Reappraisal Techniques In Research

Emotions are ways people express how they are feeling. They can be positive, but they can also be negative. Certain emotions can potentially have harmful effects on an individual and therefore, learning to handle emotions in a healthy way is important. As Gross (2013) describes in his article on emotional regulation, people utilize different strategies to regulate. One of the comparisons most often made in research is the contrast between suppression techniques and reappraisal techniques. Suppression is behaviorally based, and focuses on changing the emotional expression, which is often the opposite of what an individual is feeling. Reappraisal is cognitively based and works, toward changing the thinking process in order to change the emotional …show more content…
They found that people who utilize suppression are often less aware why they are upset and how to express those emotions in a healthy way. This makes it harder for the individual to improve his or her circumstances and is therefore caught in a situation that elicits negative emotion. Cohen (2013) looked at the effects of emotional suppression in cancer patients. A sample of 241 cancer patients, aged 21-87 was taken and each completed the Distress Thermometer (DT) and the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS). In addition, they also completed the Courtauld Emotional Control scale (CEC) in order to measure emotional suppression. Though higher emotional suppression seemed to control psychological distress, it was not able to control the patient’s anxiety, indicating suppression is not successful at reducing all negative emotions. However, it seems that the negative emotional impact from suppression may be culture-dependent. Soto et al (2011) conducted a study in order to determine the different effects of emotional suppression in different cultures. Seventy-one European American students and 100 Hong Kong …show more content…
In order to do so, we conducted two studies. Study 1 determined correlations between suppression and reappraisal and negative and positive emotions. Participants’ emotion regulation was measured, along with their emotional experience and expressivity. We hypothesized that suppression would have a positive or no correlation with negative affect and a positive correlation with negative expression. In addition, suppression would have a negative correlation with positive affect and positive expression. Furthermore, reappraisal would have a positive correlation with positive affect and positive expression and a negative correlation with negative affect and negative expression. Study 2 was an experimental study in which we examined the effect of suppression on mood and memory. We randomly assigned participants to a watch or suppress condition when watching a video that elicits positive emotion. We then compared the suppression and watch group’s mood and memory. We predicted that the watch group would have a greater increase in positive emotion than the suppression group and that the watch group would also have better memory