Psycho- and Neurophysiological Mechanisms Underlying the Efficacy of Interpersonal Emotional Regulation

Although humans are inherently social, emotion regulation (ER) studies often disregard how ER predominantly occurs within social interactions with others. It is currently unclear how the efficacy of inter-personal ER compares to intra-personal regulation, and what psychophysiological mechanisms underlie effective inter-personal ER. There has been behavioural evidence to suggest inter-personal ER might in fact be more effective in decreasing negative emotions than intra-personal ER. To assess whether inter-personal ER also modulates physiological responses, this thesis utilised electrodermal activity measures. A total of 146 participants regulated their emotions using a self-selected strategy (intra-personal ER) or a strategy that was recommended to them (inter-personal ER). Although participants reported greater decreases in negative emotions following intra-personal ER, the reverse pattern emerged for physiological responses: electrodermal measures exhibited greater decreases during inter-personal ER. Subsequently, the neural processes underlying these physiological benefits of inter-personal ER were scrutinised in a second-person fMRI experiment using the same experimental paradigm. Twenty-three dyads consisting of a Regulator recommending ER strategies and a Target implementing these strategies were scanned simultaneously. Although ratings responses suggested no differences in efficacy between inter- and intra-personal ER, during inter-personal ER, both Regulators and Targets exhibited activations within key nodes of the ER network, e.g., the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, as well as socio-cognitive regions, such as the temporal parietal junction. Moreover, Regulators’ neural responses during the choice of an ER strategy resembled brain responses observed in Targets during intra-personal ER, thereby suggesting Regulators engaged in processes of embodiment. Taken together, there is tentative evidence to suggest that inter-personal ER can effectively modulate physiological responses in some cases and it engages a similar neural network to intra-personal ER. Importantly, Regulators appear to engage in embodied processes when regulating another’s emotions. Future studies utilising multi-method and second-person paradigms are needed to discover factors which modulate inter-personal ER

It’s not what you do, it’s the way that you do it: An experimental task delineates among passive, reactive and interactive styles of behaviour on social networking sites

Studies have produced vastly disparate findings when exploring relationships between social networking site (SNS) usage and psychosocial well-being. These inconsistencies might reflect a lack of consideration for how people use SNS; specifically, while meaningful interactions are suggested to foster positive feelings, the passive consumption of others’ feeds is proposed to have negative effects on users’ well-being. To facilitate the empirical evaluation of these claims, the present study developed a computerised task to measure styles of usage on a mock SNS platform. Administering this Social Network Site Behaviour Task (SNSBT) online to 526 individuals, we identified three dissociable usage styles that extend the active-passive dichotomy employed frequently in the literature: passive use (consuming content posted by others), reactive use (reacting to others’ content), and interactive use (interacting with others through content sharing). Furthermore, our data reveal that these usage styles differ on several measures of psychosocial variables employed frequently in the disparate literature: more interactive users reported greater feelings of social connectedness and social capital than passive or reactive users. Importantly, however, our results also reveal the multi-dimensional nature of usage styles, with online network size and time spent on SNS platforms serving as potentially confounding influences on some psychosocial measures. These findings not only advance our understanding of SNS behaviour by providing empirical support for theoretic propositions, but also demonstrate the utility of the SNSBT for experimental investigations into the psychosocial outcomes of different SNS usage styles

Relationships between the race implicit association test and other measures of implicit and explicit social cognition

Background: The race-based Implicit Association Test (IAT) was proposed to measure individual differences in implicit racial bias subsumed within social cognition. In recent years, researchers have debated the theoretical tenets underpinning the IAT, questioning whether performance on this task: (1) measures implicit attitudes that operate automatically outside of conscious awareness; (2) reflects individual differences in social cognition; and (3) can predict social behavior. One way to better address these research questions is to assess whether the race-IAT correlates with other implicit processes that are subsumed within social cognition. Aims: The current study assessed whether the race-IAT was related to other commonly used individual difference measures of implicit (and explicit) social cognition. Experiment 1 assessed whether dissociable patterns of performance on the race-IAT were related to measures of implicit imitative tendencies, emotion recognition and perspective taking toward White task actors, as well as explicit measures of trait and state affective empathy and racial bias. Overcoming limitations of task conceptual correspondence, Experiment 2 assessed whether these latter tasks were sensitive in detecting racial biases by using both White and Black task actors and again examined their relationships with the race-IAT. Method: In two lab-based experiments, 226 and 237 participants completed the race-IAT followed by an extensive battery of social cognition measures. Results: Across both experiments, pro-White/anti-Black bias on the race-IAT was positively related to a pro-White bias on explicit measures of positive affective empathy. However, relationships between the race-IAT and implicit imitative tendencies, perspective taking, emotion recognition, and explicit trait and negative state affective empathy were statistically equivalent. Conclusion: The race-IAT was consistently related to explicit measures of positive state affective empathy but not to other individual difference measures of implicit social cognition. These findings are discussed with regards to the theoretical underpinnings of the race-IAT as an individual difference measure of implicit social cognition, as well as alternative explanations relating to the reliability of social cognition measures and the various combinations of general-purpose (social and non-social) executive processes that underpin performance on these tasks

Take my advice: Physiological measures reveal that intrinsic emotion regulation is more effective under external guidance

