Distract or Reappraise? The Mechanism of Cognitive Emotion Regulation Choice and Its Influential Factors

Ni Zhang,1,2 Kuo Zhang,3 Jingxin Wang,1,4 Xuechuan Sun5 1Faculty of Psychology, Tianjin Normal University, Tianjin, People’s Republic of China; 2Mental Health Education for College Students, Weifang Medical University, Weifang, People’s Republic of China; 3Department of Social Psychology, Nankai University, Tianjin, People’s Republic of China; 4Academy of Psychology and Behavior, Tianjin Normal University, Tianjin, People’s Republic of China; 5Department of Information Engineering, Tianjin University of Commerce, Tianjin, People’s Republic of ChinaCorrespondence: Kuo Zhang; Xuechuan Sun, Email zhkuo@126.com; sunxuechuan@tjcu.edu.cnAbstract: Previous research on emotion regulation has focused more on the regulation effects corresponding to a particular emotion regulation strategy, yet the same regulation strategy may produce different regulation effects in different contexts. Similarly, one regulation strategy may not be applicable to all situations. Emotion regulation choice refers to the process by which individuals choose different regulation strategies in different contexts. Executive control and the level of engagement-disengagement considerations are the cognitive mechanisms of emotion regulation choice, while the neural mechanisms of emotion regulation choice still need to be explored more directly and deeply. Studies have found that affective, cognitive, and motivational factors have different degrees of influence on emotion regulation choice. However, there is still a lack of a reliable framework to systematically investigate the relationship between these influences and the outcome of their combined effect on emotion regulation choices. Future research needs to further explore the neurophysiological basis of emotion regulation choice by using different techniques and constructing a complete model based on multiple factors to more accurately grasp the dynamic process of emotion regulation choice.Keywords: emotion regulation choice, cognitive reappraisal, distraction, emotion regulation ...