AFFECT LABELING AS AN EMOTION REGULATION MECHANISM OF MINDFULNESS IN THE CONTEXT OF COGNITIVE MODELS OF DEPRESSION

Abstract

Research has supported the efficaciousness of mindfulness-based interventions on depression and general psychological well-being (Teasdale et al., 2000). Thus, researchers are beginning to examine the specific mechanisms of mindfulness's salutary effects (Shapiro, Carlson, Astin, & Freedman, 2006). As mindfulness has been increasingly linked to enhanced emotional awareness and emotion regulation (Nielsen & Kaszniak, 2006; Chambers Gullone, & Allen, 2009), the specific act of objectively labeling affective experience has been proposed as an emotion regulation mechanism of mindfulness. Research has linked emotion regulation pathways in the brain with experimental tasks of affect labeling in individuals with high trait mindfulness (Creswell, Way, Eisenberger, & Lieberman, 2007). The aim of this study was to examine affect labeling as an emotion regulation mechanism of mindfulness in the context of well-established cognitive models of depression. Specifically, the study investigated whether individuals asked to label facial stimuli with affective labels recovered from a negative mood more quickly, and with more emotional granularity, than those in a control condition. One hundred and forty-nine Temple University undergraduates completed measures of mood, emotion regulation, and cognitive style prior to a negative mood priming task and were randomly assigned to one of two labeling conditions: affect labeling or gender labeling (control). Emotion dysregulation proved to be an important predictor of affective response to the mood induction. Specifically, emotion dysregulation was positively associated with negative affect, and negatively associated with positive affect, preceding and following the mood induction. However, contrary to study hypotheses, HLM analyses indicated that speed and specificity of affective recovery did not differ across experimental condition; thus, affect labeling was not associated with more adaptive emotional regulation. In addition, cognitive styles and mindfulness failed to moderate the relationship between affect labeling and affective recovery in the expected direction. However, greater trait mindfulness was associated with less negative affective responses to the mood induction. Implications of study findings, strengths and limitations of the study, as well as future directions are discussed.