2024/03/28 by Felix Grundmann, Kai Epstude, Susanne Scheibe · 1 voice · 1 citation
Psychology · #Affect (linguistics) #Cognitive psychology #Communication #Computer science #Context (archaeology) #Distraction #Goal pursuit #Mental Health Research Topics #Negative feedback #Perspective (graphical) #Psychology #Regulatory focus theory #Relevance (law) #Salience (neuroscience) #Salient #Social psychology
paper · doi:10.1037/xge0001566
openalex publication_date 2024/03/28 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01
= 1,087), we investigated emotion-regulation choice (i.e., whether and how to regulate) in feedback situations. Challenging the assumption that the goal to perform better is the focal goal in negative-feedback situations, we show that negative feedback increases the salience of the goal to feel better via negative affect in Studies 1-2. Moving beyond the question of whether people regulate their emotions when they receive negative feedback, we examined how they regulate their emotions in Studies 3-5. Focusing on the relative importance of the goals to feel and to perform better, we found that the goal to perform better but not the goal to feel better influences negative-feedback recipients' emotion-regulation strategy choice. A salient goal to perform better was associated with a preference for reappraisal over distraction. These results have critical implications for the emotion-regulation literature and models of feedback processing from an emotion-regulation perspective. They demonstrate that affect-oriented processes such as emotion regulation operate when people receive negative feedback. They also highlight the importance of studying alternative goals given their relevance for how people regulate their emotions. From a practical standpoint, the findings may help us to better understand why people sometimes fail to perform better following negative feedback. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).