Background and Objectives: Emotion regulation involves attempts to
influence emotion unfolding and may target experiential, expressive and
physiological responses. Several strategies can be used, such as
reappraisal (re-evaluating the emotional situation to reduce its emotional
meaning) or distraction (turning the attention toward non-emotional
aspects of the situation). Previous research on these regulation strategies
produced contrasting results regarding their efficiency and we
hypothesize that this could be due to individual differences such as trait
anxiety.
Design and Methods: Participants (N = 77) were confronted with negative
pictures and we examined the differential emotional reactivity according
to trait anxiety, followed by a comparison of the efficiency of reappraisal
and distraction in reducing emotional responses.
Results: Results show that trait anxiety has no impact on reactivity at the
experiential and expressive levels, but has an impact at the physiological
level, where high anxiety individuals show increased cardiac orienting
effect, as well as higher skin conductance and respiratory rate.
Regarding regulation, reappraisal and distraction successfully reduce
emotional experience and expressivity, but not physiological arousal.
Conclusions: Such contrasting results involve that high trait anxiety
individuals might benefit from the use of other kinds of strategies than
reappraisal and distraction, some that may successfully target
physiological responses.