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Caffeine accentuates emotional responses, not emotion regulation choice
Author(s) -
Giles Grace E.,
Spring Alexander M.,
Urry Heather L.,
Moran Joseph M.,
Mahoney Caroline R.,
Kanarek Robin B.
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
the faseb journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.709
H-Index - 277
eISSN - 1530-6860
pISSN - 0892-6638
DOI - 10.1096/fasebj.30.1_supplement.898.3
Subject(s) - psychology , arousal , valence (chemistry) , caffeine , distraction , anxiety , affect (linguistics) , feeling , cognitive reappraisal , clinical psychology , developmental psychology , cognition , placebo , psychiatry , social psychology , medicine , cognitive psychology , physics , alternative medicine , communication , pathology , quantum mechanics
Caffeine is the most commonly used behaviorally‐active substance in the world. Caffeine reliably increases arousal, but it is unclear if and how it influences other dimensions of emotion such as positive versus negative feelings, termed affective valence. The present study documented whether caffeine influences emotion and emotion regulation. Participants included 48 adults (20 male, 28 female; 20.1±2.3 years; BMI 22.9±3.5), all of whom were low to abstinent caffeine consumers (maximum 100 mg/day, mean 26.8±25.6). Participants completed measures of emotion, including the State–Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) and the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS) before, 45‐minutes after, and 75 minutes after consuming 400 mg caffeine or placebo in a within‐subjects design. Participants also completed an emotion regulation choice task, in which they chose to employ one of two emotion regulation strategies, distraction or cognitive reappraisal, in response to low and high intensity negative pictures, and rated the pictures on perceived arousal and valence. State anxiety, negative affect, and salivary cortisol were heightened both 45 and 75 minutes after caffeine intake relative to placebo. Consistent with previous findings, participants chose reappraisal more often for low intensity pictures and distraction more often for high intensity pictures. Caffeine did not influence the frequency with participants chose reappraisal or distraction, but augmented negative picture ratings. Thus caffeine accentuates non‐habitual caffeine consumers’ emotional responses to negative situations, but not how they choose to regulate such responses. Support or Funding Information Research reported in this abstract was supported through a contract with the US Army Natick Soldier Research, Development, and Engineering Center (NSRDEC, Natick, Massachusetts, USA)