Affect Labeling Expressive Writing and Emotion Regulation

描述(由申请者提供)：将情感转化为文字对心理和身体健康有好处的概念并不新鲜。当个人经历慢性或急性痛苦时，去看治疗师、与支持他人的人交谈或在日记中写作的行为都会对心理产生实质性的好处。20年来关于表现性写作的社会和临床心理学研究1，2已有经验证明，少量简短的表现性写作课程，集中于一个人痛苦的根源，可以在几个月的过程中产生明显的心理和身体健康益处。尽管多年来提出了许多机制，但没有一个得到广泛支持。目前的建议表明，将情感转化为语言(“情感标签”)是一种无意的情绪调节形式，通过抑制边缘反应和通常平行的边缘活动的生理关联来减少痛苦。情感标签与右腹外侧前额叶皮质(RVLPFC)活动增加、杏仁核活动减少和自我报告的痛苦减少有关，类似于在有意情绪调节过程中观察到的效果模式。此外，有人认为有意和无意的情绪调节都依赖于与RVLPFC相关的更一般的抑制控制机制。因此，我们还将研究常见的大脑激活模式是否与有意和无意的情绪调节以及其他两个领域(运动、社会认知)的抑制性控制任务的表现有关。最后，对这些任务的神经反应以及表达能力写作过程的结果将与临床相关的个体差异变量(即基因、个性、社会史)有关。所有参与者都将参加fMRI扫描，同时执行情感标签和情绪调节任务(ALERT)，该任务评估有意情绪调节(使用重新评估)和无意情绪调节(使用情感标签)，以及运动抑制任务(即进行/不进行)和社会认知抑制任务(即抑制自己的观点以欣赏他人的不同观点)。随后，参与者将参加四次表现性写作课程(或对照样本中的控制任务)，并在3个月的随访中接受心理和身体健康益处的评估。用语言表达感受已经证明了心理健康的好处，但这些好处产生的机制却鲜为人知。这项拟议中的研究将是第一次考察表达写作益处的神经基础的研究。该项目还将研究社交、情绪和运动领域的抑制性控制是否依赖于共同的神经认知机制，以及该机制中的个体差异是否与临床相关变量(个性、社会史、基因)有关。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The notion that putting feelings into words has mental and physical health benefits is hardly new. When individuals experience chronic or acute distress, the act of seeing a therapist, talking with supportive others, or writing in a journal can each have substantial psychological benefits. Two decades of social and clinical psychological research on expressive writing1,2 have empirically documented that a small number of brief expressive writing sessions, focused on the source of one's distress can produce demonstrable mental and physical health benefits over the course of several months. Although a number of mechanisms have been proposed over the years, none have garnered widespread support. The current proposal suggests that putting feelings into words ("affect labeling") is a form of unintentional emotion regulation that serves to diminish distress by dampening limbic responses and the physiological correlates that typically parallel limbic activity. Affect labeling is associated with increased activity in right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (RVLPFC), diminished amygdala activity, and diminished self-reported distress, similar to the pattern of effects observed during intentional emotion regulation. Additionally, it is proposed that intentional and unintentional emotion regulation both rely on a more general inhibitory control mechanism associated with RVLPFC. Thus, we will also examine whether common patterns of brain activation are associated with the performance of intentional and unintentional emotion regulation, as well as two other inhibitory control tasks from other domains (motor, social cognitive). Finally, neural responses on these tasks as well as results from an expressive writing procedure will be related to clinically-relevant individual difference variables (i.e., genes, personality, social history). All participants will participate in fMRI scans while performing the Affect Labeling & Emotion Regulation Task (ALERT), which assesses both intentional emotion regulation (using reappraisal) and unintentional emotion regulation (using affect labeling), as well as a motor inhibition task (i.e., go/no-go) and a social cognitive inhibition task (i.e., suppressing one's own perspective to appreciate another's differing perspective). Subsequently, participants will come in for four expressive writing sessions (or a control task in the control sample) and be assessed at 3 month follow-up for mental and physical health benefits. Putting feelings into words has demonstrated mental health benefits, yet the mechanism by which these benefits occur is poorly understood. The proposed research will be the first research to examine the neural bases of the benefits of expressive writing. This project will also examine whether inhibitory control in social, emotion, and motor domains rely on a common neurocognitive mechanism and whether individual differences in this mechanism relate to clinically-relevant variables (personality, social history, genes).