Mindfulness Versus Cognitive Reappraisal: the Impact of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) on the Early and Late Brain Potential Markers of Emotion Regulation

An 8-week Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) course improved self-reported trait mindfulness and cognitive reappraisal, as well as the ability to use both strategies during a task, compared to a wait-list control group. The training group showed decreased early brain activity (200–280 ms positivity) across all emotion regulation strategies, suggesting MBSR adaptively modulates early attention to emotional stimuli. However, later-stage emotion processing (LPP) did not change, indicating that more extensive training may be needed for later stages. The findings also suggest that employing mindfulness consciously may require less cognitive effort than cognitive reappraisal.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Abstract Objectives A positive association between trait mindfulness and cognitive reappraisal has previously been found. Using event-related potentials (ERPs), we investigated the impact of an 8-week MBSR course on early and late stages of emotion regulation using mindfulness and reappraisal. Methods Participants were allocated into an 8-week MBSR training group (n = 14 for task reports and self-reports; n = 10 for ERPs) or a wait-list control group (n = 15 for task reports and self-reports; n = 11 for ERPs). Pre and post the 8-week training, participants completed an affective picture viewing task and were instructed to regulate their responses to negative and neutral images using mindfulness, cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression. Results At post-test, only the training group showed significant improvements in self-reported trait mindfulness and trait cognitive reappraisal, together with improvements in the self-reported ability to employ mindfulness and cognitive reappraisal during the task. The training group showed decreased 200–280 ms positivity across all three strategies at post-test. The LPP did not change over time but overall showed more positive mean amplitudes to cognitive appraisal. Conclusions These findings suggest that MBSR may adaptively modulate early attention deployment to emotional stimuli, but modulations of later stages of emotion processing may require more extensive mindfulness training. In addition, conscious employment of mindfulness may require less cognitive effort than cognitive reappraisal.