title: Autonomic effects of cognitive reappraisal and acceptance in social anxiety: evidence for common and distinct pathways for parasympathetic reactivity.
abstract: Few studies investigated the effects of emotion regulation strategies on autonomic parameters in socially anxious individuals. We asked 99 socially anxious participants to give an impromptu speech in front of an audience in a virtual reality environment. In the anticipation phase, they practiced an emotion regulation strategy: negative functional reappraisal, acceptance, negative dysfunctional reappraisal. All strategies led to decreases in parasympathetic activity and increases in heart rate during anticipation. Parasympathetic activity remained low in the recovery phase, while heart rate increased, indicating a possible rebound effect of social performance. Exploratory moderation analysis revealed that for subjects with higher social anxiety, acceptance led to increased parasympathetic activity in the anticipation and recovery phases than negative functional reappraisal. Our results indicate that although globally parasympathetic reactivity seems to be a more general marker of simply attempting to regulate emotions, it could help distinguish between emotion regulation strategies for some participant subgroups.
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania; Clinical Psychology Branch, Department of Surgical, Medical, Molecular and Critical Pathology, University of Pisa, Italy. Electronic address: ioana.cristea@ubbcluj.ro.
authors.forename: Ioana A
authors.initials: IA
authors.lastname: Cristea
authors.affiliation: Research Centre Ë. Piaggio, School of Engineering, University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy.
authors.forename: Gaetano
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Valenza
authors.affiliation: Research Centre Ë. Piaggio, School of Engineering, University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy.
authors.forename: Enzo Pasquale
authors.initials: EP
authors.lastname: Scilingo
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania.
authors.forename: Aurora
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Szentágotai Tătar
authors.affiliation: Clinical Psychology Branch, Department of Surgical, Medical, Molecular and Critical Pathology, University of Pisa, Italy.
authors.forename: Claudio
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Gentili
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania; Department of Oncological Sciences, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, USA.
authors.forename: Daniel
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: David
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001007:Anxiety / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000523:psychology; D003071:Cognition; D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D006339:Heart Rate / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010275:Parasympathetic Nervous System / Q000503:physiopathology*; D010698:Phobic Disorders / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000523:psychology; D013060:Speech / Q000502:physiology; D013732:Test Anxiety Scale; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Acceptance; Cognitive reappraisal; Emotion regulation; Heart rate variability; Parasympathetic activity; Social anxiety