The effect of emotion regulation on executive function

ABSTRACT

Emotion regulation and executive function are associated. However, if – and how – these two processes affect one another has not previously been explored; most studies have employed a correlational approach, leaving the direction of influence unknown. Using an experimental design, we aimed to explore the impact of emotion regulation on executive functioning. Adult participants (N = 31) completed a computerized executive functioning task under a neutral/baseline condition and three emotion regulation conditions: (1) positive mood-maintain, (2) negative mood-maintain, (3) negative mood-reduce. Relative to baseline, participants demonstrated better set-shifting performance across regulation conditions (likely reflecting practice effects). In contrast, inhibitory control performance in the emotion regulation conditions was slower, suggesting that inhibitory control may be more involved in the emotion regulation process than set-shifting. The present study provides preliminary evidence that individuals' executive function may be affected by concurrent emotion regulation demands; additional experiments are necessary to further probe the complexity of this association.

KEYWORDS:

• Emotion regulation
• executive function
• set-shifting
• inhibitory control
• emotion influences on cognition

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to acknowledge IMPACT Lab members (Neha Agrawal, Seiji Iino, Adriana Jodoin, Yana Lechtman, Melissa Roed, Miranda Rosenberg, Anjali Thomas) for their assistance with the focus group.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

The authors appreciate the generosity of Professor Gijsbert Stoet in developing the Computerised Task-Switching Test paradigm used in this experiment and making it freely available for research.

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are openly available in OSF Storage at https://osf.io/w7bc2/.