Self-regulation is also important in that it allows you to act in accordance with your deeply held values or social conscience and to express yourself appropriately. If you value academic achievement, it will allow you to study instead of slack off before a test. If you value helping others, it will allow you to help a coworker with a project, even if you are on a tight deadline yourself.
In its most basic form, self-regulation allows us to bounce back from failure while also staying calm under pressure. How do problems with self-regulation develop? It could start early; as an infant being neglected. A child who does not feel safe and secure, or who is unsure whether his or her needs will be met, may have trouble soothing and self-regulating. Later, a child, teen, or adult may struggle with self-regulation, either because this ability was not developed during childhood, or because of a lack of strategies for managing difficult feelings.
When left unchecked, over time this could lead to more serious issues such as mental health disorders and risky behaviors such as substance abuse. If self-regulation is so important, why were most of us never taught strategies for using this skill?
Most often, parents, teachers, and other adults expect that children will "grow out of" the tantrum phase. While this is true for the most part, all children and adults can benefit from learning concrete strategies for self-regulation.
According to Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn, founder of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction MBSR , mindfulness is "the awareness that arises from paying attention, on purpose, in the present moment and non-judgementally. By engaging in skills such as focused breathing and gratitude, mindfulness enables us to put some space between ourselves and our reactions, leading to better focus and feelings of calmness and relaxation. In a review of 27 research studies, mindfulness was shown to improve attention, which in turn helped to regulate negative emotions and executive functioning higher-order thinking.
Cognitive reappraisal or cognitive reframing is another strategy that can be used to improve self-regulation abilities. This strategy involves changing your thought patterns. Specifically, cognitive reappraisal involves reinterpreting a situation in order to change your emotional response to it. For example, imagine a friend did not return your calls or texts for several days.
Rather than thinking that this reflected something about yourself, such as "my friend hates me," you might instead think, "my friend must be really busy.
In a study examining the link between self-regulation strategies i. Some other useful strategies for self-regulation include acceptance and problem-solving. In contrast, unhelpful strategies that people sometimes use include avoidance, distraction, suppression, and worrying. The benefits of self-regulation are numerous. In general, people who are adept at self-regulating tend to possess the following abilities:. You are probably thinking that it sounds wonderful to be good at self-regulating, but you still don't know how to improve your skills.
In children, parents can help develop self-regulation through routines e. Routines help children learn what to expect, which makes it easier for them to feel comfortable. When children act in ways that don't demonstrate self-regulation, ignore their requests, such as by making them wait if they interrupt a conversation. As an adult, the first step to practice self-regulation is to recognize that everyone has a choice in how to react to situations.
While you may feel like life has dealt you a bad hand, it's not the hand you are dealt, but how you react to it that matters most. How exactly do you learn this skill of self-regulation?
Recognize that in every situation you have three options: approach, avoidance , and attack. While it may feel as though your choice of behavior is out of your control, it's not.
Although the original idea of the systematic review was to gather data to perform a quantitative meta-analysis, the heterogeneity of study methods and reporting precluded this type of analysis. Therefore, a qualitative review of the studies satisfying inclusion criteria was performed instead.
We reviewed studies regarding the amygdala response to the NF training and the differences in the methodology used in these studies, by extracting and summarizing a Study characteristics—study design, neurofeedback protocol features, and data acquisition parameters, and b Amygdala modulation—how data acquisition parameters, study design, and neurofeedback protocol features relate to results.
The following characteristics and points were analyzed: Exclusion criteria, Single vs. Multiple Sessions, Experimental vs. The review of the literature using search items as described above identified potential target articles 84 identified via the PUBMED database, through Science Direct and via Web of Science.
In the first stage of selection, papers were excluded Figure 1 , following the previously defined inclusion criteria 1 to 6 section Eligibility Criteria, Screening Phase, and Study Selection : were duplicated records, were reviews or non-original research articles, were not rtfMRI-NF based studies, 55 did not address the training of ER processes, 20 did not make direct and separate measurements in the amygdala, and two were not written in English.
Thus, 46 articles were selected for full text analysis. Finally, 19 articles were selected for further quantitative analysis.
