Effects of motivated emotion regulation on downstream memory for and affective responses to re-encountered stimuli.

Abstract

Emotion regulation is integral to well-being and adaptive behavior. Differing regulation strategies have important downstream consequences. Evidence suggests that reappraisal use can improve memory and reduce emotional reactivity to previously regulated stimuli. Reappraisal is cognitively demanding and dependent on prefrontal-based cognitive control processes typically enhanced by motivation. We recently demonstrated that motivational incentives increased reappraisal use and decreased negative affect during emotion regulation. It is currently unknown how incentive manipulations of emotion regulation affect later memory and affective response: some accounts suggest that motivation boosts memory relatively automatically, via dopamine input to hippocampus, whereas others suggest that motivated memory might depend on control allocation at encoding. In a 2-day online study, we examined how motivated emotion regulation relates to downstream memory and affect. Participants completed an emotion regulation task under baseline and incentive conditions, with recognition memory and affect examined ~ 24-hours later. Surprisingly, for stimuli encountered under incentive, memory decreased, challenging the hypothesis that motivational enhancements of memory occur automatically. Additionally, Day 2 affect did not significantly differ for stimuli encountered in baseline and incentive contexts, suggesting that incentive-related affective benefits were short-lived. In contrast, reappraisal predicted increased memory and reduced negative affect upon reencounter. These results suggest that incentive may have promoted global, potentially automatic changes in affect, independent from regulatory control processes that also could lead to affective change. Further characterization of these multiple pathways will be important for advancing a mechanistic understanding of emotion regulation and its consequences across motivational contexts.