The importance of investigating Emotion Regulation (ER) may be self-evident, given that emotions have a substantial impact on our daily lives. ER encompasses set of processes that people go through in order to cultivate their feelings that arise at the moment and produce some response. Brain-imaging studies of ER have broadly focused on examining cognitive strategies, such as reappraisal, in order to understand underlying variables that contribute to the development of this particular process of emotions. The main focus in this paper was to summarize some of the observation done by functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) on neural processes underlying cognitive reappraisal. Furthermore, the paper will discuss some of these experiments that have been made through the last 15 years in the field where indications have been somewhat confusing when it comes to certain aspects of presented data, especially in comparison with other studies. Finally, a brief overview and some of the significant contributions, such as a process model of ER, to the field of ER have been presented and discussed. Cognitive reappraisal has been shown to effectively down-regulate subjective emotional experience. Even though many studies have been performed in measuring brain-activity when engaging in cognitive reappraisal, a unified and accepted agreement has yet not been found. In broader terms, brain-responses when engaging in cognitive reappraisal seem to operate in a particular manner where different parts of prefrontal and parietal cortex execute control over subcortical regions, such as amygdala.

Reappraisal is a cognitive emotion regulation strategy that induces a reduction in the arousal response elicited by both unpleasant and pleasant stimuli.One form of reappraisal is that of temporal distancing. Temporal distancing is the cognitive tool that allows the individual to perceive the stimuli in a broader temporal perspective.Reappraisal’s impact on the arousal response can be measured by assessing the amplitude of the event-related potential (ERP) component the late positive potential(LPP), a centro-parietal slow-wave ERP beginning around 350 ms post-stimulus and sustaining for up to several seconds. The aim of this study was to test various temporal-related perspectives in order to see their effect on the LPP. The analysis of the data suggests that a decrease in the amplitude of the LPP in response to emotionally unpleasant facial stimuli corresponds to adopting a temporal distancing strategy, regardless of the exact temporal distance chosen.

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The ability to regulate emotions is essential for human well-being. Among posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) patients, the capability to control emotions is impaired. Trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy is a recommended treatment for patients diagnosed with PTSD. Usually, cognitive reappraisal is considered the primary regulation technique in cognitive behavioral therapy treatment. The strategy aims to decrease negative or increase positive emotions by changing the interpretation of an event to alter the meaning of the situation. The aim of this thesis was to conduct a systematic review of the neural correlates of cognitive reappraisal among post-traumatic stress disorder patients. Through a systematic search, screening, and selection process out of initial 545 articles, six studies were included for data extraction and discussion. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, participants utilized the strategy of cognitive reappraisal during an emotion regulation task in the scanner. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, the neural activity of the participants in the included studies was compared during a cognitive reappraisal task. The result revealed a tendency of decreased activity in prefrontal cortices in PTSD patients during reappraisal compared to controls, indicating deficient recruitment of prefrontal cortices in PTSD patients during reappraisal.

Individuals with borderline personality disorder (BPD) experience emotional instability and have a high suicide rate. Treatment for BPD includes psychotherapy and adaptive emotion regulation strategies, which include cognitive reappraisal. Previous systematic reviews indicate that abnormal brain patterns may cause emotional instability in BPD individuals. To further explore this, this review collected articles that examined neural activity using fMRI during cognitive reappraisal in subjects with BPD and healthy controls. We identified four relevant articles through a search of Web of Science and PubMed. The articles included conflicting results in both participant groups regarding increased or decreased activity during cognitive reappraisal applying either reinterpretation or distancing. The affected brain regions were the following: lateral and ventrolateral prefrontal cortex, left middle temporal gyrus, and superior temporal gyri. Three of the articles reported consistent results of activity in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex during downregulation, two in all participants and one only in the healthy control group. However, no significant group differences were found in this region during cognitive reappraisal. The discussion includes limitations regarding the comparability of the included studies, such as the method of eliciting negative affect, the use of written or verbal instructions, and the cognitive reappraisal strategy applied. Further research is necessary to better understand the involvement of distinct brain regions in cognitive reappraisal and BPD, as well as to establish more standardized research methods. These efforts can offer comprehensive insights into the neural mechanisms underlying cognitive reappraisal in individuals with BPD.

