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Adopting a curious mindset regulates negative emotion in the context of a social threat
Ham, Jonathan
Ham, Jonathan
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2024-08
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Psychology
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http://dx.doi.org/10.34944/dspace/10632
Abstract
The present research examines the possibility that curiosity can serve as a relatively low-effort approach to regulating negative emotion. We situate curiosity in the context of emotion regulation, conceptualizing curiosity as a motivating mindset oriented towards informational goals, in contrast to cognitive reappraisal which we operationalize as a motivational state oriented towards emotional goals. We then propose that the curious pursuit of informational goals implicates cognitive flexibility and psychological distance as regulatory mechanism that benefit emotional outcomes during information-seeking while being less effortful than the explicit pursuit of an emotional goal. To test this possibility, we compare curiosity to cognitive reappraisal across five empirical studies. In study 1 (N = 54, 47 women) and study 2 (N = 70, 64 women), we establish initial evidence that curiosity can serve as a low-effort alternative to cognitive reappraisal. In study 3 (N = 65, 51 women), we find evidence that curiosity may be preferred relative to reappraisal. In study 4 (N = 67, 29 women), we find initial evidence that psychological distance may underlie some of curiosity’s emotional benefits, but also that reappraisal may be more effective than curiosity at increased levels of affective intensity. In study 5 (N = 38, 30 women), we observe that, in a cognitively demanding context, reappraisal was surprisingly reported to be less effortful than curiosity. We then conclude by evaluating our findings to update our hypotheses and make suggestions for future research.
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