Changing decisions by changing emotions: behavioral and physiological evidence of two emotion regulation strategies

Previous studies explored the possibility to use cognitive strategies to bias economic decisions by altering their emotional impact. One emerging question but yet unsolved, is whether different cognitive strategies impact our decisions in the same or different ways. Another intriguing question is whether these strategies alter our decisions by altering the valence or by affecting the arousal of the emotion associated with the economic exchange. In the present study, we compared the effect of two emotion regulation strategies, namely, reappraisal and distancing, and showed that reappraisal is able to increase the valence of the emotions associated with monetary divisions in the Dictator Game (Experiment 1), and to reduce rejection rates in the Ultimatum Game (Experiment 2). Whereas distancing decreases the arousal of emotions (Experiment 1), but surprisingly increases rejection rates (Experiment 2). Moreover, in the present study we explored the cognitive effort associated with the usage of regulatory strategies during decision-making, using the galvanic skin response as index, and found an increase in physiological arousal for both strategies. These results extend our understanding of how to bias individuals’ decisions in a desired direction by using different strategies that alter one aspect or the other of the emotional reaction.