Investigating the Neural Systems That Support the Beneficial Effects of Positive Emotion on Stress Regulation

Not Applicable

Completed

Conditions: Behavior

Interventions: Behavioral: Positive Emotion Induction
Behavioral: Neutral Emotion Induction

Registration Number: NCT04496258

Lead Sponsor: University of Denver

Brief Summary: For this study, community participants visited the PI's psychophysiology lab for a single experimental session. In this study, participants completed a brief mood measure, followed by a task training in which a research assistant described and gave examples of cognitive reappraisal in response to negative images. Participants were then randomly assigned to positive or neutral emotion induction conditions, delivered by virtual reality. Then, participants completed an event-related, picture-based cognitive reappraisal task for 23 minutes. Following the task, participants once again responded to a mood measure, completed post-task questionnaires (individual difference measures) and answered a series of questions regarding the task they completed, including difficulty of regulation, or any images that were personally relevant.

The investigators predicted that the positive emotion induction would result in powerful effects on self-reported emotion, which may or may not interact with the cognitive reappraisal condition.

Detailed Description: For the studies, participants were recruited via paper and electronic flyers on campus and in the surrounding communities. Interested participants were screened via phone, email and/or web form to assess eligibility according to criteria listed elsewhere. If participants qualified, they were be invited to complete a single laboratory session in the PI's lab.

Once arriving at the laboratory, participants completed the consent process, in which a research assistant trained in ethical principles regarding human subjects research answered any questions about the consent form and verbally reinforced the key rights of the participants outlined there. Once both parties were satisfied, the consent form was signed.

Participants sat with a trained research assistant/experimenter who gave an overview of the entire session, and then began training for the cognitive reappraisal task. The training took 10-15 minutes. During the training, the experimenter offered several possible reappraisals of negative images and allowed the participants to offer their own as well, providing encouragement and feedback. During this training, the experimenter also went over the method of responding (using the VR equipment). Participants were reminded during training that they may stop the experiment at any point if the pictures are too upsetting.

Immediately following task training, participants will made a general mood rating using the mDES. Then, they were randomly assigned to a positive or neutral mood induction, to be delivered via the VR headset for three minutes. Participants were encouraged to explore the VR environment, which was either a positive (beach scene) or neutral (office scene). The VR environment was implemented using a headset with integrated audio. After the VR exploration, participants made a rating of their current positive and negative affect in the VR environment. Then, participants completed the reappraisal task in the VR environment. The task took approximately 23 minutes.

Finally, participants completed post-task individual difference measures.

Recruitment & Eligibility

Status: COMPLETED

Sex: All

Target Recruitment: 99

Inclusion Criteria

Community members ages 18-55
Fluent in English
Without present psychotic symptoms

Exclusion Criteria

None

Study & Design

Study Type: INTERVENTIONAL

Study Design: PARALLEL

Arm && Interventions

Group	Intervention	Description
Positive VR Scene	Positive Emotion Induction	Participants will explore a virtual reality (VR) environment of a beach scene. Participants will be randomly assigned (between subjects) to beach or office scene. VR will be presented on an Occulus Rift device.
Neutral VR Scene	Neutral Emotion Induction	Participants will explore a virtual reality (VR) environment of a neutral office scene. Participants will be randomly assigned (between subjects) to beach or office scene. VR will be presented on an Occulus Rift device.

Primary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Mood Ratings (Pos)	Baseline, and post-reappraisal task	Before putting on the VR headset and at the end of the experiment, participants used the modified Differential Emotions Scale (mDES; Fredrickson, 2013; Izard, 1977) to rate their current mood. We defined the mDES as a mood measure because it was intended to measure participants' current mood absent of a stimulus intended to evoke an emotional response (Rosenberg,1998). The mDES consists of 20 questions and is comprised of two sub-scales for positive and negative emotions with 10 questions for each subscale respectively. Scales are comprised of averaging all positive scores together and all negative scores together. In our study, participants were asked to rate their current experience of all 20 emotions on a five-point Likert Scale (1 - not at all to 5 - Extremely). Minimum socre = 1, maximum score = 5. Higher scores indicate higher levels of positive/negative mood.
Mood Induction Ratings	Pre-reappraisalTask	After the VR induced mood induction, and prior to starting the reappraisal task participants rated their positive and negative emotions on a 1-9 scale, where 1 is not at all and 9 is extremely.
Means of Self-reported Emotion Ratings	During the reappraisal task, individual ratings for each picture were taken immediately after viewing the image. The mean rating across all images was computed after the experiment was complete.	The mean of each negative and positive emotion score were calculated post-reappraisal task. Higher scores indicate higher positive and negative emotions. The scale for both positive and negative was 1 - 9 where 1 was not positive at all/not negative at all and 9 was very positive/very negative. The minimum score was 1 and the maximum score was 9.

