Emotional Regulationgoals Of Young Adults With Depressive Tendency

Researches on deficits emotion regulation of depression have mainly focused on the selection and application of emotion-regulation strategies,however,whether it is also related to emotion-regulation goals,i.e.,the direction of emotion regulation.Situation selection is an antecedent-focused regulation strategy that is worked before the emotional reactions occur.It refers to individuals will tend to approach or avoid individuals,events,and situations based on their existing experience to regulate emotions.In other words,people will not only approach more pleasant scenes and avoid more unpleasant scenes,but also prefer to interact with positive and optimistic people,and less like pessimistic and negative people.and it can be used as an index of emotional-regulation goals.In our current study,two experiments were conducted to explore the emotional regulation goals and electrophysiological mechanisms of young adults with depressive tendency.In experiment 1,depressive tendency subjects were asked to watch and freely select pictures of happy,neutral,and sad scenes,while recording event-related potential(ERP)and subjective emotional preferences of happiness and sadness.Experiment 2 Based on experiment 1 using emotional faces as experimental materials,depressive tendency subjects were asked to watch and freely select happy,neutral,sad and fearful faces while recording event-related potential(ERP)and subjective Emotional preference of happiness,sadness and fear.ERP results of experiment 1 revealed that the amplitudes of Late Positive Potential(LPP)showed significantly decreased when viewing the sadness scene in young adults with depressive tendency and they chose to view sadness scene more frequently than healthy young adults.In addition,the ratings of sadness preferences were significantly higher among subjects with depressive tendency,while the happiness preferences were lower.The results of experiment 2 revealed that the depressive tendency subjectsshowed significantly decreased LPP amplitudes when viewing the sad and fearful faces and they chose to view sad and fearful faces more frequently than healthy young adults.In addition,they showed decreased LPP amplitudes to the happy faces and chose to view happy faces less frequently than healthy young adults.At the same time,the depressive tendency group has a stronger preference for sadness and fear and a weaker preference for happiness.The current results suggest that,compared to the control group,the individuals with depressive tendency are more willing to use situation selection to maintain or enhance their negative emotions(i.e.sadness and fear)rather than weaken it or enhance their happiness.These findings further indicate that emotional regulation goals of depressive subjects may be related to their motivations for emotional stimulus,and provide a new perspective for exploring the causes and mechanisms of emotion regulation deficits in depressive disorders.