Week 3: Emotion Regulation: Top-Down Cognitive Processes on Emotional Responses Flashcards
Voluntary Attention System (Derryberry & Reed, 2002)
The general capacity to voluntarily control attention in relation to positive as well as negative reactions.
Attention Control (Derryberry & Reed, 2002)
1) Maintain Focus & Ignore Distractions
2) Shift-Attention (Multi-tasking)
Focusing
The ability to voluntarily maintain the focus of attention on the task that you’re performing and to ignore thoughts or things in your environment that might distract you.
Shifting
The ability to intentionally shift attention from one thing to another, such as when we’re multitasking.
Automatic Attention (reflex)
Involuntary: Happens without conscious effort.
Bottom-up: Driven by external stimuli (like a loud noise or a bright light).
Controlled Attention (choice)
Voluntary: Requires conscious effort and decision-making.
Top-down: Directed by internal goals or intentions.
Attention Control & Anxiety (Derryberry & Reed, 2002)
High attention control helps people with anxiety avoid getting stuck on negative thoughts.
For people with low attention control, they had greater difficulty disengaging from the threat stimuli.
They suggested that attention control and the ability to shift away from threatening thoughts or stimuli can help limit the emotional impact of threatening information.
Attention Control (Eysenck, 2007)
The ability to compensate for poor attention
control has its limits.
Demanding task + Information Overload/Low Motivation = More Distracted
Attention Control (Berggren)
Using a visual search task, this study showed that when people were under pressure (high cognitive load), those with high anxiety struggled more to ignore distracting faces than people with low anxiety.
Attention-Feedback Awareness and Control Training (A-FACT)
The training to improve attention control and reduce attention bias, avoidance behavior, and emotional response to stress.
Cognitive Reappraisal/Restructuring
lt involves transforming the meaning of a negative situation that one encounters, and in so doing, reducing its emotional impact.
Antecedent focused.
Antecedent-Focused Emotional Strategy (before/during an event)
Involves thinking about the causes of a situation and trying to reinterpret them so as to reduce the emotional impact of that situation.
Response-Focused Emotional Strategy (after an event)
One might try to directly manage the feelings that a situation evokes, such as with relaxation techniques.
Expressive Suppression
Involves active attempts to hide the emotional impact of an event.
Reappraisal
Sometimes only possible because of the information provided to us.
Training Reappraisal in Therapy
1) Identify negative thoughts
2) Consider & evaluate evidence validity
3) Challenge negative thoughts
4) Re-evaluate appraisal
Fear Extinction as Inhibition
Rather than erasing the fear memory, extinction involves creating a new memory that inhibits the original fear.
Excitatory Association
It is the original learned connection between the conditioned stimulus (CS) and the unconditioned stimulus (US).
Unlearning
Broken up or deleted
Extinction = Context Dependent
Extinction learning is often tied to a specific context.
Return of Fear
Changing the context can lead to a resurgence of fear.
Memories
Are not fixed representations of events as they actually happened. Instead, they are flexible and can be subject
to change.
Memory Re-scripting
Intentionally altering a negative memory to reduce its emotional impact.
Memory Re-scripting
Recall the memory, identify emotions, and then change the narrative.
Memory Re-scripting
Corrects poorly processed memories, explores suppressed emotions, and challenges trauma-related beliefs.
Type A Imagery Rescripting
Modifying the memory itself and associated emotions and beliefs.
Type B Imagery Rescripting
Creating a positive self-image to counteract negative emotions.
