The Dissociated Effects Of Different Reappraisal And Strengthened Reappraisal On Prosocial Behavior

Background Previous studies have suggested that emotion regulation strategies could affect individual behavior by changing emotion.Reappraisal,as a special emotion regulation strategy,regulates emotion through changing cognition.Sometimes different cognition would cause similar changes in emotion,but they may have dissociated effects on behavior.Differences in the content or intensity of cognition may lead to different changes in behavior,and these phenomena have not been fully studied so far.Objective Study 1 was to explore the dissociated effects of different reappraisal（positive and negative）on prosocial behavior.Study 2 was to examine the effectiveness of reappraisal strengthening strategy and explore the dissociated effects of reappraisal with different intensity（positive and strengthened positive）on prosocial behavior.Methods In the first study,80 adults were divided into three groups and were respectively asked to regulate their emotion with three different strategies（positive reappraisal,negative reappraisal and viewing）in a specific situation（viewing some traffic accident images）.And the donation outcome was analyzed to examine the prosocial behavior difference among three groups.In the second study,189 adults were divided into three groups and were respectively asked to regulate their emotion with three different strategies（positive reappraisal,strengthened positive reappraisal,and viewing）in a specific situation（viewing a social event film）.The donation result was analyzed to examine the prosocial behavior difference among three groups.Results（1）The main effect of emotion regulation strategy on donation behavior was significant,F（2,77）=4.77,P<0.05.The donation of negative group was significantly fewer than viewing group（P<0.05）,and there was no significant difference between positive group and viewing group.（2）The main effect of emotion regulation strategy on donation behavior was significant,F（2,186）=5.65,P<0.01.There is no significant donation difference between viewing group and positive group,but participants in strengthened positive donated significantly more than viewing and positive group（Ps<0.05）.Conclusion（1）The prosocial behavior is associated with reappraisal,different reappraisal have dissociated effects on prosocial behavior.Negative reappraisal would weaken prosocial behavior,positive reappraisal would not influence prosocial behavior significantly,and strengthened positive reappraisal would promote prosocial behavior.（2）The strengthening strategy could improve positive reappraisal effectively.