Individual differences in inhibitory control are not related to downregulation of negative emotion via distancing.

Abstract

Evidence suggests that cognitive control and emotional control share partly the same cognitive processes. For example, downregulation of negative emotions requires inhibiting or limiting the expression of a prepotent appraisal of a situation in favor of selecting an alternative appraisal. Although inhibitory control seems to be a particularly relevant process in emotion regulation (ER), previous studies reported inconsistent findings on their relationship, likely because of the application of single task measures in relatively small samples. Therefore, this study implemented a battery of six commonly used inhibitory control tasks in a large sample of young healthy adults (N = 190) and investigated whether inhibitory control is associated with the downregulation of negative emotion. ER was measured via self-reported reappraisal and suppression use and via a laboratory ER task where participants had to distance themselves from emotions in response to negative and neutral pictures. The ER task was accompanied by concurrent physiological measurements of corrugator electromyography (EMG), skin conductance response (SCR), and heart period (HP). Frequentist and Bayesian analyses indicated that inhibitory control was neither associated with self-reported reappraisal and suppression use, nor with successful downregulation of negative emotion via distancing. Compared with HP and SCR, corrugator EMG was the only peripheral physiological measure that was indicative of regulatory success. The findings question the view that inhibitory control represents an underlying process in emotion regulation via distancing, at least at the behavioral level. Further studies should investigate the generalizability of these findings to other ER strategies, tactics, paradigms, and participant groups.

Estimating individual subjective values of emotion regulation strategies

“…In addition, the levator labii superioris (associated with disgust) has also been associated with reduced activity during reappraisal 6 . Similar effects have been reported for suppression 6 , distancing 7 , and distraction 8 . Importantly, results on electromyographic measures seem to be more consistent compared to other autonomic measures, likely because they are specific to emotional valence and its changes.…”

Mind over mood: exploring the executive function’s role in downregulation

“…It may also stimulate debate on whether the failure to observe a relationship is an artefact of research design or a genuine psychological phenomenon. The study by Gärtner et al (2022) presents an important insight in this matter. In their study, a very thoroughly assessment was conducted on inhibitory control and emotion regulation.…”

“…Research exploring the role of inhibitory control in emotional regulation has yielded surprisingly inconclusive results (e.g., McRae et al, 2012 ; Beauchamp et al, 2016 ; Hendricks and Buchanan, 2016 ; Sperduti et al, 2017 ). For example, a study by Gärtner et al (2022) conducted an exhaustive assessment of inhibitory control, generating a latent score based on six different experimental tasks focused on this cognitive function. Concurrently, emotion regulation was evaluated through a combination of self-report instruments and psychophysiological markers.…”

Enhancing Precision in Human Neuroscience

“…Effect sizes for facial EMG modulations are usually medium during emotion regulation (Zaehringer et al, 2020) and medium to large when investigating effects of emotional valence (e.g., Dan-Glauser & Gross, 2011;Gärtner et al, 2022), indicating good group-level precision of EMG measures. Furthermore, psychometric properties are generally good (Kaye et al, 2016) and because of good signal-to-noise ratio for the startle blink reflex, responses can also be analyzed at the single-trial level (e.g., Mueller et al, 2019).…”

“…Further research is necessary to investigate whether the assessment of different muscles or multiple muscle sites (e.g., laterality) provides better precision and incremental predictive validity with respect to the measurement of emotional states (e.g., Gärtner et al, 2022, found no differences between recording sites).…”