College students with ADHD tend to struggle with their academic performance and are less likely to graduate college than their neurotypical peers. Emotion dysregulation, a common symptom of ADHD, can cause significant functional impairment throughout life. Acute exercise improves ADHD symptom severity, yet medication is the first line of treatment. Less is understood about the effectiveness of habitual exercise or ADHD medication on emotion dysregulation and quality of life (QoL). Therefore, the purpose of this mixed-methods study was to examine the relationship between habitual exercise, emotion regulation, and QoL in college students with ADHD, and the possible moderating effects of ADHD medication. A sample of 53 participants completed a Qualtrics survey that included items on recent exercise, emotion regulation strategies, medication status, and QoL. A subset of participants (n=6) also completed a semi-structured interview. A moderated mediation model of linear regression was used to examine the relationships between habitual exercise, emotion regulation, and QoL, and explore the moderating effects of ADHD medication. A 6-step thematic analysis was used to analyze the interview data. Results found a positive main effect of habitual exercise on expression suppression, (p=0.007). Greater use of cognitive reappraisal was associated with greater QoL (p=0.02). There was a stronger association between habitual exercise and cognitive reappraisal in participants taking ADHD medication (p=0.006), than those who were not taking ADHD medication (p=0.942). Medication status did not show a moderating effect. Qualitative analysis identified primary themes of both ADHD-related exercise benefits (increased focus, reduced hyperactivity, improved emotion regulation), and non-ADHD related exercise benefits (feelings of accomplishment, elevated mood, coping mechanism, improved health and fitness). Although further research is necessary, habitual exercise in conjunction with ADHD medication may be an effective treatment for emotion dysregulation associated with ADHD.

Economic preferences are crucial in decision making. While some preferences remain stable, changes in economic preferences have been linked to institutional and policy changes. We conduct three studies to explore the ways in which decision making might be impacted by economic preferences and underlying or changing policies. Our studies span the domains of preventative healthcare, strategic interactions, and education. Chapter 2 examines the relationship between cooperative decision making and changes in societal level institutions through a meta-meta analysis, incorporating experimental data from various previously conducted meta-analyses. We study the relationship between country or region level policy changes, as measured by economic freedom indices to experimental measures of prosocial and selfish behavior. Our results indicate a relationship between macro-level institutional changes and measures of co-operative behavior that varies based on the starting levels of economic freedom variables. This establishes a relationship between macro policies and individual behavior that suggests that governments should consider the consequences of policies on individual decision making. Chapter 3, using vignette experiments, explores how emotion reappraisal messaging interventions affect betrayal aversion and vaccine hesitancy. The measure of betrayal aversion in our study involves hesitancy in risking being betrayed in situations involving trust related to vaccines. We find that betrayal aversion is prevalent in about a third of our study participants and that two of our messaging interventions substantially reduce betrayal aversion involving vaccination decisions. Our results suggests a targeted messaging strategy for addressing a recently discovered new component of vaccine hesitancy, an important current topic in preventative healthcare. Chapter 4, introduces an active learning intervention in the form of a field experiment involving a health intervention nudge and explores its impact on class engagement and education outcomes of students. In addition, we look at the impact of the nudge on vaccination uptake among students. We find improved class engagement as well as improvement in test scores for students who had the opportunity and chose to participate in the nudge experiment. In addition, we find greater uptake of influenza vaccination, as targeted by the nudge treatment. Our results show that this effect is driven by men, with women having higher vaccination rates irrespective of the nudge treatment. JEL codes: C91, H1, 01, P5, I12, D91, A22, C93 / Doctor of Philosophy / This dissertation explores how policy changes in our environment, interact with our preferences and affect decision making in social decision making, healthcare and education domains. We explore macro policies designed to create country-level institutional changes, involving the legal system, monetary policy, trade and labor policy, as well as examining two individual-level interventions including targeted messaging to improve vaccination uptake, and course performance in introductory economics. These wide variety of policy interventions give us a wide spectrum of decisions to study across different domains. Chapter 2 examines the relationship between policy changes at the macro-institutional level and aggregate cooperative decision making. In this study, we establish a relationship between baseline institutional structure and changes in cooperative behavior corresponding to changes in societal level institutions. Our results suggests that current and historic societal level institutional structures should be kept in mind when designing policies. Chapter 3 explores the effect of messaging treatments targeting emotions on uptake of vaccination using a vignette experiment. Here, we study the effects on a particular emotion, betrayal aversion, which in our study, involves hesitancy related to the risk of getting betrayed in the context of vaccination. Our results suggest that a targeted messaging strategy, might prove to be effective in designing policies to improve vaccination uptake. Chapter 4 explores the impact of an active learning approach on class engagement and education outcomes of students in introductory economics. Providing students the chance to participate in a field experiment designed as a vaccination nudge, we incorporate the active learning component of the course and study the impact of participation in this active learning module. Our results suggest improved engagement and education outcomes among students who had the opportunity to participate in the experiment. Our results also suggest that proximity nudges might prove to be effective in improving vaccination uptake. We demonstrate the importance of designing context-specific policies for them to be instrumental in bringing about targeted change. At the aggregate country level, we find that similar type of policy interventions when introduced in countries with differing baseline institutional structures might lead to different results. At the individual level, we find evidence that targeted interventions does shape decisions. We find that targeted health communications messaging can lead to improvement in health behavior. We also find that introducing active learning modules improves learning outcomes among students. Taken together, the findings in this dissertation demonstrates how both economic preferences and underlying policies are important factors in decision making.

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