Predicting negative affect variability and spontaneous emotion regulation: Can working memory span tasks estimate emotion regulatory capacity?

Abstract

We tested the association of 2 versions of the Reading Span Task of working memory capacity, a conventional neutral version (RSPAN-N) and an adapted task with incidental negative content (RSPAN-E), for predicting objective indicators (behavioral displays; autonomic activation) of negative emotion regulation during a laboratory provocation, as well as reported negative emotion in daily life experience sampling. Across 2 samples, both tasks demonstrated utility as es timates of spontaneous negative emotion regulation capacity, predicting down-regulation of negative emotion in da ily life and during a Jab challenge. In addition, scores from both tasks appear to be independent of self-reported distress, a confound often present in studies of emotion regulation. There was some incremental evidence that the RSPAN-E may have advantages over the RSPAN-N for predicting some indices of emotion processing. Together these findings provide further evidence for the role of working memory (among other executive-control abilities) in emotion regulatory processing and suggest that RSPAN tasks may have considerable potential as tools in research on emotion processing and emotion regulation in psychological health and adjustment.

Spontaneous Self-Distancing Mediates the Association Between Working Memory Capacity and Emotion Regulation Success

“…Participants completed the tasks individually in the testing room in order to avoid influencing the emotionelicitation component of the RSPAN-E. To reduce participant fatigue, we asked them to watch a 3-min video that was an excerpt from a documentary about lions in Africa. Finally, prior evidence indicated the presence of order effects such that participants who completed the RSPAN-E first were more likely to perform worse on the RSPAN-N (Coifman et al, 2019). Therefore, in this study, all participants worked on the RSPAN-N first and then the RSPAN-E.…”

“…To assess WMC, we used two sets of reading span tasks, one emotionally negative and the other neutral. Increasing evidence suggests that WMC indexed within affective contexts may be most relevant to understanding transdiagnostic disease processes (Schweizer et al, 2019) as well as ER (Coifman et al, 2019). To examine WMC in relation to emotion, we used a modified emotional version of a reading span task (RSPAN-E; Coifman et al, 2019).…”

“…In addition, when explicitly instructed to engage in expressive suppression and cognitive reappraisal, individuals with higher WMC were more successful at doing so in response to both negative and positive emotional material (Schmeichel, Volokhov, & Demaree, 2008). In the context of spontaneous ER, WMC is linked to adaptive ER behaviors such as greater self-enhancement in response to negative feedback (Schmeichel & Demaree, 2010) and spontaneous down-regulation of behavioral indices (facial affect and autonomic activity) of negative emotion (Coifman et al, 2019). Finally, beyond the laboratory, higher WMC has also predicted more adaptive coping in response to stressors (Stawski, Almeida, Lachman, Tun, & Rosnick, 2010) and spontaneous down-regulation of negative affect in daily life (Coifman et al, 2019).…”

“…In the context of spontaneous ER, WMC is linked to adaptive ER behaviors such as greater self-enhancement in response to negative feedback (Schmeichel & Demaree, 2010) and spontaneous down-regulation of behavioral indices (facial affect and autonomic activity) of negative emotion (Coifman et al, 2019). Finally, beyond the laboratory, higher WMC has also predicted more adaptive coping in response to stressors (Stawski, Almeida, Lachman, Tun, & Rosnick, 2010) and spontaneous down-regulation of negative affect in daily life (Coifman et al, 2019). Taken together, these findings demonstrate the positive, although perhaps indirect, link between WMC and ER success.…”

Understanding Emotion Inflexibility in Risk for Affective Disease: Integrating Current Research and Finding a Path Forward

“…For example, our team has developed a brief assessment of emotion-related working memory that is free and easily applied in clinical settings. This tool can index the regulation of interference from negative emotional content and is predictive of flexible negative emotional processing both in lab and in daily life (Coifman et al., 2019). Future research will need to continue to develop, test, and refine this and other less costly alternatives.…”