Research into emotion regulation (ER) has focused primarily on the intra-personal process through which we regulate our own emotions intrinsically. More recently, however, studies have begun to explore the inter-personal nature of intrinsic ER – that is, how we regulate our emotions under the guidance of others. Preliminary evidence suggests that ER might be more effective when implemented in an inter- compared with an intra-personal manner, but these findings are based almost exclusively on self-reported ratings that capture only the subjective experience of emotions. The current study therefore investigated whether this apparent superiority of inter-personal intrinsic ER could be replicated and extended to physiological measures of affective reactions – namely, various metrics of electrodermal activity. In a within-subjects design, a sufficiently powered sample (N = 146) were required to down-regulate their emotional reactions to negatively valenced images using an ER strategy they had chosen themselves intra-personally or one that had been recommended to them inter-personally. Physiological responses converged to demonstrate the greater effectiveness of inter- over intra-personal ER in decreasing negative affective reactions, despite subjective ratings suggesting that participants perceived the opposite to be true. The superiority of inter- over intra-personal ER in physiological recordings was unrelated to individuals' perceptions of their ability to regulate their own emotions, however, and so it remains to be seen if and how such benefits extend to clinical populations

It’s not what you do, it’s the way that you do it: An experimental task delineates among reactive and interactive styles of behaviour on social networking sites

Studies have produced vastly disparate findings when exploring relationships between social networking site (SNS) usage and psychosocial well-being. These inconsistencies might reflect a lack of consideration for how people use SNS; specifically, while meaningful interactions are suggested to foster positive feelings, the passive consumption of others’ feeds is proposed to have negative effects on users’ well-being. To facilitate the empirical evaluation of these claims, the present study developed a computerised task to measure styles of usage on a mock SNS platform. Administering this Social Network Site Behaviour Task (SNSBT) online to 526 individuals, we identified three dissociable usage styles that extend the active-passive dichotomy employed frequently in the literature: passive use (consuming content posted by others), reactive use (reacting to others’ content), and interactive use (interacting with others through content sharing). Furthermore, our data reveal that these usage styles differ on several measures of psychosocial variables employed frequently in the disparate literature: more interactive users reported greater feelings of social connectedness and social capital than passive or reactive users. Importantly, however, our results also reveal the multi-dimensional nature of usage styles, with online network size and time spent on SNS platforms serving as potentially confounding influences on some psychosocial measures. These findings not only advance our understanding of SNS behaviour by providing empirical support for theoretic propositions, but also demonstrate the utility of the SNSBT for experimental investigations into the psychosocial outcomes of different SNS usage styles

It’s not what you do, it’s the way that you do it: An experimental task delineates among passive, reactive and interactive styles of behaviour on social networking sites

Studies have produced vastly disparate findings when exploring relationships between social networking site (SNS) usage and psychosocial well-being. These inconsistencies might reflect a lack of consideration for how people use SNS; specifically, while meaningful interactions are suggested to foster positive feelings, the passive consumption of others’ feeds is proposed to have negative effects on users’ well-being. To facilitate the empirical evaluation of these claims, the present study developed a computerised task to measure styles of usage on a mock SNS platform. Administering this Social Network Site Behaviour Task (SNSBT) online to 526 individuals, we identified three dissociable usage styles that extend the active-passive dichotomy employed frequently in the literature: passive use (consuming content posted by others), reactive use (reacting to others’ content), and interactive use (interacting with others through content sharing). Furthermore, our data reveal that these usage styles differ on several measures of psychosocial variables employed frequently in the disparate literature: more interactive users reported greater feelings of social connectedness and social capital than passive or reactive users. Importantly, however, our results also reveal the multi-dimensional nature of usage styles, with online network size and time spent on SNS platforms serving as potentially confounding influences on some psychosocial measures. These findings not only advance our understanding of SNS behaviour by providing empirical support for theoretic propositions, but also demonstrate the utility of the SNSBT for experimental investigations into the psychosocial outcomes of different SNS usage styles

Relationships between the race Implicit Association Test and other measures of implicit and explicit social cognition

Background: The race-based Implicit Association Test (IAT) was proposed to measure individual differences in implicit racial bias subsumed within social cognition. In recent years, researchers have debated the theoretical tenets underpinning the IAT, questioning whether performance on this task: (1) measures implicit attitudes that operate automatically outside of conscious awareness; (2) reflects individual differences in social cognition; and (3) can predict social behaviour. Aims: Underpinned by these debates, this study aimed to assess whether the race-IAT was related to other commonly used individual difference measures of implicit and explicit social cognition. Experiment 1 assessed whether dissociable patterns of performance on the race-IAT were related to measures of implicit imitative tendencies, emotion recognition and perspective taking towards White task actors, as well as explicit measures of trait and state empathy and racial bias. Overcoming limitations of task conceptual correspondence, Experiment 2 assessed whether these latter tasks were sensitive in detecting racial biases by using both White and Black task actors and examined their relationships with the race-IAT. Method: In two lab-based experiments, 226 and 237 participants completed the race-IAT followed by an extensive battery of social cognition measures. Results: Across both experiments, pro-White/anti-Black bias on the race-IAT was positively related to a pro-White bias on explicit measures of positive affective empathy. However, relationships between the race-IAT and implicit imitative tendencies, perspective taking, emotion recognition, and explicit trait and negative affective empathy were statistically equivalent. Conclusions: The race-IAT was consistently related to explicit measures of positive affective empathy but not to other individual difference measures of implicit social cognition. These findings are discussed with regards to the theoretical underpinnings of the race-IAT as an individual difference measure of implicit social cognition, as well as alternative explanations relating to the reliability of social cognition measures