心理预期与认知方式对负面情绪的交互调节

Recent studies showed that antecedent anticipations of upcoming negative events effectively reduced post hoc negative emotional experiences elicited by these events. However, this anticipatory process itself has been shown to result in activations of emotion-related neural circuits and subjective anxiety. It raises a striking question that how to use healthy cognitive emotion regulation strategies to attenuate the negative effect of emotional anticipation, and consequently to fully develop the advantage of antecedent anticipation in emotion regulation. On the other hand, excessive negative expectation, which is characterized by both overestimate of the costs and the emotion-focused coping for uncertain events, is suggested to be an important determinant for the occurrence of anxiety disorders. Accordingly, it is probably an important route for anxiety disorder intervention, to train anxiety patients with adaptive cognitive regulation strategies during the emotional anticipatory process, which target at offsetting the maladaptive emotion-focused coping and reducing excessive negative expectation. Therefore, this project plans to use behavioral, physiological and neuroimaging approaches comprehensively to unravel the interactive impacts of cognitive strategies and antecedent expectation on emotional consequences of negative events. Its important implication lies not only in reducing the costs and developing the advantage of antecedent anticipation in emotion regulation, but also in providing new insights into the clinical treatment of anxiety disorders.

近年来，研究发现对负性事件发生之前预先的心理准备，即心理预期，能有效降低负性事件发生后的情绪影响，但预期过程本身却导致情绪相关神经环路的激活与主观焦虑体验。因此，采用适应性认知调节方式克服预期过程本身的负面情绪效应，以充分发挥事先预期的情绪调控优势，成为情绪调节领域亟待解决的问题。另一方面，过度负性预期--对潜在负性事件不仅作负面心理预期同时以情绪化的认知方式应对该事件，是焦虑障碍的核心特征。因此，对焦虑症患者进行适应性认知方式的训练以消除其情绪化应对方式，最终减弱该人群对未知事件的过度负面预期，可能是焦虑障碍干预的重要途径。因此，本课题拟综合行为学，多导外周生理记录仪与神经成像手段以揭示认知方式与心理预期对负面情绪的交互调节效应；旨在探求发挥心理预期情绪调节优势，减弱其情绪代价的方法；并为焦虑症的临床治疗提供新的思路。

本项目围绕“心理预期与认知方式对负性情绪的交互调控”这一核心科学问题，综合采用了行为测量，外周生理技术，多模态脑电技术与脑成像技术对不同群体进行心理预期和认知方式进行负性情绪调控的规律进行了系统研究。围绕该主题本课题组在国内外主流学术期刊上发表论文共计11篇。其中项目负责人以第一作者/通讯作者发表SCI/SSCI收录论文共7篇，在国内权威学术期刊《心理科学进展》、《中国科学》上发表论文2篇。综合起来，主要取得了以下两方面的成绩：一、系统揭示了心理预期及认知调控策略对负性情绪的调节机制及其个体差异的神经电生理机制，为焦虑情绪障碍人群的情绪调节干预奠定了理论基础。二、采用脑电与脑成像技术,从行为和认知两个层面，系统考察了心理预期与不同的认知策略（以注意分散策略、表达抑制策略为例）对不同焦虑人群（以青春期状态性焦虑和特质性焦虑人格为例）的情绪调控效果差异，初步揭示了在焦虑人群中不同认知策略与心理预期对负面情绪交互调节的神经机制和规律。