Automatic control of negative emotions: Evidence that structured practice increases the efficiency of emotion regulation

Abstract

Emotion regulation (ER) is vital to everyday functioning. However, the effortful nature of many forms of ER may lead to regulation being inefficient and potentially ineffective. The present research examined whether structured practice could increase the efficiency of ER. During three training sessions, comprising a total of 150 training trials, participants were presented with negatively valenced images and asked either to “attend” (control condition) or “reappraise” (ER condition). A further group of participants did not participate in training but only completed follow-up measures. Practice increased the efficiency of ER as indexed by decreased time required to regulate emotions and increased heart rate variability (HRV). Furthermore, participants in the ER condition spontaneously regulated their negative emotions two weeks later and reported being more habitual in their use of ER. These findings indicate that structured practice can facilitate the automatic control of negative emotions and that these effects persist beyond training.

Grin and Bear It?: Employees' Use of Surface Acting During Co‐worker Conflict

“…This could indicate that employees may habituate to the frequent use of surface acting strategies, thus experiencing reduced emotional dissonance and physiological reactivity to frequent conflict. These finding support and extend prior research that identified reduced reactivity associated with frequently used emotional regulation (Chirstou-Champi, et al, 2015).…”

“…For employees who regulate emotions in response to frequent interpersonal conflicts at work, the frequent engagement in both conflict and surface acting may over time limit the incremental increases in negative impact that such engagement has on heightened emotional dissonance and physiological reactivity. Prior research indicates that practicing emotional regulation strategies can decrease the effort required and increase habituation (Chirstou-Champi, Farrow, & Webb, 2015). Further, emotional regulations strategies have been associated with reduced physiological reactivity when the strategies were unconsciously used (Williams, Bargh, Nocera, & Gray, 2009).…”

“…For instance, emotional regulation research has shown advances in training (e.g. Chirstou-Champi, et al, 2015), indicating that structured practice of emotional regulation strategies could reduce the effort in their use and increased habituation. Given the current research, including structured practice of emotional regulation strategies, in particular surface acting, with conflict management training may assist employees in mitigating employee strain while also facilitating optimal performance.…”

Implicit emotion regulation: feeling better without knowing why

“…Such habitual strategies may be elicited automatically when dealing with undesired emotions [29]. The formation of emotion regulation habits may thus render the stage of strategy selection implicit, such that people can move directly to enacting the emotion regulation strategy (which we discuss in the next section), without the need for deliberation about how to regulate emotions.…”

“…People's emotion-regulatory skills are presumably grounded in early interaction experiences with caregivers [40]. Nevertheless, the ability to regulate emotions continues to improve throughout the lifespan [41] and an experiment by Christou-Champi et al [29] showed that short practice sessions over three days can improve emotion regulation two weeks later. Thus, training may be an important way to improve the implementation of emotion regulation strategies.…”