How to alleviate the agony of providing negative feedback: Emotion regulation strategies affect hormonal stress responses to a managerial task

Estradiol administration modulates neural emotion regulation

Variations of sex hormones during the menstrual cycle can lead to changes in emotion processing. The ability to successfully regulate one's emotions is associated with better social abilities and mental health. While women show better performance in fear extinction learning under high estradiol (E2) compared to women under low E2 levels, little is known about the effect of E2 on emotion regulation. We explored whether E2 modulates emotion regulation in a functional magnetic resonance imaging paradigm and administered E2 valerate to 32 young naturally cycling women during their early follicular phase in a double-blind, placebo-controlled within-subject design. This standardized experimental control allowed us to explore the specific effect of E2 on emotion regulation while controlling for other hormones varying throughout the menstrual cycle. Behaviorally, no difference between conditions appeared. However, on the neural level, E2 administration was associated with lower activation in the right lingual- and left calcarine gyrus, right orbitofrontal cortex and left hippocampus relative to placebo. With respect to the main effect of down-regulation higher activation of the right superior frontal gyrus and left dorsomedial prefrontal cortex was seen; which is in accordance to previous literature. An interaction between drug condition and emotion regulation appeared for the left inferior frontal gyrus extending into the middle frontal gyrus indicating lower activation during down-regulation in the E2 condition than the placebo condition. On the behavioral level, women reported less negative affect in the E2 condition. The results fit well to a previously described psychoneuroendocrinological model in which E2 plays an important modulatory role on emotional processes and risk factors of mental health in women.

Applying different emotion regulation strategies while providing negative feedback: Introduction of a new laboratory protocol

One aim of creating a new laboratory protocol was to investigate stress responses while being confronted with a work-related task, that is, having to provide negative feedback. It was central to the development of the scenario to make potential testosterone and cortisol responses measurable. The first part of the protocol comprises the introduction to the cover story, that is, being a member of the assessors' team as part of a larger assessment center program aiming to estimate the proficiency of students prior to their entry into professional life. Watching a video of one of the assessment center's candidates and having to assess his performance in a self-presentation task was introduced to personally involve participants in the feedback conversation they had to conduct with the same candidate later on. A second aim was to introduce an experimental manipulation in the form of instructions and brief tutorials regarding different emotion regulation strategies to apply. Participants were randomly assigned to one out of four conditions: expressive suppression (keeping a neutral expression); cognitive reappraisal (staying task-oriented and emotionally distanced); affect utilization (moving towards and using emotions); or control condition. Distinguishing these ways to regulate one's emotions enabled us to reveal differential hormonal stress responses: Applying either cognitive reappraisal or affect utilization strategies alleviated temporary testosterone declines compared with the other two conditions. This method article contains details regarding the procedure as well as the following documents in their original wording: • Introduction to the cover story (being a member of the assessors' team, observation of the attendant's self-presentation, assessment dimensions) • Slides and audio instructions regarding experimental conditions (how to regulate emotions) • Documents handed out to assist participants in conducting the feedback conversation.