Cognitive processes supporting emotion regulation choices

情绪调节——我们如何增加、减少或保持我们的感觉——对心理健康和幸福至关重要。人们在调节消极情绪时可以选择20多种策略，这些策略的有效性和长期效果各不相同。例如，重新评估（改变你对情况的看法来改变你的感受）对减少负面情绪和带来积极的心理健康结果是有效的。分散注意力（将注意力集中在与负面事件无关的事情上，以改变你的感受）在短期内是有效的，但如果继续这样做，就会产生长期的负面后果，并导致回避某些情况。因此，理解人们在特定情境下如何以及为什么选择特定策略是至关重要的。******在实验室研究中，人们在面对低强度的负面图像时更倾向于重新评价而不是分散注意力来调节情绪，反之亦然。一种主流理论解释了这一现象，认为一开始，我们会自动将注意力从负面事件中抽离，从而分散注意力。然而，我们可以通过努力并考虑我们监管选择的长期后果来克服这种偏见（即，选择重新评估而不是分散注意力）。据推测，当压力过大时，重新评估会更加困难，也不太可能有效，而我们自动脱离负面事件的倾向可能会压倒我们考虑其他调节方式的能力。******我的研究计划的目标是揭示人们如何选择策略的潜在机制。方法包括测量个体在重新评估和分散注意力之间做出选择时的瞳孔扩张和电脑鼠标的运动。瞳孔扩张是一种反映认知努力的定量测量：我们预测，当个体努力做出更具适应性的长期情绪调节选择（即选择重新评估）时，瞳孔扩张会更大。当人们点击电脑屏幕上的一个按钮来选择重新评估还是分散注意力时，电脑鼠标的移动也应该反映出努力选择的证据。我们预测，与选择重新评价低强度情绪图像时相比，选择重新评价高强度情绪图像时，鼠标轨迹更倾向于分心。另一方面，我们可能会发现，做出情绪调节的选择并不费力，即使在选择对高强度情绪图像进行重新评估时也是如此。******研究结果将超越之前的研究，帮助揭示人们如何做出情绪调节选择，并为这一主题提供理论依据。通过阐明人们如何在不同的策略中进行选择，我们可以确定哪些行为是开发工具的目标，以支持日常生活中有效的情绪调节，从而改善幸福感。

Emotion regulation how we increase, decrease, or maintain our feelings is essential to mental health and well-being. People choose from upwards of 20 strategies when regulating negative feelings, and these strategies vary in their effectiveness and long-term outcomes. For example, reappraisal (changing how you think about a situation to change your feelings) is effective for reducing negative feelings and leads to positive mental health outcomes. Distraction (focusing attention on something unrelated to the negative event to change how you feel) is effective in the short-term but can have negative consequences in the long-term if it is continued and leads to avoidance of situations. Therefore, it is critical to understand how and why people choose particular strategies in certain contexts.******In laboratory studies, people prefer reappraisal to distraction to regulate their emotions in response to low intensity negative images, and vice versa for high intensity negative images. One leading theory explains this observation by suggesting that initially, we are automatically driven to disengage attention from negative events, and therefore distract. However, we can overcome this bias by exerting ourselves and considering the long-term consequences of our regulatory choices (i.e., to choose reappraisal instead of distraction). Presumably, when the intensity is too high, reappraisal is more difficult and less likely to be effective, and our automatic tendency to disengage from the negative event may overwhelm our ability to consider alternative ways of regulating.******The goal of my research program is to uncover the mechanisms underlying how people choose between strategies. Methods include measuring individuals' pupil dilation and movements of the computer mouse when making choices between reappraisal and distraction. Pupil dilation is a quantitative measure that reflects cognitive effort: we predict that pupil dilation will be greater when individuals engage effortfully to make the more adaptive long-term emotion regulation choice (i.e., choosing reappraisal). Evidence of effortful choice should also be reflected in the computer mouse movements when individuals click a button on a computer screen to choose either reappraisal or distraction. We predict that the mouse trajectory will move more towards distraction when choosing reappraisal for high intensity emotional images, compared to when choosing reappraisal for low intensity emotional images. On the other hand, we may learn that making emotion regulation choices is not effortful, even when choosing reappraisal for high intensity emotional images.******The results will go beyond previous research to help uncover how people make emotion regulation choices and inform theory on this topic. By elucidating how people choose among different strategies, we can determine which behaviours to target to develop tools to support effective emotion regulation in everyday life, and therefore improve well-being.