These referred to 19 studies that used rtfMRI-NF protocols to train ER and presented quantitative results regarding amygdala responses. The characterization of studies, NF protocols and data acquisition parameters are described in detail in the Tables and summarized in the Figures. Efforts were made in order to find a common and comparable statistical outcome measure to attempt a meta-analysis of the main effects. However, the large heterogeneity of analysis approaches found in the set of reports precluded such strategy.
A large array of different statistical outcome measures among studies were found, reporting the effects of NF training based on 23 different variable contrasts that were reported by outcome measure we refer here to the specific contrasts between the variables or conditions employed by the authors to measure the effect of ER in amygdala BOLD signal. A selection of the most representative outcome measures is reported in Tables 4a , b. Because of the variability in the statistical measurements of amygdala modulation, requisites for a valid meta-analysis were not present.
Therefore, a non-quantitative analysis of the results and protocol features was performed. The next subsections will focus on the qualitative analysis performed regarding the selected descriptive features of the included studies, NF protocols and reported results.
Among the selected studies, 13 In terms of sample characteristics, the age ranges varied between 18 and Sample size ranged from 6 to 42 subjects. Nine of the studies Only six studies In the study design, in nine of the reports Seven As for the selection of participants' study arm, the great majority of the studies did not describe their approach—only six studies Most studies applied a block design for the ER task, alternating regulate and rest blocks.
In this type of design, volunteers were required to regulate their BOLD signal for one period Regulate Condition followed by a rest block. In three study cases In 12 studies Baseline values are subsequently used as a reference for the detection of BOLD signal changes, by comparing it with the signal measured during the Regulate Condition. In terms of trial duration on the Regulation blocks which included the Regulate Condition , variations occurred between 4.
However, in most of the protocols The number of trials in a Regulation block varied from three to 12 trials per block, with one study having trials in the same and only experimental block Posse et al.
Five studies Feedback sources also differed across studies. Seventeen of the 19 studies In the study of Li et al.
Such MVPA classification was then used as feedback for the participants. MVPA investigates the information contained in distributed patterns of neural activity and it is considered as a supervised classification method where a classifier attempts to capture the relationships between spatial pattern of fMRI activity and experimental conditions in this case positive or negative emotions. In the study of Koush et al. DCM is a Bayesian framework for modeling effective brain connectivity.
The feedback display consisted of a logarithmic Bayes factor value which was red if the trial was successful, i. This value included the cumulative reward that had been earned until then. During the NF training, the participants learned to voluntarily increase top-down effective connectivity from the dmPFC onto the bilateral amygdala.
This was accomplished by providing a feedback signal that indicated the degree of dominance of a top-down model target model for training compared with a bottom-up model. If the top-down model fit the ongoing brain activity during a training trial better than the bottom-up model, the feedback signal was positive; if the bottom-up model dominated, the feedback signal was negative.
NF training was therefore focused on up-regulating positive emotions. In other words, if the logarithmic Bayes factor was positive, the participant was rewarded for a successful trial. Importantly, the feedback signal calculation for a NF trial was based on the entire ROI time series of this trial, including baseline and Regulate Conditions.
After each repetition of the five baseline and the four Regulation blocks, participants were given the chance to rest for 38 s. Afterwards, participants were presented with feedback about their success for 4 s. Feedback was therefore intermittent and slow. From the 17 studies that defined a specific brain region as the feedback target, and not a connectivity approach Similarly, there was a lot of variability concerning the NF protocol features. Eleven studies Regarding the Practice Run, only eight studies Regarding the stimuli, 9 studies did not present any kind of stimuli to their participants to induce an emotional state, eight studies Six In two of the cases the assessment was made with the same participants as the main task.
Finally, three studies reported a post-assessment of arousal and valence of the stimuli after training , with the same participants performing the NF main task Paret et al.
Concerning the application of ER strategies, not all of the studies explicitly instructed their participants to use a defined ER strategy. Indeed, in 10 of the studies Only two studies The other seven studies Regarding the data acquisition parameters, the majority of studies Respecting EPI parameters, in-plane resolution ranged between 1.
Only two studies Posse et al. All the studies used axial or near-axial slice orientation except for four studies, in which this information was lacking Johnston et al. Of the 19 studies included, 11 employed parallel imaging acceleration for image reconstruction. Of the studies employing parallel imaging, only one used this technique combined with multi-echo acquisition Marxen et al.
