EMOTION REGULATION ACROSS RESPONSE SYSTEMS: A MULTIMODAL COMPARISON OF FOUR EMOTION REGULATION STRATEGIES

Emotion regulation (ER) refers to the processes by which individuals modify the experience and expression of emotion. Whereas the benefits and drawbacks of various ER strategies have been extensively studied, direct comparisons across multiple strategies are often hindered by differences in study design, stimulus material, and measurement approaches. As a result, the relative effectiveness and specific mechanisms of common regulation strategies remain insufficiently understood. In this study, 61 healthy undergraduate students (aged 19-20), completed an emotion regulation task employing four commonly used emotion regulation strategies: distraction, reappraisal, distancing, and suppression. To assess baseline effects of strategy deployment, participants were asked to regulate both negative and neutral visual stimuli. Responses were recorded by means of subjective reports (valence and arousal ratings), autonomic responses (heart rate, pupil dilation, electrodermal and electromyographic activity), and EEG activity to assess the effects of regulation strategies across multiple dimensions of emotional response. Analyses of subjective ratings indicated that antecedent-focused strategies (reappraisal, distraction, and distancing) were similarly effective in reducing negative affect, whereas suppression, a response-focused strategy, was least effective. Reappraisal further showed unique effects by increasing valence reports of both negative and neutral stimuli. Preliminary analyses of physiological data point to partially divergent patterns across subjective, autonomic and neural measures. These findings underscore the importance of integrating subjective and physiological indices to obtain a comprehensive understanding of how different strategies modulate emotional experience.