Previous studies reported that negative stimuli induced less affect in
bilinguals when stimuli were presented in bilinguals’ second, weaker language
(L2) than when they were presented in their native language (L1). This effect
of L2 use was attributed to increased emotional distance as well as to
increased levels of cognitive control during L2 use. Here we investigated how
explicit (cognitive reappraisal, i.e., reinterpreting the meaning of the
emotional stimulus to alter its emotional impact) and implicit (content
labeling, i.e., categorizing the content of the image; and emotion labeling,
i.e., naming the emotion induced by the emotional stimulus) emotion regulation
strategies are altered in an L2 (English) context in German native speakers
with medium to high proficiency in their L2. While previous studies used
linguistic stimuli, such as words, to induce affect, here we used images to
test whether reduced affect could also be observed for non-linguistic stimuli
when presented in an L2 context. We hypothesized that the previously
implicated increase in emotional distance and cognitive control in an L2 would
result in an L2 advantage in emotion regulation (i.e., leading to less
negative emotions compared to an L1 context), by strengthening the effect of
linguistic re-evaluation on the evoked emotions. Using a classic emotion
regulation paradigm, we examined changes in subjective emotional state ratings
during reappraisal, emotion labeling and content labeling in a L1 and L2
context. We found that the strength of evoked affective responses did not
depend on the language context in which an image was presented. Crucially,
content labeling in L2 was more effective than in L1, whereas emotion labeling
did not differ between languages. Overall, evoked responses were regulated
most effectively through explicit emotion regulation (reappraisal) in L1 and
L2 context. These results demonstrate an L2 advantage effect for emotion
regulation through content labeling and suggest that L2 context alters sub-
processes implicated in content labeling but not emotion labeling