Li Han-Xiao, Long Quan-Shan, Chen An-Tao, Li Qing
Key Laboratory of Cognition and Personality of Ministry of Education, Faculty of Psychology, Southwest University, Chongqing 400715, China.
Sheng Li Xue Bao. 2019 Aug 25;71(4):562-574.
The influence of reward on behavior is one of the hottest research subjects in psychological research. Reward-induced motivation promotes the performance of the participants. In the field of emotional processing, the reward can influence the individual's processing of emotional information, but previous studies have not directly discussed the effect of reward on emotional regulation. The present study focused on whether emotional regulation ability would be improved under the reward condition. Experiment 1 and 2 investigated the effect of reward on negative emotional down-regulation and positive emotional up-regulation respectively. In experiment 1, monetary reward stimulation was introduced on the basis of the classic emotion regulation paradigm, and the subjects were asked to regulate their negative emotion under the condition of reward or non-reward, and evaluate their current affective state subsequently. Similar to experiment 1, experiment 2 required subjects to up-regulate positive emotions under the condition of reward or non-reward. The results of experiment 1 showed that under the reward condition, the negative emotional regulation effect was significantly higher than that under the non-reward condition (P < 0.05). Experiment 2 also showed that compared to non-reward condition, the positive emotion regulation effect was significantly increased under the reward condition (P < 0.05). These results suggested that compared to non-reward condition, participants can regulate their emotion better under the condition of the reward. It is worth noting that the results of Experiment 1 and 2 may be caused by the incentive motivation induced by monetary stimulus, or the positive emotion caused by positive value of money information. Therefore, we carried out experiment 3 and 4 to explore whether the positive emotions induced by money itself can influence the emotional regulation of individuals. In experiment 3, the money pictures were used to induce the positive emotions of subjects, and the subjects were asked to regulate their negative emotion after the presence of money pictures or non-monetary picture, and evaluate their current affective state subsequently. Similarly, experiment 4 required subjects to regulate their positive emotion after the presence of money pictures. The results of experiment 3 and 4 showed that there was no significant difference in the subjects' scores of emotional pleasantness after the presence of money pictures or non-monetary picture (P < 0.05). The results of experiment 3 and 4 excluded the possibility that the positive emotions induced by simple money stimulus pictures could improve individual's emotional regulation ability. To sum up, the improvement of individual's emotional regulation ability was indeed driven by reward motivation in this study, that is, the motivation induced by reward can effectively promote individual's emotional regulation ability.
奖励对行为的影响是心理学研究中最热门的研究课题之一。奖励诱导的动机促进了参与者的表现。在情绪加工领域，奖励可以影响个体对情绪信息的加工，但以往的研究并未直接探讨奖励对情绪调节的作用。本研究聚焦于奖励条件下情绪调节能力是否会得到提高。实验1和实验2分别考察了奖励对消极情绪下调和积极情绪上调的影响。在实验1中，在经典情绪调节范式的基础上引入金钱奖励刺激，要求被试在有奖励或无奖励的条件下调节自己的消极情绪，随后评估自己当前的情感状态。与实验1类似，实验2要求被试在有奖励或无奖励的条件下上调积极情绪。实验1的结果表明，在奖励条件下，消极情绪调节效果显著高于无奖励条件（P<0.05）。实验2也表明，与无奖励条件相比，奖励条件下积极情绪调节效果显著增强（P<0.05）。这些结果表明，与无奖励条件相比，被试在奖励条件下能够更好地调节自己的情绪。值得注意的是，实验1和2的结果可能是由金钱刺激诱导的激励动机，或者是金钱信息的正性价值所引发的积极情绪导致的。因此，我们进行了实验3和4，以探究金钱本身所引发的积极情绪是否会影响个体的情绪调节。在实验3中，使用金钱图片诱导被试的积极情绪，要求被试在呈现金钱图片或非金钱图片后调节自己的消极情绪，随后评估自己当前的情感状态。同样，实验4要求被试在呈现金钱图片后调节自己的积极情绪。实验3和4的结果表明，呈现金钱图片或非金钱图片后，被试的情绪愉悦度得分无显著差异（P<0.05）。实验3和4的结果排除了单纯金钱刺激图片所引发的积极情绪能够提高个体情绪调节能力的可能性。综上所述，本研究中个体情绪调节能力的提高确实是由奖励动机驱动的，即奖励诱导的动机能够有效促进个体的情绪调节能力。
