The Study On The Tendency Of Emotion Regulation Strategies And Effectiveness In College Students With Subthreshold Depression

Subthreshold depression refers to a state that has certain clinically depressive symptoms,but without meeting criteria for a full-blown major depressive disorder.It’s considered to be an early stage of major depressive disorder and has an important predictive effect on major depressive disorder.Although subthreshold depression doesn’t meet criteria for a full-blown major depressive disorder,it has the same serious impact on the life and psychosocial function as major depressive disorder,and has a higher incidence than major depressive disorder.In the emotional expression,individuals show a bias towards negative emotions and insensitive to positive emotions.Predecessors have pointed out that depression patients often use inappropriate emotion regulation strategies and less use effective emotion regulation strategies.It may be precisely because of this kind of bad emotion regulation that it leads to emotional disorders,aggravating the occurrence and development of depression.This study will explore the tendency of emotional regulation the effectiveness of positive and negative emotional regulation in college students with subthreshold depression from explicit and implicit emotional regulation.It can not only expand the research content of subthreshold depression and enriching the theory of depression,but also provide a basis for the prevention and treatment of depression.Therefore,this paper will be carried out from the following four studies:Study 1: The CES-D,SDS and ERQ were used to explore the tendency of emotion regulation strategies in subthreshold depression and normal college students.Study 2: A two-factor between-subject experimental design of 2(subjects: subthreshold depression,normal)×3(group: simple viewing,cognitive reappraisal,and expression suppression)was used to explore the effectiveness of conscious cognitive reappraisal and expression suppression on positive and negative emotion regulation in college students with subthreshold depression.Study 3: By reference to the implicit association test paradigm,the two-factor mixed experimental design of 2(subjects: subthreshold depression,normal)× 2(task type: compatible,incompatible)was used to explore the implicit tendency of emotion regulation strategies in subthreshold depression and normal college students.Study 4: The two-factor between-subject experiment design 2(subjects: subthreshold depression,normal)× 3(group: simple viewing,cognitive reappraisal,and expression suppression)was used to explore the effectiveness of unconscious cognitive reappraisal and expression suppression on positive and negative emotion regulation in college students with subthreshold depression.The study found:(1)In the tendency of explicit emotion regulation strategies,there is a significant difference in emotion regulation tendency between subthreshold depression and normal individuals.Indicating that subthreshold depression individuals are more likely to use expression suppression and less cognitive reappraisal,while normal individuals are more likely to use cognitive reappraisal and less expression suppression.(2)In explicit emotion regulation,the use of cognitive reappraisal and expression suppression by subthreshold depressed individuals to regulate positive and negative emotions is as effective as normal individuals.Cognitive reappraisal can reduce the subjective experience of positive and negative emotion,and physiological arousal level;the expression suppression can reduce the subjective experience of positive and negative emotions to a certain extent,but it can’t reduce the physiological arousal level.(3)In the tendency of implicit emotion regulation strategies,the D value of subthreshold depression subjects was significantly greater than that of normal subjects,indicating that individuals with subthreshold depression tend to expression suppression,and normal individuals tend to cognitive reappraisal.(4)In implicit emotion regulation,for subthreshold depression individuals,cognitive reappraisal and expression suppression can’t reduce their subjective experience of negative emotion,but can reduce their physiological arousal level;cognitive reappraisal and expression suppression can reduce their subjective experience and physiological arousal of positive emotion.For normal individuals,cognitive reappraisal and expression suppression can reduce their subjective experience and physiological arousal level of negative emotions;cognitive reappraisal and expression suppression can reduce their subjective experience of positive emotions,but can’t reduce their physiological arousal level.