奖赏动机对情绪调节的影响

The influence of reward motivation on emotion regulation

奖赏对行为的影响是当前心理学研究的热点之一,奖赏诱发的动机能够提升被试的行为表现。以往研究较多关注奖赏对情绪信息加工的影响,还没有研究者直接探讨奖赏对情绪调节的影响。本研究着重探讨在奖赏作用下,被试的情绪调节能力是否有所改善。实验一和实验二分别研究奖赏对负性情绪下调和正性情绪上调的影响。实验一在经典情绪调节范式基础上引入金钱奖赏刺激,要求被试在有、无金钱奖赏条件下进行负性情绪的下调,并对调节后的情绪状态进行评定。与实验一类似,实验二要求被试在有、无奖赏条件下进行正性情绪的上调。结果显示:相比于无金钱奖赏条件,金钱奖赏条件下的被试能够更好地调节自己的情绪,即被试会有更低的负性情绪体验和更高的正性情绪体验。值得注意的是,实验一和二的结果可能是由金钱刺激诱发的奖赏动机所致,也有可能是由于金钱本身包含的积极价值引起的积极情绪所致。因此继续开展实验三和实验四,探讨金钱本身诱发的积极情绪是否对个体的情绪调节产生影响。实验三采用金钱图片诱发被试的积极情绪,要求被试在有、无金钱图片呈现后进行负性情绪的下调,并对调节后的情绪状态进行评定。同样地,实验四要求被试在有、无金钱图片呈现后进行正性情绪的上调。结果表明,被试在有、无金钱图片呈现后进行情绪愉悦度评定得分并无显著差异。实验三和四的结果排除了单纯的金钱刺激图片诱发的积极情绪促进被试情绪调节能力提升的可能性。综上所述,本研究中个体情绪调节能力的提升的确是受奖赏动机所驱动,即奖赏所诱发的动机能够有效地促进个体的情绪调节。

The influence of reward on behavior is one of the hottest research subjects in psychological research.Reward-induced motivation promotes the performance of the participants.In the field of emotional processing,the reward can influence the individual’s processing of emotional information,but previous studies have not directly discussed the effect of reward on emotional regulation.The present study focused on whether emotional regulation ability would be improved under the reward condition.Experiment 1 and 2 investigated the effect of reward on negative emotional down-regulation and positive emotional up-regulation respectively.In experiment 1,monetary reward stimulation was introduced on the basis of the classic emotion regulation paradigm,and the subjects were asked to regulate their negative emotion under the condition of reward or non-reward,and evaluate their current affective state subsequently.Similar to experiment 1,experiment 2 required subjects to up-regulate positive emotions under the condition of reward or non-reward.The results of experiment 1 showed that under the reward condition,the negative emotional regulation effect was significantly higher than that under the non-reward condition(P<0.05).Experiment 2 also showed that compared to non-reward condition,the positive emotion regulation effect was significantly increased under the reward condition(P<0.05).These results suggested that compared to non-reward condition,participants can regulate their emotion better under the condition of the reward.It is worth notingthat the results of Experiment 1 and 2 may be caused by the incentive motivation induced by monetary stimulus,or the positive emotion caused by positive value of money information.Therefore,we carried out experiment 3 and 4 to explore whether the positive emotions induced by money itself can influence the emotional regulation of individuals.In experiment 3,the money pictures were used to induce the positive emotions of subjects,and the subjects were asked to regulate their negative emotion after the presence of money pictures or non-monetary picture,and evaluate their current affective state subsequently.Similarly,experiment 4 required subjects to regulate their positive emotion after the presence of money pictures.The results of experiment 3 and 4 showed that there was no significant difference in the subjects’scores of emotional pleasantness after the presence of money pictures or non-monetary picture(P<0.05).The results of experiment 3 and 4 excluded the possibility that the positive emotions induced by simple money stimulus pictures could improve individual’s emotional regulation ability.To sum up,the improvement of individual’s emotional regulation ability was indeed driven by reward motivation in this study,that is,the motivation induced by reward can effectively promote individual’s emotional regulation ability.