| Objective: When an individual perceives the imminent threat in the environment,it will trigger individual stress reactions,such as tension,anxiety,depression and other negative emotions.Psychological expectation can affect the individual’s perception of threat information and increase the individual’s expected attention to threat stimuli.Moreover,individuals’ expectations and experience deficits of emotional events are also key risk factors for various mental disorders(such as anxiety and depression).Self-affirmation is a kind of behavior that enables individuals to improve or repair themselves as "socially adaptable and morally noble" individuals.It can rebuild their self-integrity,reduce their defences against threats,and help restore and strengthen individuals’ ability to respond to threats and stimuli,so as to view threats from a more open and objective perspective.Therefore,this study will start with individuals’ psychological expectations of threatening stimuli and use self-affirmation manipulation as an intervention means to explore the impact of self-affirmation on psychological expectations of threatening stimuli.Methods: In this study,participants were asked to evaluate the intensity of facial expression by using a cue task(S1)and a target task(S2).The cue stimuli were geometric shapes,and the target stimuli were pictures of fearful faces and happy faces.Both the self-affirmation group and the control group accepted the threat condition and the non-threat condition.Threat situation was induced by instructions.In half of the trials,the subjects were told that the presence of fear face might be accompanied by heat pain stimulus.In the non-threatening condition,in half the trials,the subjects were told that the fearful face was definitely not associated with the heat pain stimulus.Sixty-four college students were recruited for the study.The ERPs technique was used to explore the time course of the influence of the presence of threat stimulus on the neurophysiological responses of expected and perceived emotional images after self-affirmation.In the cue-cue task,the subjects rated the emotional expression intensity of the emotional expression pictures(1 was very weak,9 was very strong),and the EEG signals were collected simultaneously.The fear expression condition and happy expression condition were analyzed separately.To evaluate the expression intensity and clues to stimulate the corresponding CNV(Contingent Negative Variation)and SPN(Sustained Posterior Negativity)composition,aim to stimulate the corresponding N170 component,LPP(The late positive potential)ingredients: 2(Group: self-affirmation group,control group)x 2(threat types: threat,no threat)of mixed design analysis of variance.Results: The behavioral results showed that the main effect of threat type was significant,the fear expression intensity score under threat condition was significantly higher than that under non-threat condition(p = 0.031),and the main effect and other interaction effects of the group were not significant(ps > 0.148).ERP Results show that:(1)In the psychological preparation stage,the CNV component amplitude of cue S1 had a significant group × threat type interaction.In the self-affirm group,the CNV amplitude of cue S1 in the threatening condition was significantly greater than that in the non-threatening condition(P = 0.036).In the control group,CNV amplitude induced by fearful face showed no significant difference between the threat condition and the non-threat condition(P = 0.449).(2)In the preparation stage,the amplitude of SPN component in target S2 was significantly correlated with group × threat type.In the self-affirmatory condition,the amplitude of SPN induced by cue S1 was smaller than that in the non-threat condition(p = 0.096),and there was a significant marginal trend.In the control group,the SPN amplitude induced by fear face showed no significant trend between the threat condition and the non-threat condition(p = 0.252).Under the threat condition,the SPN amplitude induced by the control group was significantly higher than that of the self-affirmatory group(p = 0.047).In the non-threatening condition,there was no significant difference between the control group and the self-affirmation group in the induced SPN amplitude(p = 0.454).(3)Target perceptual stage-S2 lock N170 component amplitude has significant group x threat types of interaction,in the control group,the threat fear face images under the condition of the induced N170 amplitude was significantly greater than no threat of amplitude(p = 0.011),self-affirmation group there was no significant difference between two kinds of face images N170 amplitude(p = 0.854),with self-affirmation reduces the fear face too many resources in the processing course.(4)Target perceptual stage-S2 lock LPP component,the amplitude of LPP component had a significant group × threat type interaction.In the control group,the average amplitude of LPP induced by the fearful face was significantly higher than that of the non-threat condition(p = 0.002).However,there was no significant difference in the amplitude of early LPP induced by fearful faces in the self-affirmation group between the threat condition and the non-threat condition(p =0.750).Conclusions:The results of this study show that compared with the control group,self-affirmation manipulation can reduce individuals’ defensive response and psychological expectation to the threat stimulus.Individuals view the threat from a broader perspective,have a stronger ability to receive the threat information,and are more brave to face the threat information.So that individuals no longer pay too much attention to the arrival of threatening stimulus,by reducing the excessive expectation of threatening stimulus,so as to reduce the anxiety response.The results of the present study not only advance our understanding of the temporal characteristics of self-affirmation affecting emotional expectations,but also help restore and strengthen the individual’s ability to respond to threatening stimuli. |
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