Getting a Grip on Your Feelings: Effects of Action Orientation and External Demands on Intuitive Affect Regulation.

“Our assessment also included Dutch translations of the Rosenberg SelfEsteem Scale (Rosenberg, 1965) and the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (Gross & John, 2003).”

“Given the explicit nature of the tension measurement, it is conceivable that participants were unwilling or unable to report increases in tension (Nisbett & Wilson, 1977).”

“To induce a demanding context, we manipulated performancecontingent rewards, a well-studied type of external demand that is important in many real-life contexts (Deci et al., 1999).”

“The finding that action orientation has reliable physiological effects is remarkable, given that automatic and deliberative affect regulation tend to have little impact on physiological functioning (Gross, 1998; Paulhus, Fridhandler, & Hayes, 1997).”

“Consistent with its global adaptive functions, attentional counter regulation is most pronounced among individuals disposed towards flexible action control (Jostmann et al, 2005 ; Koole & Coenen, 2007 ; Koole & Jostmann, 2004 ), and largely absent among individuals suffering from chronic anxiety, phobia, or dysphoria…”

“Koole and colleagues (Jostmann, Koole, van der Wulp, & Fockenberg, 2005; Koole & Coenen, 2007 ; Koole & Jostmann, 2004 ) argued that action orientation predisposes people to “intuitively” regulate emotion and quickly decrease negative affect in demanding situations to facilitate higher order goal pursuit.”

“Second, a series of studies suggests that action orientation might be accompanied by relatively automatic emotion regulation ('intuitive affect regulation'), which is flexible and very effective (Koole & Coenen, 2007; Koole & Jostmann, 2004; Kuhl, 1981).”

“This self-involvement may be verified by assessing the accessibility of self-related knowledge (Koole and Jostmann, 2004) or memory for self-related material (Baumann and Kuhl, 2003).”

“In contrast, decisionrelated state orientation (SOD, or hesitation) is associated with an inability to self-generate positive affect, which impairs implementation of self-congruent intentions (Beckmann & Kuhl, 1984; Brunstein, 2001; Koole & Jostmann, 2004).”

“Associative networks of memory are activated, which form the basis of a person’s integrated representation of the self and the environment (Koole & Jostmann, 2004).”

“First, automatic goal pursuit can occur without subjective awareness, and thereby may consume little or no attentional capacity or subjective eVort (Bargh et al., 2001; Chartrand & JeVeris, 2003; Fitzsimons & Bargh, 2004; Koole & Jostmann, 2004).”

“Koole and Jostmann (2004) found that action-oriented individuals are also more able to " down regulate " negative affect in stressful conditions than state-oriented individuals .”

“which affect is down-regulated over time (e.g., Koole & Jostmann, 2004 ).”

“Such a flexible regulatory process might be more adaptive than one that is activated chronically (cf. Bonanno et al., 2004; Koole & Jostmann, 2004).”

“Using similar reasoning, Koole and Jostmann (2004) investigated what they termed “intuitive affect regulation.””

“…al. point out, there exists a new breed of theories of personality architecture , which analyse the mental systems that shape the individual's enduring, distinctive patterns of experience and action (Cervone, 2004, 2005; Cloninger, 2004; Kuhl & Koole, 2004; Magnusson, 2003; Mischel & Shoda, 1998).”

“…specialized for approach motivation, these findings may help explain why action-oriented individuals are so good at emotion regulation (Koole, 2004; Koole & Jostmann, 2004) Indeed, exciting new research recently revealed that after experiential mortality salience or uncertainty threats,…”

“Furthermore, the affect-regulatory effects of action orientation are statistically mediated by increases in extension memory activation (Baumann et al., 2005; Koole & Jostmann, 2004).”

“…may promote greater reliance on accessible information and dominant reactions, the high-level intuitive system (extension memory) promotes access to extended networks of relevant semantic meanings, remote action alternatives and integrative abilities (Baumann & Kuhl, 2002; Koole & Jostmann, 2004).”

“Recent findings indicate that such self-regulatory strategies may operate intuitively through activation of the implicit self (Koole & Coenen, 2007; Koole & Jostmann, 2004).”

“Extensive research supports the conceptualization of state versus action orientation in terms of the ability to self-regulate aVect (Brunstein, 2001; Koole & Jostmann, 2004; Kuhl & Beckmann, 1994).”

