Effects of depressive symptoms on regulating emotional goals: Preferences for distinct facial emotions

Although many studies of emotion regulation in depression have focused on regulatory strategies, few have explored the goals of regulation. Regulatory strategies refer to methods of adjusting emotions, while regulatory goals refer to the desired states of emotion. According to situational selection strategy, individuals choose situations to regulate their emotions, and also selectively approach or avoid certain people.

We used the Beck Depression Inventory-II scale to classify healthy individuals into two groups: those with either high or low levels of depressive symptoms. We then explored the influence of these symptoms on individual goals for emotion regulation. Event-related potentials in the brain were recorded as participants viewed and selected images of happy, neutral, sad, and fearful faces. Participants also provided subjective emotional preferences.

Late positive potential (LPP) amplitudes for all faces were smaller in the high depressive-symptom group than those in the low depressive-symptom group. Additionally, participants in the high depressive-symptom group chose to look at sad and fearful faces more often than they chose to view happy or neutral faces, and showed a stronger preference for sad and fearful emotions and a weaker preference for happy emotions.

The results suggest that the more individuals exhibit depressive symptoms, the less likely that they will be motivated to approach happy faces and avoid sad and fearful faces. The result of this emotional regulation goal is an increase in the experience of negative emotions, which likely contributes to their depressive state.