Sadness-counteracts-joy versus distraction and reappraisal in the down-regulation of positive emotion: Evidence from event-related potentials

The prevailing view emphasizes the up-regulation of positive emotions, as they are essential for individuals to expand flexibility of thought, maintain healthy mental state, and nurture harmonious interpersonal relationships. However, an increasing number of studies have found that excessive positive emotions can be maladaptive, both clinically and non-clinically, especially when the intensity and duration do not match the context and personal expectations. Traditional Chinese medicine advocates the appropriate expression of positive emotions, and it has introduced the emotion regulation strategy of sadness-counteracts-joy (SCJ) to down-regulate excessive positive emotions. The present study examined the efficacy of distraction, reappraisal, and sadness-counteracts-joy (SCJ) in the down-regulation of high-intensity positive emotions. Twenty-one participants (18-30 years old) were sampled, self-reported data were collected, and late positive potentials (LPP) in the regulation task were analyzed. The results showed that (1) the three strategies were effective in the self-reported rating, and the participants perceived SCJ and distraction as more effective than reappraisal; (2) the three strategies all reduced the self-reported positive emotion valence and arousal, but SCJ led to negative valence deflection; (3) both distraction and reappraisal significantly reduced the LPP amplitudes during the early LPP window, and the attenuation of reappraisal lasted for almost the whole implementation; and (4) the LPP for SCJ was consistently the same as that for the free view and did not differ significantly throughout the whole-time window. These results provide preliminary neurophysiological evidence for SCJ and suggest that SCJ is a strategy that differs from distraction and reappraisal.