Can Cognitive Reappraisal down-regulate emotional responses in an ecologically-valid fear induction paradigm?

Emotion Regulation

Emotional Stimuli & Emotional States

But, to do experimental research into the relative effectiveness of different Emotion Regulation strategies, what you have to do is induce a target emotion in the lab, and this is quite challenging. What most studies have done is presented participants with what I’ll call emotionally charged stimuli, images like this one of a dog displaying aggression.

These pictures carry emotional value and indeed results from these studies may have predictive potency when it comes to situations where we might need to regulate emotional responding on the internet or when we engage with particular media. But emotions as we experience them in the world can be much more intense than the kinds of responses that can be elicited when you are shown a photograph. So it’s difficult to know whether results from studies inducing emotions using stimuli can generalize to situations in we are in an intense emotional state, like when we are actually afraid for our safety.

Emotional State manipulation using Virtual Reality

Fear Induction using Height Exposure in VR

Cognitive Reappraisal

Does Cognitive Reappraisal work?

Cognitive Reappraisal associated with positive social, emotional, cognitive and physiological outcomes (Webb, Miles, & Sheeran, 2012)
Studies into the effect of cognitive reappraisal are mixed (Zaehringer et al, 2020).
May tax cognitive resources too heavily.

Cognitive Reappraisal Training

Experimental Conditions

Cognitive Reappraisal (verbally reappraise for 3-minutes)
Immersion (verbally report automatic thoughts and feelings for 3-minutes)
Distraction (complete a cognitive task for 3-minutes)

Of course, we need to compare emotional responses in the cognitive reappraisal condition to some condition where participants are un-regulated, and against whose responses we can ask “Did participants who used Cognitive Reappraisal fare better?”

Previous research has shown that there are some strategies that are actually counterproductive for down-regulating negative emotions. For example, when people immerse themselves in the negative emotions they are feeling, this amplifies those negative feelings.

Therefore, we decided that our unregulated condition would be a condition in which participants would be instructed to verbally immerse themselves in their automatic thoughts and feelings during the emotional challenge

We also decided to include a third condition, called the distraction condition, and in this condition people complete a cognitive task that pops up in front of their eyes for 3 minutes.

Condition: Distraction

Comparison Condition: Distraction

And we have repeatedly found that the act of doing a cognitive task during the emotional challenge functions as an excellent regulator.

This graph is from one of our recent studies into inhibitory control, and if you look at the red line (this is our height condition), you see that there is this considerable increase in Heart Rate once the emotional challenge begins (which is after the vertical dashed line). But, to our surprise and our annoyance really, while they were doing the task, their heart rates recovered back to baseline.

Therefore, we reasoned that our Emotion Regulation study would be enhanced by including a third condition in which participants complete a 3-minute cognitive task during the emotional challenge, which should distract them from the emotional situation and facilitate excellent emotional regulation.

General Predicted Pattern of responses

Measures & Predictions

If people are successfully regulating their fear, we will observe:

decreased fear ratings
decreased heart rate
decreased skin conductance level
reaching the end of the plank faster

Emotion Ratings pre- vs. post-Strategy

Fear
Excitement
Relaxation

F(2, 68) = 2.22, p = .116

F(2, 68) = 2.96, p = .059

F(2, 68) = 0.92, p = .403

Heart Rate

Across Time
During Task

F(2, 68) = 2.43, p = .096

Skin Conductance Level

Across Time
During Task

F(2, 59) = 1.82, p = .170

Time to complete plank walk

F(2,62) = 2.11, p = .129

Conclusions

Time regulates all conditions.
Distraction condition associated with HR recovery, as expected.
However, distraction only delayed fear responses
No evidence that cognitive reappraisal was associated with attenuated fear responses.
Suggestive evidence that cognitive reappraisal increased positive high-arousal subjective emotions (flipped the valence)

Thank you

Heart Rate Variability (RMSSD)

Across Time
During Task

F(2, 68) = 0.19, p = .824

High-Frequency Heart Rate Variability

Across Time
During Task

F(2, 68) = 6.56, p = .002

All Ratings

Physiological Measures Contrasts

Dependent Variable	Comparison	df	t	p	d	95% CI
HR	Distraction - Immersion	68	-1.87	.066	-0.54	[-1.12, 0.12]
	Distraction - Reappraisal	68	-1.93	.057	-0.56	[-1.20, 0.06]
	Immersion - Reappraisal	68	-0.08	.934	-0.02	[-0.55, 0.55]
RMSSD	Distraction - Immersion	68	0.36	.722	0.10	[-0.57, 0.73]
	Distraction - Reappraisal	68	0.62	.538	0.18	[-0.29, 0.65]
	Immersion - Reappraisal	68	0.27	.791	0.08	[-0.57, 0.69]
HF_ms2	Distraction - Immersion	68	-0.21	.832	-0.06	[-0.71, 0.63]
	Distraction - Reappraisal	68	-0.70	.485	-0.20	[-0.65, 0.16]
	Immersion - Reappraisal	68	-0.49	.625	-0.14	[-0.67, 0.52]
HF_percent	Distraction - Immersion	68	2.21	.030*	0.64	[0.10, 1.18]
	Distraction - Reappraisal	68	1.24	.219	0.36	[-0.12, 0.87]
	Immersion - Reappraisal	68	-0.95	.347	-0.28	[-0.86, 0.37]
HF_nu	Distraction - Immersion	68	3.62	.001***	1.05	[0.42, 1.62]
	Distraction - Reappraisal	68	1.77	.080	0.52	[-0.03, 1.04]
	Immersion - Reappraisal	68	-1.81	.075	-0.53	[-1.17, 0.12]