Cognitive emotion regulation through reappraisal in an anticipatory anxiety paradigm

Abstract

Humans have the ability to cognitively control their emotions. Reappraisal is a cognitive emotion regulation technique that works through re-interpretation of the meaning of a stimulus or situation and can be used to down-regulate negative emotions, including anxiety. There is currently a strong interest in identifying the cognitive processes and neural substrates that mediate reappraisal. We demonstrate, using a detachment-from-threat paradigm and concurrent skin conductance monitoring and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), that attenuation of anxiety is based not only on re-interpretation but also on further processes accompanying reappraisal. We establish a reappraisal technique in an anticipatory anxiety paradigm (Study I ) that is anxiolytic when compared to a simple ’observe’ condition. However, when compared to a control condition that is matched for all aspects (including cognitive load) apart from re-interpretation, the observed anxiolytic effect of reappraisal is substantially diminished (Studies II,III and IV). We further show that besides re-interpretation and cognitive load, developing a positive outcome expectation influences the anxiolytic character of reappraisal (Study V). Finally we experimentally test the distinction between an early and a late reappraisal phase, currently hypothesised by the implementationmaintenance model or IMMO (Study VI ). Taking everything into consideration, the results from the studies presented in this thesis show that anxiolysis via cognitive reappraisal relies on at least three subcomponents: re-interpretation, cognitive demand and a placebo-like expectation-effect. Neurally, the reappraisal process involves late right anterior lateral frontal cortex activation that we interpret as reappraisal maintanace activation, as supported by IMMO.