Regulation of negative emotions through positive reappraisal and distancing in high-trait-anxious women

Positive reappraisal and distancing are two distinct cognitive reappraisal strategies for emotion regulation. Critically however, research examining the impact of elevated trait anxiety on cognitive reappraisal has often conflated these strategies. Thus, the present study investigated whether high-trait-anxious (HTA) women can effectively utilize positive reappraisal and distancing to regulate emotional responses to negative stimuli. Twenty-six HTA women and twenty-seven low-trait-anxious (LTA) women were investigated in a self-generated reappraisal paradigm. Subjective measures of emotional regulation and event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded while participants were instructed to passively view neutral or negative pictures, or to reinterpret negative pictures in a positive way (positive reappraisal) or a detached and unemotional way (distancing). HTA women, as compared to LTA women, reported smaller reductions in negative affect after positive reappraisal and smaller reductions in emotional arousal after distancing. Though ERP data did not reveal corresponding differences in the centro-parietal late positive potential during emotion regulation, data did reveal HTA women exhibited enhanced recruitment of cognitive control during positive reappraisal and greater preparatory processing before engaging in distancing. Future research should examine the generalizability of the present results in clinical anxiety individuals, male sample and other reappraisal strategies. Overall, HTA women appeared to recruit more cortical resources, suggestive of compensatory mechanisms, to achieve a similar performance as LTA women when engaging in positive reappraisal and distancing strategies to regulate negative emotions. Therefore, the findings demonstrate that HTA women are characterized by the inefficient implementation of positive reappraisal and distancing strategies.