Cognitive, Behavioural, Physiological, and Subjective Outcomes of Anxiety Regulation

我们都经历过极度恐惧或焦虑的情况，无论是在演讲之前，过马路时听到汽车喇叭声，还是参加一场困难的考试。像所有的情绪一样，焦虑包括我们的想法、感觉和行为。情绪调节是指人们用来改变所经历的情绪的强度、持续时间和类型的策略。不同的策略对这些情绪成分有不同的影响。尽管我们对哪些情绪调节策略在什么时候起作用知道得相当多，但我们对它们是如何起作用的却知之甚少。例如，研究人员发现一种策略，认知重新评估，可以减少状态焦虑；然而，有限的研究已经测试了潜在的认知机制。我们的许多日常情绪和相关行为都是由自动思维引起的，至少和控制思维一样多。例如，当人们听到汽车喇叭声时，他们可能会感到害怕，并希望跳出来！——没有花时间去决定他们是否真的处于危险之中，是否需要做出反应。尽管一些研究结果表明，这种自动思考预示着更多的自发结果（例如，心率），更多的受控认知（例如，自我报告）预示着更多的受控结果（例如，行为方法），但其他人没有发现这些影响或证明相反的影响。有初步证据表明，自动联想越强（例如，愤怒的脸和拒绝之间的联系），就越难把目光从焦虑相关的刺激中移开。这种“注意力偏差”可能会增加焦虑和恐惧，并导致适应不良行为（例如，避免发表演讲，即使这是一项工作要求）。这种模式会使自动联想更加强烈，从而导致恶性循环。我的研究项目旨在提高我们对认知机制（即，注意偏差，自动联想）潜在的焦虑调节的理解。具体来说，我应用多方法方法来研究焦虑调节策略如何影响认知过程，反过来，状态焦虑和行为。我的长期目标是了解适应性（与非适应性）焦虑调节如何影响焦虑体验，包括焦虑相关关联、自我报告的焦虑、注意偏差、行为方法和生理唤醒。我的短期目标包括评估焦虑的认知、行为、主观和生理测量之间的现有关系，测试特定焦虑调节策略对这些结果的影响，并调查情境变量（如工作记忆容量、唤醒和情绪调节功效）的调节作用。这个项目填补了文献中的一个重要空白，不仅阐明了各种焦虑调节成分，而且阐明了这一过程运作的认知机制。

We all experience situations involving intense fear or anxiety, whether prior to giving a speech, hearing a car horn as we cross the street, or taking a difficult exam. Like all emotions, anxiety includes what we think, what we feel, and what we do. Emotion regulation refers to strategies people use to change the intensity, duration, and type of emotion experienced. Different strategies have different effects on these emotional components. Although we know quite a bit about which emotion regulation strategies work when, we know relatively little about how they work. For example, researchers found that one strategy, cognitive reappraisal, reduces state anxiety; however, limited research has tested underlying cognitive mechanisms. Many of our day-to-day emotions and relevant behaviour are caused by automatic thinking at least as much as by controlled thinking. For example, people may feel afraid when they hear a car horn honk—and hopefully jump out of the way!—without taking time to decide whether they are actually in danger and need to react. Although some findings suggest that this automatic thinking predicts more spontaneous outcomes (e.g., heart rate), and more controlled cognition (e.g., self-report) predicts more controlled outcomes (e.g., behavioural approach), others fail to find such effects or demonstrate opposite effects. There is preliminary evidence that the stronger the automatic associations (for example, between an angry face and rejection), the harder it is to look away from anxiety-relevant stimuli. This “attentional bias” may then increase anxiety and fear and lead to maladaptive behaviour (e.g., avoiding giving a speech, even though it is a job requirement). This pattern can make automatic associations even stronger, resulting in a vicious cycle. My research program seeks to advance our understanding of cognitive mechanisms (i.e., attention bias, automatic associations) underlying anxiety regulation. Specifically, I apply multi-method approaches to examine how anxiety regulation strategies impact cognitive processes, and in turn, state anxiety and behaviour. My long-term goal is to understand how adaptive (vs. maladaptive) anxiety regulation influences the experience of anxiety, including anxiety-related associations, self-reported anxiety, attentional bias, behavioural approach, and physiological arousal. My short-term goals involve assessing existing relationships among cognitive, behavioural, subjective, and physiological measures of anxiety, testing the impact of specific anxiety regulation strategies on these outcomes, and investigating moderating effects of contextual variables such as working memory capacity, arousal, and emotion regulation efficacy. This program fills an important gap in the literature by clarifying not only the various anxiety regulation components, but also the cognitive mechanisms by which this process operates.