;Gross, 1998;Gross & Levenson, 1993, and we expected this to be true regardless of ethnicity.…”

“…Based on findings from previous research (Demaree, et al, 2006;Gross, 1998;Gross & Levenson, 1993, we expected that relative to no-suppression participants, participants in the suppression condition would show decreases in expressive behavior, increases in sympathetic activation of the cardiovascular system, and no change in subjective emotional experience. Based on previous findings that Asian Americans, African Americans, and Latino Americans report using suppression more than European Americans (Gross & John, 2003), we hypothesized that African Americans, Chinese Americans, and Mexican Americans would be more successful than European Americans at suppressing emotional facial behavior (i.e., expressions of disgust) and would incur less attendant physiological cost (i.e., smaller increases in sympathetic activation).…”

The benefits of simply observing: Mindful attention modulates the link between motivation and behavior.

“…Similarly, nothing is said to participants about changing their responses, or changing the subjective meaning of the stimuli (i.e., participants are not instructed to apply reappraisal or reconstruct the reward stimulus; Gross, 1998;Metcalfe & Mischel, 1999). Importantly, participants are not distracted from their reward thoughts (Van Dillen, Papies, & Hofmann, 2013), but on the contrary, are made aware of them, and are then instructed to observe them as mental events.…”

“…Rather than trying to suppress or change the mental experience to achieve a certain state, as in emotion regulation (e.g., suppression, reappraisal; Gross, 1998), mindful attention simply involves becoming aware of one's thoughts and their transient nature, accepting the flow of mental events that arise and dissipate (Lutz, Slagter, Dunne, & Davidson, 2008).…”