Appraising reappraisal: Exploring its role in the context of behavioral exposure for contamination fears

A large body of work suggests that cognitive reappraisal is an effective strategy for modifying emotional intensity. In addition, its habitual use has been linked to adaptive psychological functioning, operationalized as low levels of symptoms of psychopathology. However, little is known about the impact of cognitive reappraisal on behavioral aspects of mental disorders. For example, the experience of fear is often accompanied by the behavioral urge to avoid the feared stimuli. Although there is evidence to suggest that cognitive reappraisal reduces fear in the moment, there is less information about the impact on behavioral correlates.

To that end, we recruited 90 participants who experienced substantial contamination concerns (i.e., obsessive-compulsive disorder symptoms) and asked them to participate in exposure tasks that consisted of gradually coming into contact with contaminated objects (i.e., approach behavior). We randomly assigned participants to one of three conditions: (1) reappraise the emotion-eliciting stimulus, (2) reappraise their emotional response, or (3) no specific emotion regulation instructions.

Reappraising the stimulus, but not reappraising the emotional response, led to significantly greater behavioral approach (p = .02) than the no-instruction condition during exposure. There were no significant differences in subjective state anxiety between any of the conditions.

These findings suggest that certain types of reappraisal may lead to greater approach behavior during exposure even in the absence of subjective emotional changes. More broadly, they underscore the importance of examining the role of emotion regulation strategies (including different types of reappraisal) on the behavioral aspects of mental disorders.