Background: Research on attention allocation to signs of social feedback in social anxiety has mainly shown attentional avoidance. Yet, our social world is vastly changing. Physical in-person encounters are no longer the sole medium for social interactions, as social media platforms (SMP's) fulfil a significant part of social life. Still, assessing attention allocation to indicators of social evaluation/feedback in social anxiety in this novel environment is still scarce. Methods: Socially anxious (n = 30) and nonanxious participants (n = 30) completed a reading comprehension task while an Instagram page (unrelated to the task) was concurrently visible on the computer screen. Critically, the Instagram page included an image reflecting participants' personal features (a personalized portfolio), which received "ongoing" mock social evaluation (in the form of "Likes") while participants completed the reading comprehension task. Using eye-tracking methodology, we monitored participants' attention allocation to the Instagram page, computing the total number of visits to, and the total time spent on, the Instagram page. We then divided the Instagram page to three complementing areas-the "Like" icon; the personalized portfolio image; and the rest of the page-and repeated the same analyses. Results: Socially anxious participants exhibited greater attention allocation to the Instagram page, manifesting in both attentional indices (visits, dwell time), which was specifically driven by the Like icon. Results were not affected by participants' daily Instagram usage time. Conclusion: Socially anxious individuals are biased toward signs of social evaluation/feedback when on SMPs, diverging from prior research on attention allocation during 'concrete/real' social evaluative contexts.

Emotion-regulation difficulties are implicated as a risk factor for suicidal thoughts, yet little is known about how adults with suicidal thoughts regulate emotions in daily life or which deficits are specific to suicidality versus shared across psychopathology. In two ecological-momentary-assessment studies (Study 1: N = 396; Study 2, recruited online: N = 195), we compared adults with current suicidal thoughts with adults with past or no suicidal history (Study 1) and with psychiatric and healthy control participants (Study 2). Participants with current (vs. past) suicidal thoughts reported greater substance use and self-injury to regulate emotions (Study 1). Compared with psychiatric control participants, participants with suicidal thoughts reported higher regulatory effort and substance use, and compared with healthy control participants, they additionally reported greater distraction and rumination and lower regulatory success (Study 2). Self-injury and substance use uniquely predicted momentary suicidal thinking (Study 2). Findings highlight substance use, self-injury, and heightened regulatory effort as potentially distinct emotion-regulation processes associated with suicidal thoughts.

Different emotion regulation strategies have very different consequences. This observation has inspired a growing body of work seeking to identify the factors that predict emotion regulation strategy choice. To explain these findings, several explanatory theories have been proposed. As with most theories in the field of affective science, they are formulated in natural language. Translating these theories into the language of mathematics may bring more clarity to the field and help generate new, testable hypotheses. The present article aimed to formulate more precise theoretical predictions by translating verbal theories about the emotion regulation selection process into formal mathematical language. Specifically, we focused on formally defining a theory that might help to explain the robust finding that people prefer distraction over reappraisal at high emotional intensities but prefer reappraisal over distraction at low emotional intensities. Through the process of theory formalization, we identified hidden assumptions and unanswered research questions, which resulted in a computational model that predicts results that match empirical work. This work demonstrates how theory formalization can accelerate theoretical and empirical progress in affective science. Better explanatory theories can then inform interventions designed to enhance the selection of adaptive regulation strategies. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Conceptual accounts define Emotion Regulatory Flexibility as composed of two sequential elements: (a) classification of affective contexts that is sensitive to their varying nature (b) flexible selection of regulatory strategies that matches varying affective contexts. Despite conceptual agreement, existing evidence focuses on the second element, leaving evidence for the first element and for the relationship between elements indirect. We provide correlational and causal evidence for the role of sensitive classification of emotional intensity, a central contextual variable, on flexible behavioural selection between distraction and reappraisal regulatory strategies. Confirming the correlational hypothesis, across subjects, trials involving sensitive classification of emotional intensity (vs. insensitive classification), were related to higher flexible selection between strategies. Confirming the causal hypothesis, experimentally providing information on sensitive emotional intensity classification to one group (vs. no-information group), led to increased flexible selection from before to after the manipulation. Broad implications for basic and applied science are discussed.

