Fixing Our Focus: Training Attention to Regulate Emotion

Abstract

Empirical studies have frequently linked negative attentional biases with attentional dysfunction and negative moods; however, far less research has focused on how attentional deployment can be an adaptive strategy that regulates emotional experience. We argue that attention may be an invaluable tool for promoting emotion regulation. Accordingly, we present evidence that selective attention to positive information reflects emotion regulation, and that regulating attention is a critical component of the emotion regulatory process. Furthermore, attentional regulation can be successfully trained through repeated practice. We ultimately propose a model of attention training methodologies integrating attention-dependent emotion regulation strategies with attention networks. While additional interdisciplinary research is needed to bolster these nascent findings, meditative practices appear to be among the most effective training methodologies in enhancing emotional well-being. Further exploration of the positive and therapeutic qualities of attention warrants the empirical attention of social and personality psychologists.Keywords emotion regulation; attention; attention training; selective attention; meditation Attention is a most valuable instrument that serves as a telescope through which we select, bring into focus, and magnify the stimuli we experience in our world (Wallace, 1999). In Principles of Psychology, William James writes, "My experience is what I agree to attend to. Only those items which I notice shape my mind -without selective interest, experience is an utter chaos" (1890, p. 402). As James suggests, without our ability to use attention as a tool to hone specific aspects of our experience, we would be lost in superfluous information. Salient sensory, emotional, and mental information is filtered, processed, and analyzed through various attentional processes, which can be automatically or consciously regulated (Calvo & Nummenmaa, 2007). Clearly, what we attend to can shape our experiences, good or bad. How successful individuals are at influencing their attentional processes can dictate their subsequent affective experience and behavioral trajectories. Although individual differences exist in the ability to regulate attention, recent literature has suggested that the processes involved in attentional regulation can be trained and improved through repeated practice (Lutz, Slagter, Dunne, & Davidson, 2008;Rueda, Rothbart, Saccomanno, & Posner, 2007). If attention can be trained, then it may be used to actively guide individuals' emotion regulation processes and downstream behavior, ultimately enhancing subjective well-being. That is, people could learn to selectively attend to specific types of information in the service of optimizing their emotional experience.Please address correspondence to: Derek M. Isaacowitz, Department of Psychology, Brandeis University, MS 062, Waltham, Massachusetts 02454-9110. dmi@brandeis.edu. Heather Wadlinger is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the Prevention Rese...

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