COGNITIVE EMOTION REGULATION

STRATEGIES
AND DEPRESSIVE SYMPTOMS
Overview
• Emotion : The concept and relevance in human nature
• Concept of Emotion Regulation
• Cognitive Emotion Regulation Strategies
• Assessment of Strategies
• Neurobiological bases of Emotion Regulation
• Strategies and Depressive symptoms : Theories &
Research findings
• Implications in psychopathology
• Conclusion
• The word "emotion" dates back to 1579, when
it was adapted from the French word
émouvoir, which means "to stir up"
Defining Emotion
• Evolved action dispositions, which organize behavior
along basic defensive and appetitive states, and
prepare organisms to respond to their environment
(e.g., Bradley, Codispoti, Cuthbert, & Lang, 2001).
• Feelingstates with physiological, cognitive, and
behavioral components (Solomon, 2008)
• Biological reactions that arise when a situation is
appraised as presenting important opportunities or
challenges and co-ordinate our responding to
important environmental events (Gross & Munoz,
1995)
Components of Emotion
• Bodily symptoms
• Action tendencies
• Expression
• Feelings
Are emotions good or bad ?
• Emotions are evolved adaptive responses to
challenges and opportunities that we face(Levenson,
1994). Emotions are important in
• readying behavioral and physiological responses
• enhancing memory of important events
• Tuning decision-making
• facilitate interpersonal interactions
• Inappropriate emotional responses are implicated in
many forms of psychopathology in social difficulties
and even in physical illness.
• Emotions can also cause us trouble or even suffering,
and problems regarding emotions or emotion
regulation are vital parts in many of the psychiatric
disorders(DSM-IV; American Psychiatric Association,
1994)
The concept of Emotion Regulation
• Emotion regulation refers to the processes by which
we influence which emotions we have, when we have
them, and how we experience and express them.
(Gross, 1998)
• It refers to all the extrinsic and intrinsic processes
responsible for monitoring, evaluating and modifying
emotional reactions, especially their intensive and
temporal features, to accomplish one’s goals’
(Thompson, 1994)
Related Constructs
• Coping
• Mood regulation
• Psychological defences
• Contemporary research on emotion regulation
has its roots in
• The study of psychological defenses (Freud,
1926/1959)
• Psychological stress and coping (Lazarus, 1966)
• Attachment theory(Bowlby, 1969)
• Emotion theory (Frijda, 1986)

• Current reserach focusses on two major areas

• Development Literature
• Adult Literature
Nature and Purpose of Emotional Regulation
Strategies
• . Emotion regulation involves
• Neurophysiological responses
• The cognitive processes of attention, information processing,
and encoding of internal cues
• Behavioural mechanisms
• These mechanisms serve to solve two basic
regulatory tasks that are set up by the situation:
• Stabilization
• Modification
• As a result of these changes are brought about in
• Emotion dynamics - latency, rise time, magnitude, duration,
and offset of responses.
• Interrelation of response components as the emotion unfolds
• Emotion regulatory processes may be
 Automatic or controlled
 Conscious or unconscious
 Intrinsic or extrinsic
 Effects at one or more points in the emotion
generative process
 Dampen, intensify, or simply maintain emotion,
depending on an individual’s goals.
• Individuals differ in their use of emotion regulation
strategies
• Individual differences have specific affective,
cognitive, and social consequences.
• Some ways of regulating emotions are more adaptive
than others.
Process model of emotion regulation
• Formulated by James J. Gross (1998)
• How emotion regulation relates to the
temporal aspects of the emotion generating
process ?
• Broadly distinguishes between
• antecedent focused emotion regulation
• response focused emotion regulation
Process model of Emotion Regulation
Gross and Thompson (2007) identified five general
strategies
• Situation selection : placing oneself in a position to
maximize positive emotions and minimize negative
emotions.
• Situation modification : changing aspects of the
situation so that one can make the inevitable situation
as pleasant as possible.
• Attentional deployment : focusing on specific aspects
of the situation that is taking place.
• Cognitive change : selective perception of a situation
(e.g., optimistic or pessimistic) to affect the strength
of an emotion.
• Response modulation : involves enacting a specific
behavioral response to an emotion-eliciting situation.
Cognitive Emotion Regulation
• Conscious, cognitive way of handling the intake of
emotionally arousing information
Cognitive Emotion Regulation Strategies
• Acceptance
• Positive refocusing
• Refocus on planning
• Positive reappraisal
• Putting into perspective
• Self blame
• Rumination
• Catastrophizing
• Blaming others
Assessing strategies : The Cognitive Emotion
Regulation Questionnaire
• Developed by Garnefski, Kraaij, and
Spinhoven (2001)
• 36-item
• self-reporting
• 5-point Likert response format
• Objectives
• to assess the conscious cognitive components of
emotion regulation.
• to investigate the cognitive processes people tend
to use after experiencing negative life events
Neural Bases
of Emotion Regulation

• Key structures that together form the brain’s

emotion circuitry
• Dorsolateral and ventral regions of prefrontal cortex
(including the anterior cingulate cortex [ACC]),
• Amygdala
• Thalamus
• Hippocampus
The Papez Circuit
Neural mechanisms of cognitive emotion regulation : A model

• Proposed by Philip and William

• Based on principles of
• Executive Functioning (both “hot” and “cool”)
• Spans Marr’s (1982) three levels of analysis:
Computational, algorithmic and implementational
• This model highlights
• The roles of reflection (levels of consciousness)
• Rule use in the regulation of emotion
• As per the proponents of model
• Stark distinction between cognition and emotion
reflects an outmoded adherence to a fundamentally
moralistic world view
• Emotion corresponds to an aspect of cognition—its
motivational aspect
• “Emotion” refers to an aspect of human information
processing that manifests itself in multiple
dimensions: subjective experience, observable
behavior, and physiological activity, among them.
• Emotion regulation refers to the modulation of
motivated cognition and its many manifestations.
Emotion Regulation strategies and Depressive
Symptoms
• Cognitive coping strategies such as ruminating, self-
blame and catastrophizing are positively related to
depression and/or other measures of mental ill-
health, while strategies such as positive reappraisal
are negatively related (Garnefski et al., 2001).

• Cognitively reinterpreting the emotional meaning of

potentially emotional information (i.e.,cognitive
reappraisal) modulates emotional responses in
various domains, including subjective experience,
psychophysiological reactivity, and neural responses
(Jackson et. al., 2000)
• Cognitive emotion regulation strategies of refocus on
planning, positive reappraisal, and less rumination
contribute to resilience in patients with depression
and anxiety disorders. (Jung-Ah Min et. Al, 2013)

• Maladaptive strategies (rumination, suppression),

compared to adaptive strategies (reappraisal,
problem-solving), were more strongly associated with
symptoms of three psychopathologies (depression,
anxiety, and eating disorders) (Amelia Aldao, Susan
Nolen-Hoeksema, 2010)