Cognitive Reappraisal in Children: Neuropsychological Evidence of Up-Regulating Positive Emotion From an ERP Study

Frontiers in Psychology

article

Wen Liu¹  Fang Liu¹  Liang Chen²  Zhongqing Jiang¹  Junchen Shang¹ 

[1] College of Psychology, Liaoning Normal University;School of Marxism, University of Science and Technology Liaoning

关键词: emotion regulation;    positive emotion;    LPP;    children;    cognitive reappraisal;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00147

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

Emotion regulation is a critical mechanism in the socio-emotional development of children. Previous studies revealed that children use cognitive reappraisal to downregulate negative emotions. Moreover, the amplitude of late positive potential (LPP) shows a more obvious reduction following neutral interpretations than following negative interpretations. However, whether children can use cognitive reappraisal to regulate positive emotions remains unclear. In the present study, 46 8- to 12-year-old children were asked to reappraise the meaning of pleasant pictures. Electroencephalography (EEG) data were collected during the task. As predicted, LPP amplitudes increased more following reappraisal condition than following pleasant condition. The analysis of spatial-temporal shifting patterns showed that the effect occurred in the earlier window for the posterior region. As time progressed, this effect evidenced a trend from posterior region to the central and anterior regions, especially for the younger children. Furthermore, the greater brain activations occurred in left hemisphere when children upregulated positive emotions which partially supported previous research suggesting that increasing positive emotion engaged primarily left-lateralized prefrontal regions. Taken together, the findings suggest that children can use cognitive reappraisal to upregulate positive emotions.

【 授权许可】

CC BY