Action control in emotion regulation: when reappraisal may carry hidden costs

Cognitive reappraisal is widely regarded as adaptive; however, strategies that impose control to reduce unpleasant emotion may involve tradeoffs when individuals encounter personally meaningful reminders of past adversity. The present study examined these dynamics within a cybernetic framework in which cognitive appraisal operates as a monitoring and corrective feedback process, whereas acceptance reflects disengagement from emotional control.

Participants were undergraduates with a history of parental divorce (n = 33; M age = 20.09 years; M = 10.90 years since divorce), drawn from a larger experiment. They viewed sad film clips that included an unexpected divorce-relevant reminder, completed a movement-based Stroop task with mouse tracking to assess action dynamics, and later reported reminder-evoked distress. Habitual reappraisal and acceptance were measured via self-report.

Instructed reappraisal conferred short-term functional benefits, reflected in Stroop action dynamics indicating more decisive yet accurate responses during reminder exposure. Although greater time since divorce typically predicts lower reminder-evoked distress, moderation analyses showed that this association emerged only among individuals lower in habitual reappraisal and was attenuated at higher levels (time × reappraisal interaction, β = 0.08, p = 0.03). In contrast, higher habitual acceptance-operationalized as nonjudgment toward emotional experience-showed the expected pattern, with greater time since divorce predicting lower distress.

These findings highlight a potential tradeoff in emotion regulation: Reappraisal may support performance in the moment, yet greater habitual reliance on it may correspond with weaker links between time and reduced distress from past reminders. We interpret these effects as an exploratory proof-of-concept, suggesting that control-based regulatory processes may maintain emotional reference signals, whereas acceptance may facilitate their attenuation over time.