Examining the Role of Effort Across Cognitive Reappraisal Modalities

Abstract

Cognitive reappraisal, or changing how one thinks about an emotional situation to change how one feels, is an effective strategy for managing emotions. Cognitive effort (i.e., the mental effort expended on a task) is thought to increase the efficacy of some emotion regulation strategies, rendering it possible that changing the modality through which people reappraise (i.e., thinking vs saying vs writing) could increase both the effort they apply and their regulation efficacy. For example, merely thinking one’s reappraisals quietly could require less effort than articulating one’s reappraisals aloud or in writing. This hypothesis is further supported by research on the neural bases of cognitive reappraisal and cognitive effort, which show that both recruit brain regions related to executive control like the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and ventromedial prefrontal cortex. In Study 1, we found that saying reappraisals aloud led to more effective regulation of emotions generated by negative images than thinking reappraisals quietly (p < .001) with qualitative analyses of participants’ reflections on the task suggesting that saying reappraisals was more effortful than thinking them. In Study 2, we found that either saying or writing reappraisals led to more effective regulation and was more effortful than thinking reappraisals (p < .001). Surprisingly, when testing for mediation, we found that effort did not mediate the relationship between reappraisal modality and negative affect. However, we propose additional studies, both neuroscientific and behavioral, to further explain why we found a difference in reappraisal efficacy between different modalities. This work has the potential to reveal the mechanism underlying a subtle technique for increasing reappraisal efficacy, holding broad translational and theoretical impacts.