Lay Theories About Whether Emotion Helps or Hinders: Assessment and Effects on Emotional Acceptance and Recovery From Distress.

This investigation examined how people's beliefs about the functionality of emotion shape their emotional response and regulatory strategies when encountering distressing events. In Study 1, we present data supporting the reliability and validity of an 8-item instrument, the Help and Hinder Theories about Emotion Measure (HHTEM), designed to assess an individual's beliefs about the functionality of emotion. Participants who more strongly endorsed a Help Theory reported greater wellbeing, emotional acceptance, and use of reappraisal to regulate emotion. Participants who more strongly endorsed a Hinder Theory reported less wellbeing and more expressive suppression and substance use. In Study 2, we demonstrate that encouraging participants to view emotion as helpful affected their physiological and regulatory response to a distressing event. Participants in the Help Theory condition showed greater physiological reactivity (SCL) during a distressing film than control participants but were more accepting of their emotional response. Shortly after the film, SCL decreased for participants in the Help Theory condition. Compared to control participants, they engaged in less suppression and reported less lingering effect of the film on their mood. Together, these studies suggest that people's theories about the functionality of emotion influence their reactivity, the strategies they adopt to regulate emotion, and their ability to rebound after distressing events

Public mental health during and after the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic: Opportunities for intervention via emotional self-efficacy and resilience

ImportanceDuring the pandemic, the number of United States adults reporting clinically significant symptoms of anxiety and depression sky-rocketed, up from 11% in 2020 to more than 40% in 2021. Our current mental healthcare system cannot adequately accommodate the current crisis; it is therefore important to identify opportunities for public mental health interventions.ObjectiveAssess whether modifiable emotional factors may offer a point of intervention for the mental health crisis.Design, setting, and participantsFrom January 13 to 15, 2022, adults living in the United States were recruited via Amazon Mechanical Turk to complete an anonymous survey.Main outcomes and measuresLinear regressions tested whether the primary outcomes during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic (depressive and anxiety symptoms, burnout) were associated with hypothesized modifiable risk factors (loneliness and need for closure) and hypothesized modifiable protective factors (the ability to perceive emotions and connect with others emotionally; emotion-regulation efficacy; and resilience, or the ability to “bounce back” after negative events).ResultsThe sample included 1,323 adults (mean [SD] age 41.42 [12.52] years; 636 women [48%]), almost half of whom reported clinically significant depressive (29%) and/or anxiety (15%) symptoms. Approximately 90% of participants indicated feeling burned out at least once a year and nearly half of participants (45%) felt burned out once a week or more. In separate analyses, depressive symptoms (Model A), anxiety symptoms (Model B), and burnout (Model C) were statistically significantly associated with loneliness (βModel A, 0.38; 95% CI, 0.33–0.43; βModel B, 0.30; 95% CI, 0.26–0.36; βModel C, 0.34; 95% CI, 0.28–0.41), need for closure (βModel A, 0.09; 95% CI, 1.03–1.06; βModel B, 0.13; 95% CI, 0.97–0.17; βModel C, 0.11; 95% CI, 0.07–0.16), recent stressful life events (βModel A, 0.14; 95% CI, 0.10–0.17; βModel B, 0.14; 95% CI, 0.11–0.18; βModel C, 0.10; 95% CI, 0.06–0.15), and resilience (βModel A, −0.10; 95% CI, −0.15 to −0.05; βModel B, −0.18; 95% CI, −0.23 to −0.13; βModel C, −0.11; 95% CI, −0.17 to −0.05). In addition, depressive and anxiety symptoms were associated with emotional self-efficacy (βModel A, −0.17; 95% CI, −0.22 to −0.12; βModel B, −0.11; 95% CI, −0.17 to −0.06), and beliefs about the malleability of emotions (βModel A, −0.08; 95% CI, −0.12 to −0.03; βModel B, −0.09; 95% CI, −0.13 to −0.04). Associations between loneliness and symptoms were weaker among those with more emotional self-efficacy, more endorsement of emotion malleability beliefs, and greater resilience, in separate models. Analyses controlled for recent stressful life events, optimism, and social desirability.Conclusion and relevancePublic mental health interventions that teach resilience in response to negative events, emotional self-efficacy, and emotion-regulation efficacy may protect against the development of depressive symptoms, anxiety, and burnout, particularly in the context of a collective trauma. Emotional self-efficacy and regulation efficacy may mitigate the association between loneliness and mental health, but loneliness prevention research is also needed to address the current mental health crisis