Secondary Outcome Measures

Name	Time	Method
Debriefing of Instructions	Post-reappraisal task	Following the VR task, participants were asked to report the task instructions in their own words. The first questions asked participants to reiterate the instructions they were given for the cognitive reappraisal task (for example: "What were you instructed to do during the 'LOOK' trials?") This is a fill in the blank question and there are no right or wrong answers. All participants' responses are viewed to ensure understanding of the task instruction. There are no scores to report for this measure. Rather this, outcome serves more as a comprehension check than an actual analysis of interest.
Task Difficulty	Post-reappraisal task	The next batch of questions asked the participants questions about the difficulty of the task. The questions asked were: "How difficult was it to follow the 'LOOK' instruction?" And: "How difficult was it to follow the 'DECREASE' instruction?" Participants will be rating the level of difficulty on a scale of 1 to 7 with 1 being "not difficult at all" to 7 being "very difficult". There are no right or wrong answers to this question. The range of scores is 1-7.
Number of Participants Reviewed for Possible Prior Experience With the Reappraisal Task and/or Task Images	Post-reappraisal task	Participants were asked whether they have any experience with reappraisal or the specific images presented in the task. The first question asked "Have you ever been trained to change your emotions by changing the way you think (in therapy, or in another experiment, or anywhere else)?" Participants can choose "Yes" or "No" for this question. The participant will have to extrapolate if they have changed their emotions before using a fill in the blank. The next question asked"Have you ever seen any of these exact emotional images before?" If participants answered yes, they were once again asked to extrapolate which images they have seen and what emotional response was generated by these images using a fill in the blank option. These are descriptive and not used in any formal analyses. The number of participants analyzed below indicates the the number of participant responses we reviewed.
Satisfaction With Life Scale	Post-reappraisal task	A 5-item scale designed to measure global cognitive judgments of one's life satisfaction (not a measure of either positive or negative affect). Participants indicate how much they agree or disagree with each of the 5 items using a 7-point scale that ranges from 7 strongly agree to 1 strongly disagree. Higher scores indicate higher levels of satisfaction. The scale is summed to produce a score, and the possible range of scores is 5-35.
Number of Participants With Full Task Compliance	Immediately after the reappraisal task	Participants were asked about self-reported task compliance. For example, one question asked "What percentage of the time were you able to follow the "LOOK" instruction?" The participants were rating their self-compliance for each task from 0% (non-compliant) to 100% (fully compliant). There are no right or wrong answers to this question and these responses are more descriptive/exploratory. They are not used in any specific analyses. The number of participants analyzed below indicates the number of participants that were fully compliant across both conditions.
DWECK-E (Theries of Emotion Scale)	Post-reappraisal task	The theories of emotion scale was developed for use by Maya Tamir, Oliver P. John, Sanjay Srivastava, and James J. Gross in 2007, based on Carol Dweck's Implicit Theories of Intelligence scale (Dweck, 1999). It's used to measure beliefs about the malleable nature of emotion on a scale of 1 (strong disagree) to 5 (strongly agree) where higher scores indicate stronger agreement with the belief. There are 4 items, 2 of which are reverse coded. Scores are taken by averaging the response items. The minimum score is 1 and the maximum range is 5.
The Big Five Inventory-10 (BFI-1)	Post-reappraisal task	A 10 item self-report scale that is designed to measure the big five personality traits (extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness) on a scale of 1-5 where higher values indicate higher indication of the personality trait. Certain individual items are reversed scored on this measure. The subscales in our data were calculated using averages to produce a score. The possible range for each subscale reported included a minimum value of 1 and a maximum value of 5.
Brief Resilience Scale	Post-reappraisal task	The BRS is a self-report measure that assesses the ability to bounce back or recover from stress on a 1-5 scale. Higher scores indicate higher levels of resilience.
The Igroup Presence Questionnaire (IPQ)	Post-reappraisal task	The Igroup Presence Questionnaire (IPQ) is a self-report scale for measuring the sense of presence experienced in a virtual environment (VE). It contains three subscales that assess aspects of presence: spatial presence, involvement, and experience realism. Higher scores indicate higher sense of presence. Items were rated on a scale of 0 to 6 and items for each subscale are averaged to get each subscale core. The Range for all subscales are 0-6.
Brief Cope	Post-reappraisal task	The Brief-COPE is a 28 item self-report questionnaire designed to measure effective and ineffective ways to cope with a stressful life event. Sub-scales are reported. Higher scores indicate higher use of the coping strategy. he Brief COPE is comprised of 14 scales, each of which assesses the degree to which a respondent utilizes a specific coping strategy. The scales are: Active Coping, Planning, Positive Reframing, Acceptance, Humor, Religion, Using Emotional Support, Using Instrumental Support, Self-Distraction, Denial, Venting, Substance Use, Behavioral Disengagement, Self-Blame. Items are rated on a 4-point Likert scale, ranging from 1 - "I haven't been doing this at all" to 4 - "I've been doing this a lot." Each of the scales is comprised of 2 items; total scores on each scale range from 2 (minimum) to 8 (maximum). Total scores for each sub scales are calculated by summing the items. There is no overall total score.