Regulatory selection flexibility-the ability to flexibly choose emotion regulation strategies that are appropriate to dynamic contextual demands-has been theorized as a critical component of adaptive emotional functioning. Despite this, little research has investigated whether individual differences in regulatory selection flexibility influence real-time emotional experiences. The current study aimed to test the effectiveness of regulatory selection flexibility in reducing negative affect while exposed to emotion-eliciting stimuli. Using a behavioral regulatory selection task, participants viewed negative images that differed in emotional intensity and selected between engagement cognitive change (reappraisal) or attentional disengagement (distraction) strategies to manage their emotional responses. Negative affect was rated immediately before and after the regulatory period, to index emotional experience. Greater regulatory selection flexibility was associated with greater reductions in negative affect. Our findings offer preliminary evidence for the immediate psychological benefit of regulatory selection flexibility and highlight some promising avenues for future research.

Abstract Medical authorities and policymakers raise mounting concerns regarding the detrimental influence of social-media on students’ academic performance and well-being. Surprisingly, empirical evidence that supports these strong concerns is unclear. We provide a novel psychological framework that specifies fundamental elements of social-interaction to predict under which conditions social-media usage will have its most pernicious effects. Our framework argues that posting personal social-media content (relative to scrolling through others' content) elicits opportunities to receive strong social-feedback from others, which tempts individuals to procrastinate on social-media instead of studying, resulting in negative academic and well-being consequences. Three experimental studies causally test our framework using state-of-the-art methods, behavioral measures, and outcomes. Experiments 1 (Facebook) and 2 (Instagram) demonstrated that experimentally having participants post (vs scroll), leads to enhanced procrastinatory social-media usage, that in turn undermines academic performance and well-being. Experiment 3 directly demonstrated the detrimental role of opportunities to receive strong social-feedback following posting, in showing that experimentally blocking social-feedback opportunities following posting, eliminates subsequent procrastinatory social-media behavior and its maladaptive consequences. These findings advise professionals and policymakers to shift from making generic recommendations to reduce overall social-media usage, to customized warnings about the negative academic and well-being consequences of posting on social-media.

Background. Emotion regulation difficulties are highlighted as a risk factor for suicidal thoughts. However, little is known on how people with suicidal thoughts regulate emotions in daily life using ecologically valid methods. Prior research also rarely differentiated between emotion regulation deficits that are specifically associated with suicidal thoughts, and deficits that characterize high levels of psychopathology, regardless of suicidality. Methods. We conducted two Ecological Momentary Assessment studies (EMA; N1=396; N2=195). We compared adults with current suicidal thoughts to adults with and without a history of suicidal thoughts (Study 1), and to adults with low or high levels of psychiatric symptoms (Study 2). Participants completed a week-long EMA period with 6 surveys per day, assessing emotion regulation attempts, strategies, perceived regulatory success and effort. Results. Participants with suicidal thoughts differed from participants with high psychiatric symptoms only in their regulatory effort and in their use of alcohol or drugs to regulate emotions. Elevated use of distraction, rumination, and self-injury did not differentiate between participants with suicidal thoughts and participants with high psychiatric symptoms but no suicidality. Among participants with suicidal thoughts, self-injury, the use of substances, and lower perceived success in regulation were the only emotion regulation processes that predicted momentary suicidal thinking. Conclusions. Suicidal thoughts are associated with the use of less effective emotion regulation strategies and difficulties in implementing strategies in daily life. However, many of those difficulties are not specific to suicidal thoughts. The use of substances to regulate emotions and heightened regulatory effort may be unique to suicidal populations.

