Effects of menstrual cycle and neuroticism on females' emotion regulation

Fifteen highly neurotic women and 21 women who were low in neuroticism participated in this study. The women were surveyed three times over a single menstrual cycle during the mid-late luteal, menstrual, and late follicular phases. Each time, the participants were asked to use reappraisal to regulat...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:International journal of psychophysiology 2014-12, Vol.94 (3), p.351-357
Main Authors: Wu, Mengying, Zhou, Renlai, Huang, Yamei
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Anxiety Disorders - diagnosis
Anxiety Disorders - psychology
Behavioral psychophysiology
Biological and medical sciences
Emotion regulation
Emotions - physiology
Female
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Galvanic Skin Response - physiology
Humans
Menstrual cycle
Menstrual Cycle - physiology
Menstrual Cycle - psychology
Neuroticism
Photic Stimulation - methods
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
Reappraisal
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Fifteen highly neurotic women and 21 women who were low in neuroticism participated in this study. The women were surveyed three times over a single menstrual cycle during the mid-late luteal, menstrual, and late follicular phases. Each time, the participants were asked to use reappraisal to regulate their emotions, which were evoked by a sad film clip, and their subjective emotional experiences and physiological responses were recorded. The results showed that neuroticism had no impact on emotion regulation, and the females experienced fluctuations in their emotion regulation success over their menstrual cycle. During the menstrual phase, women reported significantly higher levels of reappraisal, but subjective sadness did not differ throughout the three phases. Additionally, the regulation effects on galvanic skin response (GSR) were smaller during the menstrual phase than in the mid-late luteal phase. These results suggested that women in the menstrual phase expended more effort but gained less success at regulating their emotions. •We examined women's efforts and success of using cognitive reappraisal.•Women's emotion regulation can be affected by the menstrual cycle.•Women in the menstrual phase expend more effort to regulate their emotions.•Women in the menstrual phase gain less success at regulating their emotions.•Neuroticism levels have no impact on women's emotion regulation.
ISSN:0167-8760
1872-7697
DOI:10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2014.10.003