Different online data processing steps and parameters were reported across the reviewed studies. For ROI definition, eight studies considered the coordinates given by previous functional neuroimaging studies Zotev et al. The ROI sphere diameter varied across studies from 5 to 20 mm, although seven studies did not report this parameter. Four of the studies that reported ROI size referred a diameter between 5 and 9 mm, and eight studies reported a diameter larger than 10 mm Zotev et al.
The different methods for extraction of the BOLD signal reported across studies were: using a percentage of the signal changes related to a baseline, applying a beta-values discrimination method, a GLM calculation, using event-related averaging of ROI, using a sliding window correlation analysis, and applying the Bayesian model.
The majority of these studies 12 studies reported using a percentage of signal change in relation to baseline, which was defined as the rest condition in all cases Table 3a. During online preprocessing, motion correction was applied in all studies whereas spatial smoothing was only reportedly applied online in four of the 19 studies Paret et al. EPI distortion correction was applied only once online Marxen et al.
Both studies that focused on Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder showed significant results of amygdala modulation when comparing its activation patterns for Regulate Condition vs. Control Condition, during the Transfer Run. Regarding the sample of subjects diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder, no significant results were reported.
Interestingly, the same protocol was administered to a sample of healthy subjects and described in a previous paper from the same authors Paret et al. Concerning Major Depressive Disorder, all three studies reported significant differences in left amygdala modulation during the regulation condition between the Last Run and the Transfer Run.
Only one of the studies Zotev et al. Last Run; Transfer Run vs. Last Run; and Experimental Group vs. Control Group. Concerning group effects, there were five studies addressing the contrast between Experimental Group and Control Group Table 4b. Two of these studies presented significant results of this contrast during the Last Run and four during the Transfer Run. In the 10 studies that applied the protocol to a Control Group, only two of them reported the statistical outcome measures of the same contrasts within both the Control Group and the Experimental Group, with five studies reporting statistical outcomes from the contrast between Experimental Group and Control Group.
Three studies Zotev et al. Two studies Paret et al. Ten data records reported the contrast between conditions Regulate Condition and Control Condition within the Experimental Group to address results on successful modulation: seven in the Transfer Run, two in the First Run and three in the Last Run.
From these, seven records From the seven studies that reported no significant results in amygdala modulation in the considered contrasts Studies that used a connectivity or MVPA approach to the feedback source did not report significant effects regarding amygdala modulation.
These new methods do therefore remain exploratory and their real face value remains to be confirmed. In contrast, significant results on amygdala modulation were found in at least one of the reported measures in 11 The two studies Johnston et al. From the seven studies that presented non-significant results in amygdala modulation in the considered contrasts, four of them used aversive pictures as stimuli for emotion induction and three did not use any stimulus during the training protocol.
Two of the studies with non-significant results in amygdala modulation applied stimuli pre-assessment and two applied stimuli post-assessment. From the 9 studies that used no stimuli for emotion induction, six reported significant effects in amygdala modulation Figure 2. From the two studies that considered induced cognitive ER strategies, the one that used Cognitive Reappraisal reported no significant effects in amygdala modulation, whereas the one that used Reality Checking reported significant effects.
Six in seven studies that instructed the participants to Recall Autobiographic Memories reported evidence of amygdala modulation. From the six studies that reported non-significant results on amygdala modulation, four studies instructed the participants with a free ER strategy Figure 3.
From the 19 included records, 8 studies found significant responses in the left amygdala and six studies found the same response pattern in the right amygdala. It is important to point out that one study Zotev et al. In another study Young et al. One of the studies Zotev et al. Rest condition and the average BOLD amygdala laterality. Furthermore, one of the studies Paret et al.
Among the 8 studies that reported LA significant responses, five were about Up-Regulation of the brain region's activity, two were about Up- and Down-Regulation and only one was about Down-Regulation. In contrast, from the six studies that reported RA significant responses, three were about Down-Regulation and three about Up-Regulation Figure 4.