AimChildhood sexual abuse (CSA) among women is an alarmingly prevalent traumatic experience that often leads to debilitating and treatment‐refractory posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), raising the need for novel adjunctive therapies. Neuroimaging investigations systematically report that amygdala hyperactivity is the most consistent and reliable neural abnormality in PTSD and following childhood abuse, raising the potential of implementing volitional neural modulation using neurofeedback (NF) aimed at down‐regulating amygdala activity. This study aimed to reliably probe limbic activity but overcome the limited applicability of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) NF by using a scalable electroencephalogram NF probe of amygdala‐related activity, termed amygdala electrical‐finger‐print (amyg‐EFP) in a randomized controlled trial.MethodFifty‐five women with CSA‐PTSD who were in ongoing intensive trauma‐focused psychotherapy for a minimum of 1 year but still met Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM‐5) PTSD criteria were randomized to either 10 add‐on sessions of amyg‐EFP‐NF training (test group) or continuing psychotherapy (control group). Participants were blindly assessed for PTSD symptoms before and after the NF training period, followed by self‐reported clinical follow‐up at 1, 3, and 6 months, as well as one session of amygdala real‐time fMRI‐NF before and after NF training period.ResultsParticipants in the test group compared with the control group demonstrated a marginally significant immediate reduction in PTSD symptoms, which progressively improved during the follow‐up period. In addition, successful neuromodulation during NF training was demonstrated.ConclusionThis feasibility study for patients with treatment‐resistant CSA‐PTSD indicates that amyg‐EFP‐NF is a viable and efficient intervention.

AbstractBackgroundContemporary views of emotion dysregulation in post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) highlight reduced ability to flexibly select regulatory strategies according to differing situational demands. However, empirical evidence of reduced regulatory selection flexibility in PTSD is lacking. Multiple studies show that healthy individuals demonstrate regulatory selection flexibility manifested in selecting attentional disengagement regulatory strategies (e.g. distraction) in high-intensity emotional contexts and selecting engagement meaning change strategies (e.g. reappraisal) in low-intensity contexts. Accordingly, we hypothesized that PTSD populations will show reduced regulatory selection flexibility manifested in diminished increase in distraction (over reappraisal) preference as intensity increases from low to high intensity.MethodsStudy 1 compared student participants with high (N = 22) post-traumatic symptoms (PTS, meeting the clinical cutoff for PTSD) and participants with low (N = 22) post-traumatic symptoms. Study 2 compared PTSD diagnosed women (N = 31) due to childhood sexual abuse and matched non-clinical women (N = 31). In both studies, participants completed a well-established regulatory selection flexibility performance-based paradigm that involves selecting between distraction and reappraisal to regulate negative emotional words of low and high intensity.ResultsBeyond demonstrating adequate psychometric properties, Study 1 confirmed that relative to the low PTS group, the high PTS group presented reduced regulatory selection flexibility (p = 0.01, $\eta _{\rm p}^2$ = 0.14). Study 2 critically extended findings of Study 1, in showing similar reduced regulatory selection flexibility in a diagnosed PTSD population, relative to a non-clinical population (p = 0.002, $\eta _{\rm p}^2$ = 0.114).ConclusionsTwo studies provide converging evidence for reduced emotion regulatory selection flexibility in two PTSD populations.

