The Short-Term Versus Long-Term Effects of Acceptance and Moderation by Stimulus Arousal Level

Negative emotion down-regulation strategies vary in the depth of emotional engagement they entail, which may lead to different short- versus longer-term effects. Acceptance is an emotion regulation strategy in which an individual allows emotions to be present without letting them fuse with the self or overwhelm their experience. Acceptance involves a relatively deep level of emotional processing but has been understudied compared to other engaged strategies. In particular, it is unknown whether acceptance is subject to the same moderators (e.g., stimulus arousal level) and how this might vary in the short versus longer term. Here, participants (n = 79) accepted or viewed low- and high-arousing negative pictures. Immediately after, a subset of participants (n = 33) viewed the same pictures, without instructions to regulate. In the first task, acceptance reduced the late positive potential (LPP) to low-, but not high-arousing pictures only early on during picture presentation. Additionally, acceptance reduced arousal ratings for both low- and high-arousing pictures. In the second task, previously accepted low- and high-arousing pictures elicited smaller LPPs than previously viewed pictures, with this effect emerging more quickly for low-arousing pictures. Arousal and valence ratings did not differ between previously accepted versus viewed pictures. Therefore, although acceptance may be less effective at reducing the motivational salience of high-arousing stimuli in the short term, it leads to longer-term reductions in electrocortical processing of both low- and high-arousing pictures. Results extend the engagement-disengagement framework to include acceptance, suggesting that it shares strengths and weaknesses with other engaged emotion regulation strategies.