Figure 4. Number of studies on up-regulation, down-regulation, up and down-regulation and amygdala lateralized response. We found no common feature in any of the previously mentioned domains for the seven studies. Nevertheless, it is possible to point to differences in protocol features in three of the non-significant results' studies when comparing these with studies that reported significant outcomes.
Study 5 Li et al. Three in four of the studies reporting non-significant results in all the considered contrasts Studies 4, 10, 12 also presented atypical data acquisition parameters values in relation to the successful studies Koush et al.
Additionally, one of the studies that reported non-significant amygdala modulation outcomes Koush et al. Figure 5. Number of studies by statistical output concerning fMRI data acquisition parameters. Regarding FA, seven Zotev et al. Of the 12 studies with significant amygdala modulation in at least one of the measures, seven studies 1, 6 14, 16, 17, 18, 19 used parallel imaging acceleration particularly, SENSE.
These results are quite preliminary and the relation of this parameter with neuromodulation effects in the amygdala remain unclear Zotev et al. Importantly, none of the studies that used anatomical templates or anatomical parcellations to define the ROI for real-time NF reported significant results of amygdala modulation in any of the contrasts.
Moreover, from the 12 studies that reported significant amygdala modulation, one of the studies defined the target ROI for rtfMRI-NF with a diameter length between 5 and 9 mm, while seven of the studies reported a diameter between 14 and 20 mm.
Finally, all studies applied motion correction methods during online and offline pre-processing of fMRI data. Concerning reporting on online spatial smoothing, the same number of studies 2 with or without significant result, was found.
On the other hand, only one of four studies that applied offline spatial smoothing of 8 mm reported significant amygdala modulation Table 3b. In general, we found evidence for amygdala modulation during rtfMRI-NF training, although the use of different outcome measures across studies to infer on the success of NF intervention precluded a quantitative meta-analysis. This was nevertheless an important conclusion to report.
In the next sections, the results will be discussed using as guideline the research questions defined in the Introduction section. There is replicated evidence of selective targeted up-regulation of the left amygdala during the recall of happy autobiographic memories in depressed Young et al.
The answer to this question seems therefore to be positive, at least from the best-controlled clinical trial studies. Despite that, there is substantial variability between studies, study characteristics and design, protocol structure and, in particular, the outcome measures to assess BOLD signal changes in amygdala activity, which precludes identifying the optimal protocol features for rtfMRI-NF applied to Emotion regulation training.
These findings suggest that there are still important limitations in the design of a clear conceptual framework of NF-training research. The definition of outcome measures is one of the most debated topics in the field of NF. How can we measure the success of a NF training? Should we focus on clinical outcomes or brain signal changes? How do we study the explanatory power of the protocol features?
Currently, there is still no consensual solution for this problem. The analysis of magnitude of effect sizes i. However, as in a recently published systematic review regarding NF training e.
In fact, the various statistical outcome measures reported among studies were not comparable. Accordingly, the authors reported results using different statistical methods to analyze contrasts between distinct experimental variables and considered different moments of the training protocol. Trying to overcome some of these limitations, Rogala et al. Training was considered successful when at least one of the multiple statistical comparisons performed in a study was significant; then, non-parametric tests were used to estimate the correlation of each training factor with the training success scores.
This is an interesting approach that allows the analysis of associations between variables and results. Nevertheless, the level of reliability of this methodology is questionable. Categorizing an intervention that presents a significant effect as successful, while not considering non-significant results in other key contrasts, most likely leads to the overestimation of the success of an intervention—and this may contribute to a bias in the results.
These non-specific factors variables associated to non-significant results are often undervalued in NF-training designs, with statistical data sometimes being omitted. This is unfortunate as it complicates the interpretation of the results. Concerning the reviewed studies, if we isolate the 12 studies that show significant results in the reported outcome measures and which were considered for this analysis, we conclude that none of these measured all of the important dimensions: comparison between Experimental and Control Groups, comparison between Training NF Runs and comparison between Last Run and Transfer Run.
In fact, four of the selected studies showed significant results in two of the reported measurements but they did not have a Control Group; five showed only significant results both regarding Transfer Run and the comparison between groups but did not report data contrasting different moments of the Training NF Runs ; three studies found significant results in all the reported statistical measurements, but did not perform a contrast between the Last and an additional Transfer Run.
