ISSN 0439-755X
CN 11-1911/B
主办:中国心理学会
   中国科学院心理研究所
出版:科学出版社

心理学报 ›› 2016, Vol. 48 ›› Issue (5): 482-494.doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1041.2016.00482

• 论文 • 上一篇    下一篇

表达抑制调节负性情绪的男性优势 ——来自事件相关电位的证据

蔡阿燕1;杨洁敏1;许 爽2;袁加锦1   

  1. (1认知与人格教育部重点实验室(西南大学); 西南大学心理学院, 重庆 400715) (2贵州师范大学教育科学学院, 贵阳 550001)
  • 收稿日期:2015-04-02 发布日期:2016-05-25 出版日期:2016-05-25
  • 通讯作者: 袁加锦, E-mail: yuan_jiajin@126.com或yuanjiaj@swu.edu.cn
  • 基金资助:

    国家自然科学基金项目(NSFC 31170989 /31371042)。

The male advantage in regulating negative emotion by expressive suppression: An event-related potential study

CAI Ayan1; YANG Jiemin1; XU Shuang2; YUAN Jiajin1   

  1. (1 Key Laboratory of Cognition and Personality of Ministry of Education (Southwest University); School of Psychology, Southwest University, Chongqing 400715, China) (2 School of Educational Science, Guizhou Normal University, Guiyang 550001, China)
  • Received:2015-04-02 Online:2016-05-25 Published:2016-05-25
  • Contact: YUAN Jiajin, E-mail: yuan_jiajin@126.com或yuanjiaj@swu.edu.cn

摘要:

生活经验和文献证明, 男性相比女性有更少的情绪表达行为。据此, 本研究假设表达抑制进行负性情绪调节具有男性优势, 而采用认知重评调节时可能没有该性别差异。在不同的实验阶段, 被试分别采用自由观看、表达抑制和认知重评策略观看负性情绪图片, 同时记录事件相关电位(ERP), 以及使用各种策略之后的主观情绪体验。结果表明, 采用表达抑制和认知重评调节情绪后, 被试报告的负性情绪体验没有出现男女差异。然而, 对ERP晚期正电位(Late Positive Potential, LPP)的统计分析发现, LPP的中期(2000~3000 ms)与晚期(3000~4000 ms)波幅均出现了调控策略与性别的交互作用。对男性而言, 负性图片诱发的LPP波幅(2000~4000 ms)在表达抑制条件下相比自由观看条件出现显著降低, 但女性没有出现上述效应。此外, 在LPP各个时间窗口, 采用认知重评策略进行情绪调节时均无显著性别差异。上述结果表明采用表达抑制策略进行负面情绪调节时, 男性具有相比女性更好的调控效果。这提示男性比女性更适合采用抑制情绪表达的方式进行日常情绪管理。这种性别优势可能来源于社会对男女性性别角色的不同期望。

关键词: 性别差异, 表达抑制, 认知重评, 晚期正成分

Abstract:

Life experiences and empirical studies both indicate that males are less emotionally expressive and also more often copies stress with suppression than females. Thus, males may outperform females in regulating unplesant emotions by expressive suppression. However, though there are aboundant observational researches showing more frequent suppression of emotional expressions in men than in women, there is no direct evidence showing that males are better than females in dampenin negative emotions by expressive suppression. On the other hand, no consistent sex differences were found regarding the emotion regulation by reappraisal. Therefore, we hypothesized that males may be better than females in regulating negative emotion by expressive suppression, but not by reappraisal. The current study experimentally investigated the sex differences in suppression and cognitive reappraisal. In our study, 35 participants 17 males, 18 females) performed a picture viewing task. The experiment included 4blocks which consisted of 2 viewing blocks and 2 regulating blocks. In attending blocks, participants just attended to neutral or negative pictures; whereas, in regulating blocks, participants were instructed to intentionally suppress the expression of emotional responses to pictures of cognitively reappraise pictures (e.g. think of pictures objectively). Event-Related brain Potentials (ERP) were recorded for the presentation of pictures. An the end of each block, subjects were required to rate their mood state and the success of attending to, suppressing, or reappraising the pictures by a self-report scale. Between blocks, two minutes of rest were taken for subjects to recover mood to the baseline level and to avoid fatigue. Behavioral results showed that both sexes did not differ in reports of emotional experiences after regulating unpleasant emotions using suppression or reappraisal. In electrophysiological results, Late Positive Potential (LPP), a posterior-parietal positive slow ERP, showed significantly more pronounced amplitudes during attending to negative relative to neutral pictures. More importantly, we observed interaction effects of regulating strategies and sex in the amplitudes of middle (2000~3000 ms) and late (3000~4000 ms) LPP windows. Males were associated with significantly smaller LPP amplitudes during expressive suppression relative to attending conditions in the 2000~4000 ms time window, whereas this emotion regulation effect was absent in females. By contrast, LPP amplitudes were similar for reappraisal and attending conditions in all time windows, irrespective of sex.

Key words: sex difference, expressive suppression, cognitive reappraisal, Late Positive Potential