Affect regulation in response to evaluative self-information: To ruminate or regulate

The purpose of this research was to focus on the self-management of affect states elicited by receiving positively or negatively valenced information about the self. The studies here are refinements on Erber's (1996) Social Constraints Model (SCM) of affect regulation which challenges previous assumptions about the nature of regulation motivations and tendencies. Rather than unidirectional regulation towards positivity, Erber proposed that regulation of affect may be most likely in response to situational demands. Study 1 demonstrated that anticipation of self-perception accuracy adequately serves as a constraint to emotional experience, presumably because both a positive and negative affect state would interfere with the task demands. Subjects in Study 1 turned off both positive and negative videos much sooner when they expected to access accurate self-perceptions compared to those anticipating a mundane task, but their neutral video counterparts watched for equivalently long times regardless of the nature of their upcoming task. In Study 2, subjects were given either success or failure feedback prior to an anticipated self-perception accuracy task or a mundane task. In accordance with the SCM, subjects showed a preference for affect congruent material in the absence of constraints on their emotional state and exhibited affect regulatory behaviors when the affect would be expected to interfere with situational demands. Success subjects watched a positive video longer when they expected a mundane task, but watched a negative video longer when they expected to address their accurate self-perceptions. Similarly, Failure subjects watched the negative video more in the mundane task condition compared to their self-perception accuracy counterparts, but watched the positive video for nearly equal times regardless of the task. These studies are discussed for their implications for traditional hedonic theories and for theories of thought rumination. It is argued that the SCM can best account for our affect management because it addresses the likely interactions between ourselves and our situational context.