Estimating individual subjective values of emotion regulation strategies

Abstract

Individuals have a repertoire of emotion regulation (ER) strategies at their disposal, which they can use more or less flexibly. In ER flexibility research, strategies that facilitate goal achievement are considered adaptive and therefore are subjectively valuable. Individuals are motivated to reduce their emotional arousal effectively and to avoid cognitive effort. Perceived costs of ER strategies in the form of effort, however, are highly subjective. Subjective values (SVs) should therefore represent a trade-off between effectiveness and subjectively required cognitive effort. However, SVs of ER strategies have not been determined so far. We present a paradigm that is suitable for determining individual SVs of ER strategies. Using a multilevel modelling approach, it will be investigated whether individual SVs can be explained by effectiveness (subjective arousal, facial muscle activity) and subjective effort. Relations of SVs to personality traits will be explored.

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

“…For example, an individual may have multiple emotion goals, select multiple strategies, and/or implement multiple tactics strategically or nonstrategically. Future research might account for polyregulation for example by asking participants to use particular sequences of emotion regulation strategies to test the effectiveness of combinations and sequences of emotion regulation approaches (Scheffel et al, 2021), or measure the subjective value of individual emotion regulation strategies (Scheffel et al, 2022) to get a more nuanced understanding of what it means to effectively regulate one’s emotions. Additionally, conflict may arise if an individual selects multiple regulation strategies that are cognitively taxing and competing for the same cognitive resources.…”

Need for Cognition is associated with a preference for higher task load in effort discounting [Previously: "When easy is not preferred: A discounting paradigm to assess load-independent task preference"]

“…The NFC scale shows comparably high internal consistency (Cronbach's α > .80) 26,27 . Several other personality questionnaires will be used in this study but are the topic of the Registered Report for the second lab session 17 . A full list of measures can be found in our Github repository.…”

“…Since we also aim to establish this paradigm for the assessment of tasks with no objective task load, e.g., emotion regulation tasks 17 , we call it the Cognitive and Affective Discounting Paradigm (CAD). In the present study, we will validate the CAD paradigm by conceptually replicating the findings of Westbrook et al 7 .…”

“…Additionally, we will compare the effort discounting behavior of participants regarding the n-back task and an emotion regulation task. The full results of the latter will be published in a second Registered Report 17 . The COG-ED paradigm has been applied to tasks in different domains before, showing that SVs across task domains correlate 14 , but these tasks had an objective order of task load, which is not the case for the choice of emotion regulation strategies or other paradigms where there is no objective order of task load.…”