Health Psychology Group, Department of Psychology, University of Leuven Leuven, Belgium.
Front Psychol. 2014 Jul 22;5:807. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00807. eCollection 2014.
Processing unpleasant affective cues induces elevated momentary symptom reports, especially in persons with high levels of symptom reporting in daily life. The present study aimed to examine whether applying an emotion regulation strategy, i.e. affect labeling, can inhibit these emotion influences on symptom reporting. Student participants (N = 61) with varying levels of habitual symptom reporting completed six picture viewing trials of homogeneous valence (three pleasant, three unpleasant) under three conditions: merely viewing, emotional labeling, or content (non-emotional) labeling. Affect ratings and symptom reports were collected after each trial. Participants completed a motor inhibition task and self-control questionnaires as indices of their inhibitory capacities. Heart rate variability was also measured. Labeling, either emotional or non-emotional, significantly reduced experienced affect, as well as the elevated symptoms reports observed after unpleasant picture viewing. These labeling effects became more pronounced with increasing levels of habitual symptom reporting, suggesting a moderating role of the latter variable, but did not correlate with any index of general inhibitory capacity. Our findings suggest that using an emotion regulation strategy, such as labeling emotional stimuli, can reverse the effects of unpleasant stimuli on symptom reporting and that such strategies can be especially beneficial for individuals suffering from medically unexplained physical symptoms.
处理不愉快的情感线索会引起短暂的症状报告增加，尤其是在日常生活中报告症状水平较高的人。本研究旨在探讨应用情绪调节策略，即情感标签，是否可以抑制这些情绪对症状报告的影响。具有不同习惯性症状报告水平的学生参与者（N=61）在三种条件下完成了六次同质效价（三次愉快，三次不愉快）的图片观看试验：仅观看、情感标签或内容（非情感）标签。每次试验后收集情感评分和症状报告。参与者完成了一项运动抑制任务和自我控制问卷，作为其抑制能力的指标。还测量了心率变异性。情感或非情感标签都显著降低了体验到的情感，以及在观看不愉快图片后观察到的症状报告升高。随着习惯性症状报告水平的增加，这些标签效应变得更加明显，表明后者变量具有调节作用，但与任何一般抑制能力指标都没有相关性。我们的研究结果表明，使用情绪调节策略，如标记情绪刺激，可以逆转不愉快刺激对症状报告的影响，并且这些策略对于患有医学上无法解释的身体症状的个体尤其有益。