This great variability in the statistical outputs implies that it is currently not possible to objectively meta-analyze the effectiveness of the NF technique in amygdala modulation when comparing such different statistical outcome measures.
Nevertheless, an extensive description and critical appraisal of the results is presented in the next sections. Questions 1. In most studies, results of the contrast between different moments of a Single Training Session were presented.
Some of them reported the differences between the Regulate Condition and the Control Condition in the Last Run whereas others presented the contrasts of the same variables considering the Transfer Run.
Crucially, the majority of studies did not present the contrast between Regulate and Control Condition, a central contrast to ensure that the effect observed in amygdala activity was due to the induced experimental manipulation, and not to a general task involvement. This led to the conclusion that, despite evidence of amygdala activity modulation given by the significant results reported by the studies, there was clear variability and contradictory findings within and between studies, as well as missing crucial information.
Therefore, there is no clear evidence of modulation within the same Session. It is important to discuss the different results that were found between different clinical and non-clinical populations. The study describing results of rtfMRI-NF training in participants with Borderline Personality Disorder showed no significant results on amygdala modulation in any of the indicated measures, although the same authors had previously found significant effects in healthy participants during the Transfer Run Paret et al.
This suggests that clinical conditions affect the efficacy of rtfMRI-NF training, raising additional questions on the neural underpinnings of the effectiveness of this technique. On the other hand, one of the studies focused on Major Depressive Disorder and showed a significant effect of condition in the Transfer Run but no effect of condition in the Last Run Zotev et al.
This is an unexpected result, since the ability to neuromodulate the amygdala during a Transfer Run is expected to reflect improvements achieved during NF training. Question 1. Of these, only two reported an effect of Session.
Therefore, again, there were not enough data to respond to the reliability of using modulation across Sessions to prove the efficacy of NF training.
Moreover, one should also consider the effects of direct NF from those of the mental training between Sessions Subramanian et al. Non-voluntary carry-over effects within- and across-Session should not be considered just as confounds but should instead also reflect positive non-voluntary learning effects of NF training e.
The inclusion of a Control Group is a critical point to discuss as it allows the distinction between observed effects due to NF training manipulation only visible in the Experimental Group and observed effects more likely explained by other confound non-controlled variables in case there are no Experimental vs. Accordingly, the manipulation effect should occur only in the Experimental, not in the Control Group. However, in the reviewed articles, not all of the studies that included a Control Group reported between-group comparative results, nor even the outcomes of contrasts within the Control Group.
This introduces a relevant report bias. Overall, it was possible to detect a tendency for the Up-Regulation protocols to result predominantly in left amygdala modulation, whereas Down-Regulation protocols more effectively modulated the right amygdala. This tendency was reported in previous studies which showed more right-lateralized activity associated with the Down-Regulation of emotions Paret et al. Published evidence supports the explicit processing lateralization of the amygdala e.
Question 2. In almost half of the studies, the authors chose not to use any kind of stimuli for emotion induction. In these cases, the ER strategy applied was either autobiographic memory recall or a free and subjective strategy.
In those that employed emotional stimuli, visual material from international picture systems was mainly used e. Statistical significance of effects was present or absent irrespective of the use of stimuli for emotional induction. Morawetz et al. However, the interaction of stimulus presentation with induction strategy has to be taken into account when considering the role of stimuli as supporting modulators of amygdala activity: changing the interface from visual to other modality might affect neuromodulation across subjects, but more studies on this are required.
Full examination of this question would require a within subject design. Importantly, the amygdala is known to rapidly adapt its response to stimuli, in particular emotional stimuli Breiter et al. Designing shorter blocks Blackford et al. It is always possible to distinguish any given process from its modulation. Finally, in section 5, I test the proposal by showing that it can be applied to problematic forms of emotion regulation.
Concerning the notion of emotion, Gross cautiously resists providing a definition and offers instead an emotion prototype, that is, a set of typical, salient and diagnostic properties of emotions. Emotions are events often constituted by a sequence of four related sub-events: 1 The presence of a relevant often external situation causes a subject to 2 pay attention to some aspects of that situation.
Then, 3 the subject evaluates those aspects expected with respect to her goals. Finally, this evaluation causes 4 a series of changes in experiential, behavioral, and neurobiological response systems.