While attention to external visual stimuli has been extensively studied, attention directed internally towards mental contents (e.g., thoughts, memories) or bodily signals (e.g., breathing, heartbeat) has only recently become a subject of increased interest, due to its relation to interoception, contemplative practices and mental health. The present study aimed at expanding the methodological toolbox for studying internal attention, by examining for the first time whether the steady-state visual evoked potential (ssVEP), a well-established measure of attention, can differentiate between internally and externally directed attention. To this end, we designed a task in which flickering dots were used to generate ssVEPs, and instructed participants to count visual targets (external attention condition) or their heartbeats (internal attention condition). We compared the ssVEP responses between conditions, along with alpha-band activity and the heartbeat evoked potential (HEP) - two electrophysiological measures associated with internally directed attention. Consistent with our hypotheses, we found that both the magnitude and the phase synchronization of the ssVEP decreased when attention was directed internally, suggesting that ssVEP measures are able to differentiate between internal and external attention. Additionally, and in line with previous findings, we found larger suppression of parieto-occipital alpha-band activity and an increase of the HEP amplitude in the internal attention condition. Furthermore, we found a trade-off between changes in ssVEP response and changes in HEP and alpha-band activity: when shifting from internal to external attention, increase in ssVEP response was related to a decrease in parieto-occipital alpha-band activity and HEP amplitudes. These findings suggest that shifting between external and internal directed attention prompts a re-allocation of limited processing resources that are shared between external sensory and interoceptive processing.

“Do what you do best” conveys an intuition about the association between ability and preference. In the field of emotion regulation, ability and preference are manifested in two central stages, namely, implementation and selection of regulatory strategies, which to date have been mainly studied separately. Accordingly, the present proof-of-concept study wished to provide preliminary evidence for an association between neural indices of implementation ability and behavioral selection preferences. In this pilot study, participants performed a classic neuroimaging regulatory implementation task that examined their ability (neurally reflected in the degree of amygdala modulation) to execute two central regulatory strategies, namely, attentional distraction and cognitive reappraisal while viewing negative images. Then participants performed a separate, classic behavioral selection task that examined their choice preferences for using distraction and reappraisal while viewing negative images. Confirming our conceptual framework, we found that exclusively for distraction, which has been associated with robust amygdala modulation, a decrease in amygdala activity during implementation (i.e., enhanced ability) was associated with enhanced preference to behaviorally select distraction [r(15) = −0.69, p = 0.004]. These preliminary findings link between two central emotion regulatory stages, suggesting a clue of the adaptive association between neural ability and behavioral preference for particular regulatory strategies.

Individuals sometimes use social media instead of sleeping or while driving. This fact raises the crucial need for-and challenge of-successfully self-regulating potent social-media temptations. To date, however, empirical evidence showing whether social-media temptations can be self-regulated and how self-regulation can be achieved remains scarce. Accordingly, the present within-participants study (N = 30 adults) provided causal evidence for self-regulation of social-media content and identified a potential underlying neural mechanism. We tested the premise that successful self-regulation requires limiting the mental representation of temptations in working memory. Specifically, we showed that loading working memory with neutral contents via attentional distraction, relative to passively watching tempting social-media stimuli, resulted in reduced self-reported desire to use social media, reduced initial attention allocation toward social-media stimuli (reduced late-positive-potential amplitudes), and reduced online representation of social-media stimuli in working memory (reduced contralateral-delay-activity amplitudes). These results have important implications for successfully navigating a social-media-saturated environment.

ABSTRACT Day-to-day life is inundated with attempts to control emotions and a wealth of research has examined what strategies people use and how effective these strategies are. However, until more recently, research has often neglected more basic questions such as whether and how people choose to regulate their emotions (i.e. emotion regulation choice). In an effort to identify what we know and what we need to know, we systematically reviewed studies that examined potential determinants of whether and how people choose to regulate their emotions. Eighteen determinants were identified across 219 studies and were categorised as being affective, cognitive, motivational, individual or social-cultural in nature. Where there were sufficient primary studies, meta-analysis was used to quantify the size of the associations between potential determinants and measures of whether and how people choose to regulate their emotions. Based on the findings, we propose that people’s decisions about whether and how to regulate their emotions are determined by factors relating to the individual doing the regulating, the emotion that is being regulated, and both the immediate situation and the broader social context in which the regulation is taking place.

