TY - JOUR

T1 - Good things better? Reappraisal and discrete emotions in Acquired Brain Injury

AU - Rowlands, Leanne

AU - Coetzer, Bernardus

AU - Turnbull, Oliver

N1 - This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Neuropsychological Rehabilitation on 04.06.2019, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/09602011.2019.1620788

PY - 2020/11/25

Y1 - 2020/11/25

N2 - There has been substantial interest in emotion after acquired brain injury (ABI), but less attention paid to emotion regulation (ER). Research has focused primarily on the ER strategy of reappraisal for regulating negative emotions, without distinguishing between classes of emotion, and there has been no attempt at exploring these differences in patients with ABI. The present study explored components of reappraisal, across classes of emotion, and their associated neuropsychological mechanisms. Thirty-five patients with ABI and twenty-two matched healthy control participants (HCs) completed two questionnaires, a battery of cognitive tasks, and an emotion regulation task (the Affective Story Recall Reappraisal task). Results suggest that those with ABI take longer, and generate fewer reappraisals than HCs across several discrete emotions. Notably, their ability to decrease emotional intensity did not differ significantly to HCs for negative emotions, but findings suggest that their reappraisals are less effective when up-regulating neutral emotions to positive. Working memory was the only significant predictor of the total number of reappraisals generated, and the time taken to produce a first reappraisal. Implications of these findings are discussed in the context of neuropsychological rehabilitation, including the role of the relatives in implementing and reinforcing micro-interventions.

AB - There has been substantial interest in emotion after acquired brain injury (ABI), but less attention paid to emotion regulation (ER). Research has focused primarily on the ER strategy of reappraisal for regulating negative emotions, without distinguishing between classes of emotion, and there has been no attempt at exploring these differences in patients with ABI. The present study explored components of reappraisal, across classes of emotion, and their associated neuropsychological mechanisms. Thirty-five patients with ABI and twenty-two matched healthy control participants (HCs) completed two questionnaires, a battery of cognitive tasks, and an emotion regulation task (the Affective Story Recall Reappraisal task). Results suggest that those with ABI take longer, and generate fewer reappraisals than HCs across several discrete emotions. Notably, their ability to decrease emotional intensity did not differ significantly to HCs for negative emotions, but findings suggest that their reappraisals are less effective when up-regulating neutral emotions to positive. Working memory was the only significant predictor of the total number of reappraisals generated, and the time taken to produce a first reappraisal. Implications of these findings are discussed in the context of neuropsychological rehabilitation, including the role of the relatives in implementing and reinforcing micro-interventions.

KW - Emotion regulation

KW - acquired brain injury

KW - cognitive control

KW - discrete emotions

KW - reappraisal

U2 - 10.1080/09602011.2019.1620788

DO - 10.1080/09602011.2019.1620788

M3 - Article

VL - 30

SP - 1947

EP - 1975

JO - Neuropsychological Rehabilitation

JF - Neuropsychological Rehabilitation

SN - 0960-2011

IS - 10

ER -