Emotion Regulation Related Changes in Corrugator Supercilii Activity and Skin Conductance Response: A Comparison of Distraction and Focused Breathing

Abstract

The present study investigated the effectiveness of two attentional deployment emotion regulation strategies, distraction and mindfulness-based focused breathing. Corrugator supercilii activity and skin conductance responses were recorded while 56 participants viewed neutral, low intensity and high intensity negative pictures during a control condition, implementation of distraction and focused breathing and later re-exposure. Distraction was hypothesized to be more effective in immediately lowering high intensity negative emotions and focused breathing to have better lasting effects. Corrugator supercilii activity and skin conductance results showed no significant differences between the two strategies, while focused breathing was more effective in lowering self-reported negative affect than distraction. Neither physiological data nor self-reported ratings revealed any significant differences or effects of the two strategies during re-exposure.