Within a relatively short time span, social media have transformed the way humans interact, leading many to wonder what, if any, implications this interactive revolution has had for people's emotional lives. Over the past 15 years, an explosion of research has examined this issue, generating countless studies and heated debate. Although early research generated inconclusive findings, several experiments have revealed small negative effects of social media use on well-being. These results mask, however, a deeper set of complexities. Accumulating evidence indicates that social media can enhance or diminish well-being depending on how people use them. Future research is needed to model these complexities using stronger methods to advance knowledge in this domain.

How do people choose how to regulate others' emotional responses? We extended previous work on how the intensity of an emotional situation influences which strategies people choose to regulate their emotions (i.e., intrapersonal emotion regulation choice) to also consider the effect of intensity on which strategies people choose to regulate other people's emotions (i.e., interpersonal emotion regulation choice). Studies 1a and 1b found that the intensity of the emotional situation influenced whether participants chose distraction or reappraisal in both intrapersonal and interpersonal regulation contexts, but also that the effect of intensity differed between the contexts (participants choose reappraisal more frequently for others in intense situations than for themselves). However, this difference was stronger (or only found) when participants helped the other person to control their emotions first. Two further studies examined whether differences in perceived intensity (Study 2) and/or the anticipated effort or effectiveness of the strategies (Study 3) could explain the difference between intrapersonal and interpersonal contexts. Together, the findings suggest that the regulation strategies that people choose depend on the intensity of the emotional situation, the target of regulation, and whether people choose how to regulate their own emotions before choosing how to regulate another person's emotions, with preliminary evidence that differences between intrapersonal and interpersonal emotion regulation choice may be associated with differences in the anticipated effort and effectiveness of regulation between these contexts. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

OBJECTIVE:The ability to select the most adaptive regulatory strategy as a function of the emotional context plays a pivotal role in psychological health. Recently, we showed that mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) can improve the sensitivity of regulatory strategy selection to emotional intensity. However, the mechanisms underlying this improvement are unclear. In this study, we tested the hypothesis that MBIs support adaptive regulatory selection by increasing sensitivity to interoceptive signals associated with the emotional stimuli.METHODS:Participants (n = 84, mean [standard deviation {SD}] age = 30.9 [8.3] years; 54% women) were randomized to either a mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) program or a wait-list control condition. Before and after the MBSR program, physiological measures for autonomic nervous system activity were obtained, and participants performed a task examining emotion regulation selections (reappraisal versus distraction) when confronted with low or high negative intensity images. They also completed a battery of mindfulness, interoception, and well-being self-report measures. A cross-classified model was used for the main analyses.RESULTS:The participants assigned to the MBSR were overall more likely to choose reappraisal than distraction (b = 0.26, posterior SD = 0.13, 95confidence interval = 0.02-0.52) after the program. Interoceptive signals in response to negative images were associated with subsequent regulatory selections (b = 0.02, posterior SD = 0.01, 95% confidence interval = 0.01-0.03) in the MBSR group. Specifically, lower cardiac reactivity was associated with the choice to reappraise, whereas higher cardiac reactivity was related to the choice to distract. Greater differences in cardiac reactivity between states that prompt reappraisal and states that prompt distraction were associated with higher well-being (Satisfaction With Life Scale, Pearson r (29) = 0.527, p = .003).CONCLUSIONS:Mindfulness seems to increase the sensitivity of regulatory selections to interoceptive signals, and this is associated with subjective well-being. This may be a central pathway through which MBIs exert their positive effects on mental health and resilience.

