Should we keep some distance from distancing? Regulatory and post-regulatory effects of emotion downregulation

Diers, Kersten; Dörfel, Denise; Gärtner, Anne; Schönfeld, Sabine; Walter, Henrik; Strobel, Alexander; Brocke, Burkhard

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0255800

Cited by 3 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 54 publications

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“…stronger activation of amygdala and ventromedial prefrontal cortex, reduced negative feelings), but not for distancing. In contrast, in previous studies that included emotional down-regulation, but not up-regulation, we and others (Diers et al, 2021;Walter et al, 2009) observed a partial reversal of regulation effects immediately after the stimulation phase as well as during immediate and prolonged re-exposure experiments.…”

Section: Temporal Dynamics Of Up-and Down-regulationcontrasting

confidence: 99%

“…by assuming a personal or physical distance. The "distance" and "permit" strategies are identical to those in our previous work (Diers et al, 2021).…”

Section: Emotion Regulation Task (Timepoints 1 and 2)mentioning

confidence: 70%

“…This study presents data collected within a larger project on neural correlates and individual differences in emotion regulation and its aftereffects (CRC 940 Project A5). A preceding study on regulatory and post-regulatory effects of emotion down-regulation has already been published (Diers et al, 2021). The study presented here used a similar design but extended the paradigm with an up-regulation condition in a separate sample.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Second, to characterize the temporal effects of these activations; specifically, to determine whether or not there are any short-or long-term lasting effects, and if so, whether these differ between up-and down-regulation. Finally, to replicate and possibly differentiate or generalize our previous results in the same experimental paradigm without an up-regulation condition (Diers et al, 2021). To this end, we implement an experimental design that contrasts two up-and down-regulation strategies with each other and with a no-regulate ("permit") control condition.…”

Section: Aims and Rationale Of The Present Studymentioning

confidence: 96%

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Temporal dynamics of emotion regulation – Regulatory and post-regulatory effects of emotion up- and down-regulation

Diers¹,

Gärtner²,

Schönfeld³

et al. 2023

Preprint

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It is an open question in cognitive emotion regulation research how emotion regulation unfolds over time, and whether the brain regions involved in down-regulation are also recruited during up-regulation of emotions. As a replication and extension of our preceding study, we conducted an fMRI study in N=47 young healthy adults on the neural basis of up- and down-regulation of negative and neutral pictures during the immediate stimulation phase as well as after short- and long-term delays. For this, we employed three experimental conditions – down-regulation (distance), maintenance (permit), and up-regulation (intensify) – for negative and neutral stimuli, and investigated the neural responses during the stimulation and post-stimulation phase as well as during re-exposure after 10 min and after 1 week. We observed the following main results: first, greater activation in emotion-generating regions such as the amygdala in the permit vs. distance and the intensify vs. distance comparisons, but not in the intensify vs. permit comparison. Second, greater activation in emotion-regulating regions such as the right inferior parietal and right superior / middle frontal cortex activation in the distance vs. permit and the distance vs. intensify contrasts, but not the permit vs. intensify contrast. Third, the activation difference between distance and intensify within the amygdala reversed after the regulation period. Fourth, previous emotion regulation did not influence the activation during re-exposure, neither after 10 minutes nor after 1 week. Taken together, the results provide a partial replication of persistent effects observed in our preceding study, indicate different neural systems for up- and down-regulation, and demonstrate that a broader perspective on emotion regulation can be achieved by simultaneously considering different goals, directions, and strategies of emotion regulation in a single experiment.

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Section: Temporal Dynamics Of Up-and Down-regulationcontrasting

confidence: 99%

“…by assuming a personal or physical distance. The "distance" and "permit" strategies are identical to those in our previous work (Diers et al, 2021).…”

Section: Emotion Regulation Task (Timepoints 1 and 2)mentioning

confidence: 70%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Aims and Rationale Of The Present Studymentioning

confidence: 96%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Temporal dynamics of emotion regulation – Regulatory and post-regulatory effects of emotion up- and down-regulation

Diers¹,

Gärtner²,

Schönfeld³

et al. 2023

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The paradigm was based on previous designs to study emotion regulation (Diers et al, 2021; Gärtner et al, 2019; Kanske et al, 2011; McRae et al, 2012). A schematic illustration can be found in Figure 2.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Gärtner¹,

Jawinski²,

Strobel³

2023

Emotion

Self Cite

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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.

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Short- and long-term effects of emotion up- and down-regulation

Diers,

Gärtner,

Schönfeld

et al. 2023

Imaging Neuroscience

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It is an open question in cognitive emotion regulation research how emotion regulation unfolds over time, and whether the brain regions involved in down-regulation are also recruited during up-regulation of emotions. As a replication and extension of our preceding study, we conducted an fMRI study in young healthy adults on the neural basis of up- and down-regulation of negative and neutral pictures during the immediate stimulation phase as well as after short- and long-term delays (N = 47 for immediate and short-term delays, a subset of N = 30 for long-term delays). For this, we employed three experimental conditions— down-regulation (distance), maintenance (permit), and up-regulation (intensify)— for negative and neutral pictures, and investigated the neural responses during the stimulation and post-stimulation phase as well as during re-exposure after 10 min and after 1 week. We observed the following main results: first, we found greater activation in emotion-generating regions such as the amygdala in the permit vs. distance and the intensify vs. distance comparisons, but not in the intensify vs. permit comparison. Second, we observed greater activation in emotion-regulating regions such as the right inferior parietal and right superior / middle frontal cortex in the distance vs. permit and the distance vs. intensify contrasts, but not the permit vs. intensify contrast. Third, we found that the activation difference between distance and intensify within the amygdala reversed after the regulation period. Fourth, previous emotion regulation did not influence the activation during re-exposure, neither after 10 minutes nor after 1 week. Taken together, the results provide a partial replication of persistent effects observed in our preceding study, indicate different neural systems for up- and down-regulation, and demonstrate that a broader perspective on emotion regulation can be achieved by simultaneously considering different goals, directions, and strategies of emotion regulation in a single experiment.

show abstract

Should we keep some distance from distancing? Regulatory and post-regulatory effects of emotion downregulation

Cited by 3 publications

References 54 publications

Temporal dynamics of emotion regulation – Regulatory and post-regulatory effects of emotion up- and down-regulation

Temporal dynamics of emotion regulation – Regulatory and post-regulatory effects of emotion up- and down-regulation

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

Short- and long-term effects of emotion up- and down-regulation

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