Browsing by Author "Denny, Bryan T"

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    Chromosomal, lexical, and neurobiological mechanisms of cognitive reappraisal and how they relate to health indicators
    (2019-09-12) Shahane, Anoushka Deepak; Denny, Bryan T
    The ability to regulate emotion positively impacts one’s mental and physical health. One adaptive emotion regulation strategy is cognitive reappraisal, which involves changing one’s appraisal of an aversive situation to make it feel less negative. Across two different research aims, I examined how cognitive reappraisal relates to health indices via four studies. The first aim was to examine linguistic mechanisms of cognitive reappraisal and investigate how they relate to health indicators. Study 1 examined whether a linguistic signature of cognitive reappraisal relates to positive health outcomes. Specifically, psychological distancing, a form of cognitive reappraisal, involves construal of emotionally-valenced stimuli in an objective manner, or with perceived spatial and temporal distance. Prior work suggests that in appropriate contexts, reappraisal broadly, and distancing specifically, is related to adaptive mental and physical health outcomes. Additionally, recent research suggests that shifting language to be more distant (i.e., linguistic distancing (LD)) can have adaptive emotion regulatory effects. Participants transcribed their thoughts while viewing negative or neutral stimuli in one of three ways: 1) by implementing objective language, 2) by implementing spatially and/or temporally far away language, 3) or by responding naturally. Across psychological distancing groups, LD was associated with lower negative affectivity (lower perceived stress and depression symptoms), better general well-being (better emotional well-being and energy and vitality), and better emotion regulation (ER) (greater reappraisal frequency and fewer difficulties in implementing ER). Participants who used more LD in the objective group had lower negative affectivity, better general well-being, and better ER, and those in the far group had better ER. Study 2 involved developing two Bayesian machine learning algorithms to parse text and identify two key components of language-based psychological distancing: objective language and spatially / temporally distant language. The algorithms produced objective and spatial / temporal distance scores that were positively significantly correlated with human-coded ratings of objective and spatial / temporal distance language, respectively. The second aim was to examine biological substrates of cognitive reappraisal and investigate how they relate to health indicators. Study 3 examined whether cognitive reappraisal impacts the relationship between heart rate variability and telomere length in CD8+CD28– cells. Telomere shortening is related to aging, poor general health, morbidity, and mortality, serving as a prognostic biomarker of health. Heart rate variability (HRV) is the variation in time intervals between heartbeats, and these oscillations in heart rate relate to emotion regulatory processes such as cognitive reappraisal. The association between autonomic nervous system activity and telomere length may change as a function of emotion regulation ability. Study 3 probed these connections by investigating whether cognitive reappraisal impacts the relationship between telomere length in leukocytes (among CD8+CD28– cells) and HRV. Participants completed measures of cognitive reappraisal frequency, HRV, and underwent blood draws to measure telomere length in CD8+CD28– cells. Cognitive reappraisal moderated the relationship between telomere length and HRV. Study 4 investigated whether neural correlates of cognitive reappraisal impact the relationship between perceived stress during exposure to negative stimuli and attention deficits. Perceived stress has been shown to have negative consequences for physical and mental health, including cognitive deficits and difficulties controlling attention. Reappraisal can be implemented explicitly or implicitly (i.e., with or without conscious awareness). I found, as expected, that inattention problems are associated with increased perceived stress, but also found that one’s spontaneous propensity to engage in cognitive reappraisal—as indexed by correspondence with a reliable thresholded whole-brain pattern of reappraisal implementation—moderated the relationship between inattention and perceived stress. Overall, the studies shed light into the mechanisms underlying cognitive reappraisal as well as the impact it has on biomarkers of health.
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    Examining risk of cardiovascular disease with lexical mechanisms of cognitive reappraisal
    (2022-03-04) Shahane, Anoushka D.; Denny, Bryan T
    The ability to regulate emotion effectively is vital for health and well-being. One adaptive emotion regulation strategy called cognitive reappraisal, which involves changing one’s appraisal of an aversive situation, has been shown to be associated with cardiovascular disease-related risk. However, the mechanisms underlying why this relationship exists remains unknown. I examined linguistic mechanisms of cognitive reappraisal and how they relate to cardiovascular disease-related inflammation and health in the laboratory and in the real world across three studies (Aim A). I developed novel machine learning algorithms to index lexical markers of sub-tactics of cognitive reappraisal and examined their relationship to emotion regulation efficacy—a measure of well-being associated with decreased risk of cardiovascular disease—across two studies (Aim B). The aims shed light into mechanisms of cognitive reappraisal and the impact they have on cardiovascular disease-related risk.