The COVID-19 pandemic poses significant emotional challenges that individuals need to select how to regulate. The present study directly examined how during the pandemic, healthy individuals select between regulatory strategies to cope with varying COVID-19-related threats, and whether an adaptive flexible regulatory selection pattern will emerge in this unique threatening global context. Accordingly, this two-study investigation tested how healthy individuals during a strict state issued quarantine, behaviorally select to regulate COVID-19-related threats varying in their intensity. Study 1 created and validated an ecologically relevant set of low and high intensity sentences covering major COVID-19 facets that include experiencing physical symptoms, infection threats, and social and economic consequences. Study 2 examined the influence of the intensity of these COVID-19-related threats, on behavioral regulatory selection choices between disengagement via attentional distraction and engagement via reappraisal. Confirming a flexible regulatory selection conception, healthy individuals showed strong choice preference for engagement reappraisal when regulating low intensity COVID-19-related threats, but showed strong choice preference for disengagement distraction when regulating high intensity COVID-19-related threats. These findings support the importance of regulatory selection flexibility for psychological resilience during a major global crisis.

Day-to-day life is inundated with attempts to control emotions and a wealth of research has examined what strategies people use and how effective these strategies are. However, until more recently, research has often neglected more basic questions such as whether and how people choose to regulate their emotions (i.e. emotion regulation choice). In an effort to identify what we know and what we need to know, we systematically reviewed studies that examined potential determinants of whether and how people choose to regulate their emotions. Eighteen determinants were identified across 219 studies and were categorised as being affective, cognitive, motivational, individual or social-cultural in nature. Where there were sufficient primary studies, meta-analysis was used to quantify the size of the associations between potential determinants and measures of whether and how people choose to regulate their emotions. Based on the findings, we propose that people's decisions about whether and how to regulate their emotions are determined by factors relating to the individual doing the regulating, the emotion that is being regulated, and both the immediate situation and the broader social context in which the regulation is taking place.

In the digital age we live in, refraining from procrastinatory social media usage, particularly when conflicting with highly valued goal pursuit, can result in failure and subsequent negative psychological outcomes. Despite mounting interest, existing evidence remains correlational and restricted to mundane contexts. To fill these gaps the current two study investigation provides converging ecological and causal evidence for the influence of procrastinatory social media usage on subsequent anxiety. Study 1 used longitudinal unobtrusive measurement of actual procrastinatory Facebook usage (using designated software) together with experience-sampling, during real-life academic exam preparation period. Findings showed that enhanced procrastinatory Facebook usage predicted increased levels of anxiety over time. Further evidence provided inferences regarding the likely ordering of this association, by ruling out a reversed directionality between anxiety and subsequent Facebook usage. Providing direct causal evidence, Study 2 created a laboratory exam context conceived as highly predictive of academic success, that directly manipulated whether actual Facebook usage was procrastinatory or not, prior to examining its influence on anxiety. Supporting predictions, only when Facebook was used instead of studying, it resulted in enhanced anxiety. The present investigation illuminates when and why social media usage leads to adverse psychological consequences.

The scientific study of emotion regulation is flourishing, providing fundamental insights to our understanding of human functioning. While clearly important, in this chapter I zoom in on two major challenges in current theorizing and in existing empirical evidence. The "good & bad" problem refers to the categorization of regulatory strategies as being either adaptive or maladaptive. The "here & now" problem refers to concentration on a single regulatory stage that involves the actual execution or implementation of regulatory strategies. To transcend the "good & bad" problem, I provide a conceptual account, highlighting the underlying mechanisms of implemented regulatory options that yield a clear differential cost-benefit strategy profile. To transcend the "here & now" problem, I present a broad conceptual framework that views emotion regulation as a multistage phenomenon that includes important stages that precede and follow regulatory implementation. A central focus is given to a preimplementation regulatory selection stage, which involves choosing between available regulatory options in a manner that is sensitive to differing situational demands. Specifically, I review affective-cognitive-motivational determinants, underlying mechanisms, neural correlates, individual-social-cultural moderators, and developmental and clinical implications, of regulatory selection. I end by highlighting the importance of transcending the regulatory selection stage, by describing a postimplementation regulatory monitoring stage that involves deciding if and how to adapt actively implemented regulatory strategies, by describing a preimplementation regulatory identification stage that involves deciding whether to regulate one's emotions in the first place, and by linking regulatory stages together.