Situation-focused reappraisal

References

Summary: Shafir2018 tested which of two strategies is better when facing 'hot feelings', namely, distraction or reappraisal.

Distraction involved disengaging attention by trying to think of something that is emotionally neutral and completely unrelated to the picture (e.g., thinking about everyday tasks, geometric shapes or familiar streets). During distraction, participants were instructed to try their best to vividly visualize the unrelated neutral thought, while keeping their eyes on the picture throughout its presentation.

Situation-focused reappraisal involved engaging with the content of the sexual picture, but trying to interpret its initial meaning in ways that lower the sexual desire that may arise (e.g., by thinking that the partners are not passionate about their sexual interaction, that they are experiencing boredom, that the sexual interaction is coercive etc.).

In short, both distraction and situation-focused reappraisal were successful relative to passive watching with distraction being slightly more effective.

• Situation-focused reappraisal instructions involved engaging with the content of the sexual picture, but trying to interpret its initial meaning in ways that lower the sexual desire that may arise (e.g., by thinking that the partners are not passionate about their sexual interaction, that they are experiencing boredom, that the sexual interaction is coercive etc.). Shafir, R., Zucker, L., & Sheppes, G. (2018). Turning off hot feelings: Down-regulation of sexual desire using distraction and situation-focused reappraisal. In Biological Psychology (Vol. 137, pp. 116–124). Elsevier Science. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsycho.2018.07.007
  • Despite these apparent limitations, the current findings have important implications for daily life. Specifically, in modern times, fully acting on sexual desire is not possible during most daily life situations due to conflicting norms and morals (Hofmann & Nordgren, 2015).
  • Therefore, individuals often need to regulate their sexual desire. While existing studies focus on the efficacy of relatively disengagement regulatory strategies, our findings demonstrate for the first time that sexual desire can be effectively down-regulated via clearly engagement regulation as well. This is important because in many daily life situations, it is not possible to disengage attention from contexts that give rise to sexual desire. For instance, individuals might need to regulate sexual desire towards a colleague during work related interactions using engagement like strategies, because in such situations fully disengaging attention is not an option.
  • Relatedly, because in most daily life situations, sexual desire cannot be fully materialized, down-regulating sexual desire may be highly practiced. While highly practiced, it may also be challenging because sexual stimuli elicit strong activation of the appetitive motivational system. While these two conflicting notions may coexist, it is important to note that in reality, although down-regulation of sexual desire should be highly practiced, it seems that rates of pornography consumption, sexual harassments and sexual violence are extremely high (e.g., Abrahams et al., 2014; Eberstadt & Layden, 2010). This suggests that down-regulation is not trivial, and highlights the importance of further examining regulatory strategies that seem effective.
  • To conclude, the present study tested, for the first time, the efficacy and choice of two strategies that clearly represent disengagement versus engagement regulation – distraction and situation-focused reappraisal, in down-regulating sexual desire. Our main findings demonstrated that relative to passive watching, both strategies were successful in attenuating LPP amplitudes and self-reported desire ratings. Moreover, individuals’ preferences for disengaging via distraction over engaging via situation-focused reappraisal increased for sexually intense relative to sexually-mild stimuli.