A classification of emotion regulation strategies naturally emerges from this characterization of emotion episodes. Different kinds of emotion regulation can be understood as interventions on different components of emotion Gross An adequate characterization of the notion should apply to most of them.
First, we can alter the situation that contains an emotion eliciting stimulus. This can be done in two different ways. Situation selection is the set of actions that make it more or less likely that one will have an encounter with the emotional stimulus. We apply this strategy, for instance, when we try to avoid attending an annoying family reunion.
Situation modification is the set of actions that modify the situation which contains or does not contain the relevant stimulus in order to reduce or enhance its emotional impact. We apply this strategy, for instance, when we ask a friend to support us while we face a stressing situation.
Attentional deployment is the strategy of directing attention towards or away from emotionally meaningful aspects within a given situation in order to enhance or inhibit the emotional response. When we try to avoid making eye contact with someone we are attracted to or scared of in order to diminish the emotional response we employ this strategy.
Cognitive change is the strategy of modifying our emotions by changing the way one appraises a situation. An appraisal, as usually characterized by appraisal theorists, is the process of detecting and assessing the significance of some aspect of the environment for our well-being Moors, Ellsworth, Scherer and Frijda This process usually involves different dimensions of evaluation.
Cognitive change is modifying one or more of these dimensions of evaluation. For instance, one could regulate the fear elicited by the encounter with a scary-looking animal by thinking that the animal is probably not dangerous or by considering that we are able to defend ourselves from it.
Lastly, response modulation directly influences experiential, behavioral, or physiological components of the emotional response. This includes a wide variety of strategies. One can employ different drugs that target specific somatic aspects of the emotional response.
For instance, we can take anxiolytics to reduce muscle tension or beta-blockers to reduce sympathetic hyper-reactivity. Deep breathing relaxation or physical exercise can be also used as forms of response modulation. Another common form of response modulation involves regulating emotion expressive behavior Gross, Richards and John Although characterizing interventions on different variables of the emotion process is relevant for distinguishing between different regulatory strategies, this is not sufficient for understanding what emotion regulation is.
Modifying the value of a variable in a mechanism is not sufficient for regulation. The normal functioning of any mechanism always involves the modification of some of its components by a given input. Characterizing regulation in this way would trivialize the notion i. Gross provides a more detailed model of emotion regulation. He claims that this model is necessary in order to answer more specific questions about emotion regulation. For instance, a more detailed characterization is required to explain how various emotion regulation strategies are actually started or stopped or how different strategies are chosen.
However, for the mentioned reasons, this model is also required to address the more fundamental question of what emotion regulation is. This is a process that involves different components. More specifically, Gross characterizes a valuation as a juxtaposition of a representation of the world with a representation of a desired state of the world a goal or target state.
Emotion regulation takes place when a valuation mechanism or system takes the state of some component c of the emotion process as a target and evaluates it either negatively or positively, activating action impulses that are intended to modify or sustain c.
As Gross points out, a valuation process has the same components as emotion: the W-P-V-A sequence can be identified with the abovementioned situation-attention-appraisal- response sequence.
This means that emotions are valuations in this sense. This is why emotion regulation can be seen as a second-order valuation. It is a valuation process that targets a component of other valuation processes. It is relevant to note that this does not imply an identification of emotion with appraisal. As mentioned above, a valuation process includes all of the components associated with the emotion prototype.
This is only an outline of the extended process model. There are at least two dimensions along which emotion regulation can be further characterized. First, Gross divides valuation into three different stages: an identification stage which determines if emotion regulation is required , a selection stage in which the most suitable strategy is chosen , and an implementation stage in which it is decided how the strategy should be carried out in the given context.
Second, valuation is not always a high-level process. Ochsner and Gross describe different neural systems supporting valuation at different cognitive levels. Core level valuations which occur in the amygdala and ventral striatum are links between stimuli and reinforcers. Finally, conceptual level valuations that represent the value of stimuli in belief-desire terms in rostral and dorsal medial PFC that may be verbalizable and consciously reportable.
Although these additional aspects of the model are important to understand how emotion regulation works, they are not necessary in order to characterize the notion of emotion regulation. The trivialization problem mentioned above can be avoided by endorsing the minimal characterization of emotion regulation as a second-order valuation. This proposal already implies that not any process that results in the modification of a component of an emotion counts as regulation.