“…given the confusion they make between self – ascribed goals and those imposed by others, state oriented individual may be more persistent in unattractive, boring tasks (Koole & Jostmann, 2004) and show a frustration tolerance in performing unattractive tasks (Koole, Kuhl, Jostmann, & Vohs, 2005).”

“…flexibly and efficiently, such as implicit self-esteem (Koole, 2004), self-serving attributions (Brunstein & Olbrich, 1985), positive affect (Koole & Jostmann, 2004), intuitions (Baumann & Kuhl, 2002), implicit motives (Baumann, Kaschel, & Kuhl, 2005), automatic interpretive biases (Koole &…”

“The ability to gain access to the self even when facing considerable difficulties and repeated setbacks (Baumann & Kuhl, 2002; Koole & Jostmann, 2004), and to down-regulate the negative affect associated with uncertainty permits adolescents to initiate the search for personally important values,…”

“…value placed on various emotion-regulation strategies (e.g., Etkin, Prater, Hoeft, Menon, & Schatzberg, 2010; Haas, Omura, Constable, & Canli, 2007; Koole & Jostmann, 2004; Mauss, Cook, & Gross, 2007; Mauss, Evers, Wilhelm, & Gross, 2006; Quirin, Bode, & Kuhl, 2011 this issue; Rothermund, Voss, &…”

“Following recommendations by Kuhl (1994b), we also included the Preoccupation subscale (i.e., the threat-related action/state orientation; cf. Koole & Jostmann, 2004) in Studies 1 to 3 (see Jostmann & Koole, 2007, for similar procedure).”

“John, 2003; Koole & Jostmann, 2004) assessed to what extent participants used reappraisal and suppression as emotion modulating strategies in daily life.”

“The focus of the present study was on decision-related state orientation (SOD) and action orientation (AOD) because of their important role in self-regulated implementation of intentions (Kuhl & Goschke, 1994). These two orientations can be found on opposite ends of a bipolar continuum: Low scores indicate SOD, wherea…”

“…individuals, as evidenced in self-reports (e.g., Baumann, Kaschel, & Kuhl, 2005; Brunstein & Olbrich, 1985), physiological functioning (Heckhausen & Strang, 1988), and implicit measures (Jostmann, Koole, van der Wulp, & Fockenberg, 2005; Koole & Fockenberg, 2006; Koole & Jostmann, 2004).”

“For example, there is evidence that recovery from negative emotional episodes is augmented by selectively attuning to smiling faces (Koole and Jostmann 2004), particularly in individuals who exhibit strong emotional resilience and self-esteem (DeWall et al.”

“According to Boekaerts (2002), a stressful factor may unleash very intense emotions in some young people and moderate emotions in others; hence, having effective control mechanisms helps students to protect themselves against the emotional states that arise as a result of daunting circumstances (Koole and Jostmann, 20…”

“Teachers’ typical use of emotion regulation strategies was measured using the Dutch version of the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ; Gross and John, 2003; Koole and Jostmann, 2004).”

“But the main construct of action orientation itself is widespread in motivational psychology [38,39,40,41].”

“In addition, action-oriented individuals are more efficient than state-oriented individuals at up-regulating positive affect under demanding conditions (Koole & Fockenberg, 2011; Koole & Jostmann, 2004).”

“Demand-related action orientation (AOD) is the ability to self-generate positive affect, to overcome hesitation and procrastination, and to initiate the implementation of self-congruent goals—especially in the face of high demands and difficulties (Baumann et al. 2005; Koole and Jostmann 2004; Koole et al. 2012; Kuhl…”

“…with the assumption that individuals high in achievement flow motive have good access to their experiential self which is a strong source of positive affect and intuitive affect regulation (e.g., Greenwald and Banaji 1995; Koole and Coenen 2007; Koole and Jostmann 2004; Sedikides and Strube 1997).”

“Half of participants were asked to press F with their left index finger if a deviant face was present among the distractor faces and J with their right index finger if all nine faces were identical (see Koole & Jostmann, 2004, for detailed task instructions).”

