Behavioral characteristics of implicit and explicit emotion regulation in high trait anxiety

To explore the behavioral characteristics of using cognitive reappraisal (CR) and expressive suppression (ES) in high trait anxiety individuals under both explicit and implicit conditions.

A total of 57 non-psychology undergraduates and postgraduates were recruited in a military medical university from June to July in 2023. All the participants were surveyed with Trait Form of Spielberger's State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI-T) and Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ) to investigate their level of anxiety and usage habits of CR and ES strategies. According to the STAI-T results, they were divided to a high trait anxiety (HTA) group (n=28) and a low trait anxiety (LTA) group (n=29). Then the implicit and explicit emotion regulation (ER) tasks were used to analyze and compare 2 strategies on improving negative emotional pleasure and arousal, and the differences in difficulty and success of using CR and ES under the explicit condition.

① Both the HTA and LTA individuals showed a higher use of CR and less use of ES [t(27)=3. 94, P<0. 001; t(28)=11. 33, P<0. 001], while the HTA individuals used more ES [t(55)=3. 02, P<0. 01] and less CR than the LTA individuals [t(55)=-2. 20, P=0. 02]. ② Compared with implicit neutral priming, both implicit CR (Pleasure: 2. 56±0. 11 vs 2. 73±0. 12, P<0. 01; Arousal: 6. 68±0. 18 vs 6. 51±0. 20, P<0. 05) and implicit ES priming (Pleasure: 2. 56±0. 11 vs 2. 86±0. 11, P<0. 001; Arousal: 6. 68±0. 18 vs 6. 30±0. 20, P<0. 001) improved the negative emotional experiences of both HTA and LTA groups, and ES showed better effect (Pleasure: P<0. 001; Arousal: P<0. 001). ③ Explicit CR (Pleasure: 2. 92±0. 12 vs 5. 09±0. 09, P<0. 001; Arousal: 6. 43±0. 20 vs 4. 33±0. 21, P<0. 001) and explicit ES (Pleasure: 2. 92±0. 12 vs 4. 34±0. 09, P<0. 001; Arousal: 6. 43±0. 20 vs 4. 22±0. 22, P<0. 001) ameliorated the negative feelings in the HTA and LTA individuals, and the effect of explicit CR on improving pleasure was superior than that of explicit ES (P<0. 001). For the HTA individuals, it is more difficult to implement CR and ES [CR: t(55) =2. 16, P=0. 02; ES: t(55) =2. 92, P<0. 01], and ES was less successful in emotion regulation when compared with the LTA individuals [t(55)=-1. 88, P=0. 03]; the difficulty of using ES was significantly higher than that of CR [4. 00±1. 81 vs 5. 00±1. 80, t(27)=-2. 78, P<0. 01], and the success rate was also lower [7. 04±1. 00 vs 6. 64±1. 13, t(27)=2. 09, P=0. 02]. ④ Comparing the effects of emotion regulation under implicit and explicit conditions, it was presented that explicit CR and ES were better than implicit CR and ES for both HTA and LTA individuals (Pleasure: explicit CR vs implicit CR: 5. 09±0. 09 vs 2. 73±0. 12, P<0. 001; explicit ES vs implicit ES: 4. 34±0. 09 vs 2. 86±0. 11, P<0. 001; Arousal: explicit CR vs implicit CR: 4. 33±0. 21 vs 6. 51±0. 20, P<0. 001; explicit ES vs implicit ES: 4. 22±0. 22 vs 6. 30±0. 20, P<0. 001).

In terms of usage habits of ER strategies, HTA individuals tend to use ES more and CR less than LTA individuals. Under the implicit/explicit conditions, HTA individuals can both employ CR and ES to improve negative emotional experience, and the effect of explicit ER is significantly better than implicit condition.