More generally, not any process that results in the modification of a component of a cognitive mechanism counts as a regulation of its function. According to this proposal, regulation only occurs when this modification is the result of a second-order valuation.
This characterization of emotion regulation is specific enough to draw a conceptual distinction between a process and its regulation and abstract enough to be applied to the different strategies we considered. However, there are instances of emotion regulation that do not depend on second-order valuation. In the next section, I will examine different self-regulatory processes implemented by emotions. One of the main arguments that Kappas proposes in order to undermine the view that emotion regulation requires second-order processing is that negative emotions are self-terminating events.
When a given stimulus e. Kappas affirms that all negative emotions are self-terminating in this sense and that this involves some kind of self-regulation. According to the emotion prototype proposed by Gross, the behavioral response that produces the elimination of the emotion-eliciting stimulus and therefore the termination of emotion is a constitutive part of the emotion episode. The physiological, experiential and behavioral responses produced by a valuation constitute the fourth component of the emotion process.
This means that, pace Gross, these regulatory processes are not different from the emotion itself. Based on an argument proposed by Gross and Barret , Gross affirms precisely that there are many different ways to define an emotion, each of which suggests a different take on how and whether emotion and emotion regulation should be distinguished. Gross and Barret argue that basic emotion approaches in which emotions are determined by well-defined biological mechanisms and appraisal theories in which emotions are defined by a specific set of evaluations are consistent with a clear distinction between emotion and emotion regulation.
In contrast, in psychological and social constructionist approaches, which view emotion as the result of individual or social cognitive processes, the distinction between emotion generation and emotion regulation seems arbitrary or artificial. In what follows, I will deal with this reading of the objection. I will argue that the prototype approach is consistent with the distinction. Thus, I do not intend to claim that emotion and emotion regulation are distinct under any view on emotion.
Control is characterized in control theory as a form of negative feedback loop. The output signal is compared to a desired reference signal and the discrepancy is used to compute corrective control action Doyle, Francis and Tannenbaum , pp.
In emotion self-termination, the emotion can be taken to be an output signal. When this signal is sensed, its input the presence of a spider is modified through the controller e. If we accept that control in this sense is some form of regulation, then emotion self-termination is a regulatory process and therefore we cannot identify regulation with second-order valuation. In order to reject this idea, one should distinguish between regulation and control. Although Gross does not offer reasons to draw this distinction, they are indeed different.
As mentioned in the previous section, second-order valuation is useful in order to avoid the trivialization problem. If we accept that regulation is a genuine phenomenon, we need to provide an alternative proposal. A candidate suggested by the consideration of emotion self-termination is the notion of control. However, one should notice that this is not a proposal advanced by Kappas himself. He only proposes these cases of control as counterexamples to the second-order view and not as instances of an alternative general notion of regulation.
My point is that, once we reject the second-order view, the notion of control provides an alternative possibility for providing a general characterization. Nevertheless, this proposal is problematic. We saw that control theory characterizes a control system as a kind of feedback mechanism which directly manipulates through its controller its own input.
Instances of second-order regulation are feedback processes in some sense. Some aspect of the emotion process one of its outputs triggers a second-order process which in turn modifies this aspect of the emotion.
However, these are not instances of control because the regulation is not produced by the same mechanism that produces the output the emotion itself or one of its components. As we have seen, Gross distinguishes between many regulatory neural mechanisms that are different from those underlying emotions themselves i.
The problem is that this notion would be too wide. It is plausible that there is no cognitive and non-cognitive process performed by a living being which is not a feedback process in this sense. Autopoietic theory draws a clear line between organisms and their environments Villalobos and Razeto-Barry and therefore autopoiesis may involve mechanisms in the environment that are different from those in a living being sometimes even including mechanisms in other living beings.
However, it involves at least an indirect feedback process of an organism i. This insight implies that if we identify regulation with negative feedback it would be impossible or very hard to find any mechanism in a living being that is not regulatory and therefore the notion of regulation would be trivialized.
We cannot identify emotion regulation with a general notion of feedback because it would be too permissive.
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