Living Emotions, Avoiding Emotions: Behavioral Investigation of the Regulation of Socially Driven Emotions

Abstract

Emotion regulation is important for psychological well-being. Although it is known that alternative regulation strategies may have different emotional consequences, the effectiveness of such strategies for socially driven emotions remains unclear. In this study we investigated the efficacy of different forms of reappraisal on responses to the selfish and altruistic behavior of others in the Dictator Game. In Experiment 1, subjects mentalized the intentions of the other player in one condition, and took distance from the situation in the other. Emotion ratings were recorded after each offer. Compared with a baseline condition, mentalizing led subjects to experience their emotions more positively when receiving both selfish and altruistic proposals, whereas distancing decreased the valence when receiving altruistic offers, but did not affect the perception of selfish behavior. In Experiment 2, subjects played with both computer and human partners while reappraising the meaning of the player’s intentions (with a human partner) or the meaning of the situation (with a computer partner). Results showed that both contexts were effectively modulated by reappraisal, however a stronger effect was observed when the donor was a human partner, as compared to a computer partner. Taken together, these results demonstrate that socially driven emotions can be successfully modulated by reappraisal strategies that focus on the reinterpretation of others’ intentions.

Schema Therapy for Emotional Dysregulation: Theoretical Implication and Clinical Applications

“…Parallels can be made with the concepts of defense mechanisms in psychodynamic terms, and with dysfunctional regulatory strategies (Gross, 2011; Grecucci et al, 2013; Grecucci and Job, 2015). It includes three categories.…”

“…In terms of emotion regulation science, these coping strategies belong to the class of “distancing” strategies, and produce an excessive down-regulation of (positive and negative) emotions (Grecucci et al, 2013, 2015a). …”

Reappraising social emotions: the role of inferior frontal gyrus, temporo-parietal junction and insula in interpersonal emotion regulation

“…These studies (Grecucci et al, 2013a,b) showed that an IER strategy of reappraising the intentions of the other player as less negative , or mentalizing-reappraisal (a particular kind of “reappraisal”), is effective in changing both interpersonal decisions (i.e., rejection rates of unfair offers in the context of a socio-economic game) (Grecucci et al, 2013a), as well-subjective responses to emotion themselves (Grecucci et al, 2013b). The task used in one of these experiments (Grecucci et al, 2013a) was the classic Ultimatum Game, where participants played the role of responder (Guth et al, 1982).…”

“…ER can refer not only to people's capacity to manage their own emotions, but importantly can also extend to regulating emotions that result from the interaction with others (Grecucci, 2012; Grecucci et al, 2013b). Previous studies have examined the processes that individuals use to influence which emotions they generate, when they do so, and how these emotions are experienced or expressed (Gross, 1998), and therefore we know that different attentive, behavioral, emotional, or interpretative strategies can be used also at an interpersonal level (Fonagy, 2006).…”

“…However, reappraisal applied to interpersonal contexts, that is, focusing on the interpretations of others'intentions, is relatively neglected in the literature. Despite the existence of an extensive literature on emotion “self-regulation,” focused primarily on the regulation of basic emotions such as fear and disgust in relation to visual stimuli (Ochsner and Gross, 2005, for a review), research on regulation in social interactive situations (e.g., IER) is scant (e.g., Koenigsberg et al, 2011; Grecucci et al, 2013a,b; Grecucci and Sanfey, 2013). …”