Are Emotion Regulation Strategies Impacted By Executive Functions? An Experimental Study

Abstract

The ability to exert influence on our emotions play a significant role in the attainment of our goals. To have control over when and how we experience emotions are thought to be impacted by higher cognitive processes such as executive functions. However, there is inadequate research to support this notion. Hence, we examined the relationship between executive functions – updating, shifting and inhibition – and emotion regulation strategies – cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression. We predicted that higher updating would positively relate to cognitive reappraisal, while inhibition would positively relate to expressive suppression. We further hypothesized that shifting would positively relate to both cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression. Participants completed updating, shifting and inhibition tasks. Then they used expressive suppression or cognitive reappraisal strategies in response to unpleasant pictures, accompanied with physiological recording. Faster updating was associated with a larger heart rate deceleration during reappraisal. Inhibition was associated with a more frequent use of suppression. Overall, these data confirm the idea that a higher level of executive functions is partially related to the efficient application of emotion regulation strategy. As to other physiological measures, although typical patterns of emotional responding were observed, they did not correlate with the executive function measures during emotion regulation