The Effect Of Cognitive Reappraisal On Attentional Bias Of Negative Information

When individuals are in negative mood,due to emotion congruent effect,individuals will pay attention to negative information in the first place,then trigger negative emotion which enhance attentional bias of negative information thus forming vicious cycle.That phenomenon reflects absence of top-down ability about emotional regulation.According to Integrative Model of Attentional Bias,emotional regulation proceed in strategy process stage facilitates individuals to cope with attentional bias of negative information inducing attentional avoidance.Therefore,this study aims at investigating the effect of cognitive reappraisal,a kind of adaptive emotional regulation strategy on attentional bias of negative information.In addition,this study will investigate this effect from different perspectives of positive reappraisal and distancing reappraisal,the sub-strategy of cognitive reappraisal as well as conscious and unconscious regulation,providing inspiration of improvement about negative attentional bias.This study includes two experiments.Experiment 1 was setup as mixed experimental design: 2(cue congruence: congruent cue;incongruent cue)×3(cognitive reappraisal groups: conscious positive reappraisal;conscious distancing reappraisal;control group),investigating the impact of conscious cognitive reappraisal on negative attentional bias.The experiment presented instruction of positive reappraisal and distancing reappraisal directly to guide subjects to regulate their emotion during viewing negative pictures then conducted the attentional bias task by dot probe paradigm.The results suggested that conscious positive reappraisal and conscious distancing reappraisal can decrease subjects’ negative emotion significantly.In the dot probe task,incongruent reaction time was faster than congruent reaction time among those two regulation groups which indicated that they avoided negative information by shifting attention toward neutral information.In contrast,subjects of control group were affected by negative emotion,therefore,in dot probe task,their congruent reaction time was faster than incongruent reaction time which indicated that they pay attention to negative information presented as difficulty in disengaging attention.Experiment 2 was setup as mixed experimental design: 2(cue congruence: congruent cue;incongruent cue)×3(cognitive reappraisal group: unconscious positive reappraisal;unconscious distancing reappraisal;control group),investigating impact of unconscious cognitive reappraisal on negative attentional bias.The experiment activated unconscious positive reappraisal and distancing reappraisal goal by sentence unscramble task guiding subjects to regulate emotion unconsciously during viewing negative pictures then conducted the attentional bias task by dot probe paradigm.The results suggested that unconscious positive reappraisal and distancing reappraisal can decrease negative emotion significantly.In dot probe task,incongruent reaction time was faster than congruent time among those two groups which indicated that they avoided negative information by shifting attention toward neutral information.In contrast,subjects of control group were affected by negative information thus their congruent reaction time was faster than incongruent reaction time in dot probe task showing attentional bias toward negative information which presented as difficulty in disengaging attention.The conclusion was demonstrated as following:(1)Conscious positive reappraisal and distancing reappraisal can decrease negative emotion significantly causing attentional avoidance toward negative information and shifting attention toward neutral information;(2)Unconscious positive reappraisal and distancing reappraisal can decrease negative emotion significantly causing attentional avoidance toward negative information and shifting attention toward neutral information;(3)After negative emotion was triggered,subjects in conscious and unconscious control group increase negative emotion causing negative attentional bias presented as difficulty in disengaging attention;(4)The method of presenting sentences about positive reappraisal and distancing reappraisal directly can regulate subjects’ negative emotion effectively.