Reasons, Years and Frequency of Yoga Practice: Effect on Emotion Response Reactivity

Yoga practice, even in the short term, is supposed to enhance wellbeing and counteract psychopathology through modification of emotion reactivity. Yoga teaches that emotional responses may be less pronounced with longer and more frequent practice, and potentially when people perform yoga for mental rather than physical reasons. We tested 36 yoga practitioners of varying experience (between 6 months and 11 years of practice). We assessed participants' self-reported emotional experience and peripheral physiological reactions (heart rate, skin conductance, respiration) when seeing positive and negative pictures. Results were analyzed as a function of the years of, frequency of, and reasons for yoga practice. We found a heart rate increase with the degree participants performed yoga for mental reasons. In addition, years of yoga practice were significantly associated with reduced abdominal respiratory rate when facing negative pictures, speaking in favor of reduced arousal with yoga experience. Finally, regarding frequency of practice, a higher frequency in the last month was linked to less negative and positive experiences as well as a reduced abdominal respiratory amplitude when viewing positive pictures. Altogether, these results demonstrate that intense short-term yoga practice might relate to a (i) decrease in the intensity of self-reported emotional experiences and (ii) deepened respiration. Short-term effects might be shaped by what participants expect as practice benefits. However, several years of practice might be needed to decrease respiratory arousal in the face of negative situations, which likely is a manifestation of an evolution in the emotion regulation process.

The regulatory effect of choice in Situation Selection reduces experiential, exocrine and respiratory arousal for negative emotional stimulations

Situation selection is a seldom studied emotion regulation strategy that entails choosing an upcoming emotional situation. Two mechanisms may drive its regulatory effect on emotional responses. One relates to the evaluation of the chosen option, people generally selecting the most positive. The other one implies that having the choice regarding the upcoming emotional situation is already regulatory, independently of what we choose. This research aimed at investigating this latter hypothesis. In a within-subject design, we compared emotional responses of 65 participants when they viewed negative and positive images they could select (use of Situation selection) vs. when they were imposed the exact same images (Situation selection not used). Results show that having the choice in negative contexts decreased negative experience, skin conductance, and respiration reactivity, while enhancing expressivity and cardiovascular reactivity. In positive contexts, choosing generally reinforced the image calming effect. Thus, contrary to other strategies that are efficient for negative but usually impair positive reactions (e.g., distraction), Situation selection may be used widely to reduce negative experience, while avoiding depletion of positive responses. This is particularly notable in emotion experience. Remarkably, these effects are not driven by the content of the situations, but by the act of choosing itself.

The simultaneous use of Emotional suppression and Situation selection to regulate emotions incrementally favors physiological responses

Background

Emotion regulation alters the trajectories of emotional responses and, when effective, transforms the emotional responses to help individuals adapt to their environment. Previous research has mainly focused on the efficiency of regulation strategies performed individually at a given time. Yet, in daily life, it is likely that several strategies are often combined. Thus, we question in this study the combinatorial efficiency of two emotion regulation strategies, Situation selection and Emotional suppression.

Methods

In a within-subject design, sixty-five participants were asked to implement either no strategy, Situation selection only, Emotional suppression only, or both strategies together (four conditions) while looking at various emotionally charged images. Experience, expressivity, and physiological arousal were recorded throughout the viewing. Repeated-measures ANOVAs and corrected post-hoc tests were used for analyzing the data.

Results

The results of the combined strategies showed that Emotional suppression canceled the beneficial impact of Situation selection on negative experience, while significantly increasing the impact on cardiac activity. The use of both strategies together had a greater effect on respiratory function with an enhanced decrease in respiratory rate and amplitude.

Conclusions

The combinatorial effect of emotion regulation strategies is different according to the emotional response that the individual needs to regulate. The simultaneous use of Situation selection and Emotional suppression could be particularly beneficial to relieve physiological symptoms.

Human and machine-induced social stress and cognitive performance

The article examines the effects of social stress on work performance in a laboratory study using a battery of performance tests. Social stress was induced by a combination of negative feedback and ostracism. Participants received negative performance feedback and were ostracised by two confederates of the experimenter. Using a one-way experimental design with three levels (machine-induced stress, human-induced stress, and no stress), 102 participants performed the following tasks: attention, divergent and convergent creativity. Participants also completed questionnaires measuring positive and negative affect, and state self-esteem. The manipulation check confirmed that social stress was successfully implemented. The results showed that social stress increased negative affect and reduced self-esteem. However, performance remained unaffected by social stress on any of the cognitive tasks, with no difference emerging between human-induced and machine-induced stress. The findings provide support for the 'blank-out'-mechanism, which assumes that humans can maintain performance levels even under difficult working conditions. Practitioner summary: Social stress in the form of negative performance feedback and social exclusion has a negative impact on the affect and self-esteem of humans. However, performance on subsequent tasks was not impaired. Abbreviations: TSST: trier social stress test; SSES: state self-esteem scale; PANAS: positive and negative affect schedule; ANOVA: analysis of variance.

Situation selection for the regulation of emotion responses: Non-meaningful choice options retain partial physiological regulatory impact

Situation selection consists in choosing an upcoming emotional situation in order to regulate emotions. It was found to be a strategy with powerful effects on emotional negative experience and physiological arousal. Situation selection is supposed to be efficient through the empowering effect of choice itself. In the present study, we wanted to replicate results on Situation selection efficiency and explore its limits by examining the implications of a non-meaningful choice procedure preceding the emotional trigger, expecting that even this non-meaningful choice would be regulatory. Sixty-one participants (40 females, mean age 21.4 years) were presented with emotional pictures, either with no particular instruction (no regulation) or with the task to make a choice between two options. This task was either a classical Situation selection task, with the label corresponding to the image that could be later seen (Word Situation selection), or non-meaningful options (Non-word Situation selection). The effect of Situation selection for negative experience was replicated. Effects on physiological arousal showed reduced heart rate and respiratory rate at the end of the viewing period, particularly for positive viewing. In negative viewing, Non-word Situation selection did not reduce negative experience, but did reinforce the calming effect of Situation selection on heart and respiratory rate. These results confirm Situation selection as a valid emotion regulation strategy, particularly regarding physiological arousal. Significant understanding of the options seems to constitute a strategic part of the regulation on the full spectrum of emotion responses but is not mandatory if only some specific physiological responses are targeted.

Human and machine-induced social stress in complex work environments: Effects on performance and subjective state

Social stress at work can lead to severe consequences. As a result of technological developments, social stress will increasingly be induced by machines. It is therefore crucial to understand how machine-induced social stress affects operators. The present study aimed to compare human and machine-induced social stress with regard to its effect on primary and secondary task performance, and on subjective state (e.g., self-esteem, mood and justice). 90 participants worked on a high-fidelity simulation of a complex work environment, on which they had received extensive training (2h15). Social stress was induced by a human or a machine using a combination of negative performance feedback and ostracism. Results indicate that social stress did not affect performance, affect or state self-esteem. Machine-induced and human-induced social stress overall had similar effects, except for the latter impairing perceived justice. We discuss implications of these results for automation at the workplace and outline future research directions.