Reappraisal but Not Suppression Downregulates the Experience of Positive and Negative Emotion

The emotion regulation literature is growing exponentially, but there is limited understanding of the comparative strengths of emotion regulation strategies in downregulating positive emotional experiences. The present research made the first systematic investigation examining the consequences of using expressive suppression and cognitive reappraisal strategies to downregulate positive and negative emotion within a single design. Two experiments with over 1,300 participants demonstrated that reappraisal successfully reduced the experience of negative and positive affect compared with suppression and control conditions. Suppression did not reduce the experience of either positive or negative emotion relative to the control condition. This finding provides evidence against the assumption that expressive suppression reduces the experience of positive emotion. This work speaks to an emerging literature on the benefits of downregulating positive emotion, showing that suppression is an appropriate strategy when one wishes to reduce positive emotion displays while maintaining the benefits of positive emotional experience.