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    Examining the role of psychological distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic
    (2022-04-19) Dicker, Eva Ellen; Denny, Bryan T; Leal, Stephanie L
    The COVID-19 pandemic has been profoundly taxing. Psychological distancing is an emotion regulation strategy where one takes an objective, distant perspective, and is uniquely suited to addressing COVID-19 stress. My first aim was to examine how emotion regulation strategy use is associated with pandemic-related stress across individual differences. Study 1 found that psychological distancing predicts lower overall COVID-19 stress. My second aim was to examine causality between psychological distancing and COVID-19 stress. Study 2, a remote emotion regulation training, showed no significant effects. My third and fourth aims were to examine how perceived vulnerability and emotion polyregulation may moderate emotion regulation success. Exploratory Analysis 1 found that fear of COVID-19 moderated the impact of emotion regulation on COVID-19 stress. Exploratory Analysis 2 found that multiple strategy use reduced the impact of psychological distancing on COVID-19 stress. The studies discussed here offer psychological distancing as a generalizable, adaptive tool during COVID-19.
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    Investigating Adaptive Emotion Regulation as a Function of Context and Strategy
    (2024-07-02) Goodson, Pauline N; Denny, Bryan T
    Emotion regulation is important for well-being. Recent work has begun investigating adaptive emotion regulation as a function of situation and strategy factors, where individuals vary in emotion regulation strategy use and efficacy. My first aim was to assess how emotion regulation success varies in naturalistic contexts. Study 1 found that the strategy reinterpretation differentially impacted affect based on perceived stress. There is also a need for experimental work that employs strategic training based on the interplay between situation and strategy factors, so my second aim was to deliver emotion regulation training in such adaptive matching patterns in young adults via implementation intentions training. Study 2 supported findings from Study 1 and implementation success positively predicted affect. Study 2 was not powered to investigate any unique effects of training content. The studies discussed here offer insight into how the interaction between emotion regulation and situational contexts can impact well-being.
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    Let Me Count the Ways: Untangling Adaptive Emotion Polyregulation Across Contexts
    (2023-10-06) Dicker, Eva Ellen; Denny, Bryan T; Leal, Stephanie L
    Emotion polyregulation is an essential aspect of responding to stressful events by employing multiple strategies to influence one’s emotions. However, the specific patterns of emotion polyregulation that effectively mitigate negative affect remain largely unknown. I attempted to identify adaptive profiles of emotion polyregulation and its effectiveness compared to general strategy variability in a series of five studies. This research investigates global reports of emotion polyregulation and their association with high-stress adult populations in real-word settings, such as bereaved spouses and individuals quarantining during the COVID-19 pandemic (Studies 1-2; Aim A). Additionally, this research examines daily momentary reports of emotion polyregulation in a university sample and explores how they are influenced by cognitive, psychological, and physiological individual differences (Study 3; Aim B). Furthermore, this study reviews the utilization of emotion polyregulation in current psychointerventions for clinically relevant populations, specifically family caregivers for individuals with Alzheimer's Disease and related dementias. It also introduces an emotion polyregulation training paradigm to investigate the impact of cognitive reappraisal and its tactics on the success of emotion polyregulation (Studies 4-5; Aim C). The findings of these studies provide insights into successful patterns of emotion polyregulation and compare the impact of different polyregulation profiles on negative affect, in contrast to general strategy variability.
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    Unpacking reappraisal: a systematic review of fMRI studies of distancing and reinterpretation
    (Oxford University Press, 2023) Denny, Bryan T; Jungles, Mallory L; Goodson, Pauline N; Dicker, Eva E; Chavez, Julia; Jones, Jenna S; Lopez, Richard B
    In recent decades, a substantial volume of work has examined the neural mechanisms of cognitive reappraisal. Distancing and reinterpretation are two frequently used tactics through which reappraisal can be implemented. Theoretical frameworks and prior evidence have suggested that the specific tactic through which one employs reappraisal entails differential neural and psychological mechanisms. Thus, we were motivated to assess the neural mechanisms of this distinction by examining the overlap and differentiation exhibited by the neural correlates of distancing (specifically via objective appraisal) and reinterpretation. We analyzed 32 published functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies in healthy adults using multilevel kernel density analysis. Results showed that distancing relative to reinterpretation uniquely recruited right bilateral dorsolateral PFC (DLPFC) and left posterior parietal cortex, previously associated with mentalizing, selective attention and working memory. Reinterpretation relative to distancing uniquely recruited left bilateral ventrolateral PFC (VLPFC), previously associated with response selection and inhibition. Further, distancing relative to reinterpretation was associated with greater prevalence of bilateral amygdala attenuation during reappraisal. Finally, a behavioral meta-analysis showed efficacy for both reappraisal tactics. These results are consistent with prior theoretical models for the functional neural architecture of reappraisal via distancing and reinterpretation and suggest potential future applications in region-of-interest specification and neural network analysis in studies focusing on specific reappraisal tactics.