Broadening Antecendent-Focused Emotion Regulation in a Temporal Context

Abstract

<p>This thesis connects and reframes research in cognitive, social, and positive psychology by using positive emotions to broaden (Fredrickson, 1998) the capacity of the Gross (1998) process model of antecedent-focused emotion regulation in the temporal context of a future time perspective (Zimbardo & Boyd, 2008). A preliminary analysis was conducted to test relationships among variables relevant to the research, a three week randomized controlled trial was conducted to test the practical application of the theory and a follow up analysis was conducted to test the longer-term effects of the trial. All theories were tested in an interpersonal instead of an intrapersonal context to enhance external validity because past research has favoured the intrapersonal context in research on emotion regulation (Campos, 2011; Diamond & Aspinwall, 2003) and the Broaden-and-Build theory (Fredrickson, 1998).</p> <p>Results indicated that the variables identified as relevant for capturing aspects of the broaden and build hypothesis were indeed related as expected. Characteristic use of antecedent focused emotion regulation was associated with a stronger future time perspective and a higher level of positive affect. In addition, future time perspective mediated between characteristic use of antecedent emotion regulation and positive affect.</p> <p>The induction of positive emotions through 1) future time perspective only, 2) antecedent-focused emotion regulation in a present time perspective, 3) the interaction between future time perspective and antecedent-focused emotion regulation, and 4) a comparison control group indicated that all three experimental groups showed a significant improvement in the four components of antecedent focused emotion regulation after a 3 week intervention period. In addition, the future time perspective group and the interaction group showed a significant improvement in the “broaden” effect of reappraisal and the antecedent focussed group showed a significant increase in the “build” effect of self-efficacy compared to the control group.</p> <p>Finally a 1- to 3-month follow-up, combining the three experimental groups, showed a significant increase in future time perspective and antecedent-focused emotion regulation.</p> <p>On a practical level, the current research is applicable to recent clinical interventions such as Future Directed Therapy (Vilhauer et al, 2012), positive psychology treatment methods (Sin & Lyubromirsky, 2009) and interventions using antecedent-focused emotion regulation strategies (Gross, 1998).</p>