Lay Theories about Whether Emotion Helps or Hinders Reasoning and Wellbeing

This dissertation assessed the extent to which people endorse theories that emotion helps versus hinders reasoning and wellbeing and how these theories relate to analytical reasoning, physical health, emotion regulation and wellbeing. Study 1 examined the links between help and hinder theories, reasoning under stress, reappraisal and suppression use, and wellbeing. Help theory endorsement predicted better reasoning, more reappraisal and greater wellbeing, while hinder theory endorsement predicted more sick days in recent months and more suppression. In Study 2, a new measure of help and hinder theories (The Help and Hinder Theories Scale; HHTE) was developed which assessed the set of beliefs that form each theory. Study 3 demonstrated that the HHTE’s factor structure replicated in a separate sample, and that the scale had adequate three-week test-retest reliability. Study 3 also showed evidence of convergent and divergent validity for the HHTE. Study 4 then tested causal relations between help and hinder theories and responses to a distressing event. Specifically, participants who were randomly assigned to a condition to encourage a help theory endorsed a help theory more and endorsed a hinder theory less than those in the control condition. Participants in the help theory condition reported more emotion acceptance of their emotional response to viewing a distressing film clip, and showed faster emotional and physiological recovery. Together, these studies suggest that believing that emotion is helpful matters for emotional wellbeing and social relationships, and may motivate people to accept emotional experience and thus show faster physiological recovery after distressing events. In contrast, believing that emotion is a hindrance is linked to lower wellbeing, less social support, and less-effective emotion regulation strategies

Spontaneous Emotion Regulation and Cognitive Complexity

The emotion regulation (ER) strategy of reappraisal involves thinking about a particular\ud emotion-eliciting stimulus so as to regulate one???s emotional response. In contrast to\ud suppression, which involves ???hiding??? one???s response (e.g., facial expressions) to an\ud emotionally-eliciting stimulus, reappraisal has been correlated with reduced subjective\ud experience of negative emotion, without posing costs to memory or increasing\ud physiological arousal. While research has linked reappraisal to positive health outcomes, to the author???s knowledge, research has not yet looked at psychological factors that relate to the propensity to spontaneously reappraise. This study investigated spontaneous emotion regulation strategies (acceptance, reappraisal, suppression) in response to a sadness-inducing film clip, and the construct of cognitive complexity (CC), or the degree to which individuals categorize a particular stimulus in multidimensional ways. The repertory grid technique (repgrid) was used to assess CC; the extent to which participants categorized a set of acquaintances across bipolar dimensions of personal meaning in functionally different ways was represented by CC scores. The hypotheses that the repgrid would induce spontaneous reappraisal, reduce spontaneous suppression, and influence nonacceptance in response to a sadness-inducing film clip were not supported.\ud The hypotheses that a repgrid designed to elicit higher CC scores, CE-grid (compared to\ud a repgrid designed to elicit lower CC scores, CS-grid) would induce spontaneous\ud reappraisal, reduce spontaneous suppression, and influence nonacceptance in response to a sadness-inducing film clip were also not supported, and experimental manipulation of regprid type was not successful. The hypotheses that CC would positively correlate with reappraisal, negatively correlate with suppression, and correlate with nonacceptance were not supported. Finally, also not supported were the hypotheses that the repgrid versus control task, and the CE-grid versus CS-grid would reduce average post-film reports of sadness.Psycholog

Lay Theories About Whether Emotion Helps or Hinders: Assessment and Effects on Emotional Acceptance and Recovery From Distress.

This investigation examined how people's beliefs about the functionality of emotion shape their emotional response and regulatory strategies when encountering distressing events. In Study 1, we present data supporting the reliability and validity of an 8-item instrument, the Help and Hinder Theories about Emotion Measure (HHTEM), designed to assess an individual's beliefs about the functionality of emotion. Participants who more strongly endorsed a Help Theory reported greater wellbeing, emotional acceptance, and use of reappraisal to regulate emotion. Participants who more strongly endorsed a Hinder Theory reported less wellbeing and more expressive suppression and substance use. In Study 2, we demonstrate that encouraging participants to view emotion as helpful affected their physiological and regulatory response to a distressing event. Participants in the Help Theory condition showed greater physiological reactivity (SCL) during a distressing film than control participants but were more accepting of their emotional response. Shortly after the film, SCL decreased for participants in the Help Theory condition. Compared to control participants, they engaged in less suppression and reported less lingering effect of the film on their mood. Together, these studies suggest that people's theories about the functionality of emotion influence their reactivity, the strategies they adopt to regulate emotion, and their ability to rebound after distressing events