The regulation of positive and negative social feedback: A psychophysiological study

Everyday social evaluations are psychologically potent and trigger self-reflective thoughts and feelings. The present study sought to examine the psychophysiological impact of such evaluations using eye tracking, pupillometry, and heart-rate variability. Fifty-nine healthy adult volunteers received rigged social feedback (criticism and praise) based on their photograph. Gaze data were collected to investigate processes of attentional deployment/allocation toward the self or the evaluator expressing criticism or praise. Whereas voluntary attention was directed to evaluators who expressed praise, attention was drawn to one's own picture after criticism. Pupil dilation and heart-rate variability were larger in response to criticism as compared to praise, suggesting a flexible and adaptive emotion regulatory effort in response to social information that triggers an affective response. Altogether, healthy individuals recruited more regulatory resources to cope with negative (as compared to positive) social feedback, and this processing of social feedback was associated with adjustments in self-focused attention.