THE EFFECTS OF POSITIVE EMOTION ON COGNITIVE REAPPRAISAL

Both experiencing incidental positive emotion and using reappraisal strategies can help people regulate their emotions when coping with stress. Studies exploring individual differences have found strong associations between positive emotion and cognitive reappraisal success. However, the causal direction between positive emotion and reappraisal remains unclear. We hypothesized that incidental positive emotion might facilitate cognitive reappraisal through multiple mechanisms, such as cognitive facilitation, adaptive meaning-making, and motivational mechanisms. To test the possible facilitating effects of positive emotion on reappraisal, we applied virtual reality (VR) to elicit positive or neutral emotional contexts, used a speech task to induce stress, and instructed participants to reappraise the stressor positively. Participants reported their emotions and thoughts throughout the experiment. Although being in an incidental positive context helped to increase individuals’ positive emotions, results of the present study failed to support the facilitation effects of incidental positive emotion on cognitive reappraisal, and possible explanations are provided in the discussion. However, we found that being in an incidental positive context facilitated the relations between the increase of positive thoughts and increase of positive emotions, and future investigation should explore the possible role of individual differences in the facilitation effect of incidental positive emotion on relations between emotions and thoughts.

Grantor dc:publisher

Wake Forest University

Year dc:date.issued

2018

Author dc:creator

• Song, Yu

• Cognitive Reappraisal

Language dc:language.iso

en

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/10339/90761

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:wakespace.lib.wfu.edu:10339/90761