“…validated in experimental research are self-confrontational rather than defensive coping with negative life events (Baumann, Kuhl, & Kazén, 2005; Koole & Jostmann, 2004), stimulation of creativity and flexibility (Bowden et al., 2005; Isen, 2002), and empathic personal interaction (Adolphs et…”

“This pattern fits with the notion that action-oriented participants were more efficient at down-regulating implicit negative affect than their state-oriented counterparts (Koole & Jostmann, 2004).”

“Other frameworks focus on the ability (or flexibility) to disengage from negative or intensify positive emotional states and concomitant thoughts in the service of goal pursuit (Beckmann & Kuhl, 1984; Koole & Jostmann, 2004; Kuhl, 1994; Quirin, Kuhl, & Düsing, 2011).”

“One way in which people may accomplish this is by selectively attending to smiling faces (Koole & Jostmann, 2004).”

“In an experimental test of a recent theory of volition (Kuhl, 2000 ; Kuhl & Koole, 2004 ), Koole and Jostmann ( 2004 , p.”

“Finally, as recent publications highlighted the possibly automatic nature of emotion regulation (Koole & Jostmann, 2004; Mauss, Cook, & Gross, 2007; Webb & Sheeran, 2003) it may be interesting to investigate how automatic emotion regulation affects the influence of attribution on anger.”

“Second, prior work indicates that action- and state-oriented individuals do not differ in their ability to access their motives and enact them adequately under relaxed and friendly conditions (Baumann and Kuhl, 2003; Koole and Jostmann, 2004; Baumann et al., 2005; Jostmann and Koole, 2006; Chatterjee et al., 2013, 201…”

“…related to lower levels of anxiety when performing under stressful or demanding circumstances (Jostmann, Koole, van der Wulp, & Fockenberg, 2005; Koole & Jostmann, 2004; Quirin, Kuhl & Düsing, 2011) and individuals with high AOD have been shown to have more voluntary control over their thoughts…”

“Recent findings suggest that a positive mood may promote the integration of information into the self-system, which may serve to downregulate the associated negative affect (Bolte et al. 2003; Koole and Jostmann 2004 ).”

“To induce high or low levels of situational demands, we primed a demanding or accepting relationship schema (Baldwin & Sinclair, 1996; Koole & Jostmann, 2004).”

“For example, some task contexts more than others have the potential to be interpreted in terms of reward pursuit (e.g., because of task instructions) and may thus be more likely to be influenced by full reward processing (Koole & Jostmann, 2004; Richter, 2010).”

“As long as emotional events are experienced as 5 Implicit affect regulation has been associated with the “implicit self as agent” (Koole & Jostmann, 2004; Kuhl, 2000) and in turn with right hemispheric processing (Baumann, Kuhl, & Kazén, 2005; Keenan, Nelson, O’Connor, PascualLeone, 2001; Ranganath…”

“…threat; see carver and White 1994; Spielberger et al. 1983), (b) the tendency to maintain goal-directed attention and behaviour (see Dickman 1990; Koole and Jostmann 2004; Kuhl 1994; Schmeichel and Baumeister 2004) and (c) having affinity with risky activities (i.e. being thrill- and…”

“…mechanisms (Erb et al., 2000; Erb et al., 1998; Shaham et al., 2003) may serve to assist with the reduction of anxiety, negative affective state (Ambrose-Lanci et al., 2010; H. C. Fox, Seo, et al., 2012), and hence attenuate potential conflict in regulatory goals (Koole & Jostmann, 2004).”

“A Dutch translation (Koole and Jostmann, 2004) of the Emotion Regulation”

“In line with this logic and in accordance with recent theory and research on affect regulation (Koole & Jostmann, 2004; Koole & Kuhl, 2008; Kuhl, 2000; Kuhl & Koole, 2004), failure-ruminators in the no-AR condition were expected to report elevated levels of attribution-related emotions detrimental…”

“…incongruency effects have been found by other researchers investigating the influence of motivational states on affective processing (De Lange & van Knippenberg, 2007; Derryberry, 1993; Ellenbogen, Schwartzman, Stewart, & Walker, 2002; Gawronski, Deutsch, & Strack, 2005; Koole & Jostmann, 2004).”

“This scale has a wellestablished construct validity in research and applied settings (Kuhl & Beckmann, 1994; see also Heckhausen & Strang, 1988; Goschke & Kuhl, 1993; Kazén et al., 2008; Kehr, 2004; Koole & Jostmann, 2004).”