Who regulates when told? A systematic investigation of implicit to explicit emotion regulation

Emotion regulation is a significant area of psychological research that requires investigation of processes that are often difficult for participants to describe, involving implicit and automatic actions. However, research examining emotion regulatory processes often requires individuals to modify their emotional responses in the moment and to report on that strategy use. We aimed to determine if individuals are able to change the regulation of their emotions when implicit goals are made explicit.

Undergraduates (n = 101) watched four fear-eliciting films. Between the second and third films, participants were provided psychoeducation on emotion regulation and then, after each of the final two films, participants were asked to report on the emotion regulation strategies they used during those films. Differences in self-reported affect, facial expression, and skin conductance were examined between, before, and after the emotion regulation instruction, as well as between the final two films.

Results suggested little difference in emotion response output following emotion regulation education and strategy reports and that individuals higher in trait negative affectivity were least responsive.

Hence, individuals may struggle to respond when implicit regulatory goals become explicit. This has implications for future research, but also for interventions that commonly rely on explicit emotion regulation goals and processes.