Cognitive fusion and emotion differentiation: does getting entangled with our thoughts dysregulate the generation, experience and regulation of emotion?

ABSTRACT

We tested whether cognitive fusion impairs emotion differentiation and thereby mediates relations between cognitive fusion and depression and panic symptoms among 55 adults (M_age = 26.8 (3.9), 50.9% women). Using visual stimuli, we elicited multiple emotion states and measured (a) emotional intensity – the subjective emotion intensity of elicited emotions (i.e. Specific Emotion Intensity – SEI), as well as (b) emotional differentiation – the degree of co-activation of multiple negative emotions when a specific emotion was elicited (i.e. Multiple Emotion Co-Activation – MECA). First, as hypothesised, we found that cognitive fusion predicted lower levels of emotion differentiation (MECA). In contrast, as hypothesised, these effects were significantly greater than the (null) effects of cognitive fusion on emotion intensity (SEI). Second, as predicted, MECA, but not SEI, predicted depression and panic symptoms. Finally, we found that MECA mediated the effects of cognitive fusion on depression and panic symptoms. The present findings contribute novel, preliminary empirical insight into associations between cognitive fusion, impaired emotion differentiation and mental ill-health.

KEYWORDS:

• Cognitive fusion
• emotion
• emotion differentiation
• emotion regulation
• psychopathology

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. In comparison to cognitive fusion, other decentering-related constructs – decentering, meta-cognitive awareness, cognitive distancing, meta-cognitive mode and detached mindfulness – are also characterised by reactivity to thought content as well as by meta-awareness and disidentification from internal experience; reperceiving is characterised by meta-awareness and disidentification from internal experience but not reactivity to thought content (Bernstein et al., 2015).

2. To understand emotion differentiation and related secondary emotions it is important to distinguish it from the intensity of felt emotion (Barrett, 2006; Kring & Werner, 2004; Mennin et al., 2007), not per se a marker of emotion dysregulation (Eisenberg, Fabes, Guthrie, & Reiser, 2000; Kring & Werner, 2004; Mennin et al., 2007).

3. Looking behaviour was measured using a Tobii TX300 eye tracker (Tobii Technology, 2012). Attentional engagement with stimuli is a necessary pre-condition for emotion elicitation via stimulus exposure – key to the present study. Accordingly two participants who did not look at the stimuli, as instructed, were omitted from analyses.

4. M (SD) time to stimulus termination for all negative images = 9.55 (1.05) s.

5. Correlations between MECA to depression and panic symptoms remain significant even after controlling for SEI_Fear after different emotional elicitations.