Cognitive Reappraisal is More Effective for Regulating Emotions than Moods

The study investigates whether cognitive reappraisal, an emotion regulation strategy that changes the meaning assigned to an affective event, is differentially effective for regulating emotions versus moods. Emotions are widely characterized as intentional states—about something specific—whereas moods are more diffuse and typically lack intentionality. Because reappraisal directly targets what an affective state is about, the authors hypothesized it would be more effective for emotions (high intentionality) than for moods (low intentionality). This question is important for understanding affect regulation in daily life and clinical contexts, where mood regulation is frequent and central (e.g., in mood disorders). The research tests this hypothesis across naturally occurring affective experiences in daily life (Study 1) and with experimentally induced affective states and manipulated regulation strategies (Study 2), comparing reappraisal to distraction, a strategy that does not target intentionality.

Prior work shows cognitive reappraisal effectively reduces negative emotional responses in laboratory and daily-life settings by altering appraisals (Gross, 1998a, 1998b; Webb et al., 2012; Boemo et al., 2022; Uusberg et al., 2023). Emotions and moods share valence and arousal dimensions but differ conceptually in duration, intensity, and most consistently in intentionality (Frijda, 1994; Russell, 2003; Siemer, 2009; Watson, 2000). Theoretical accounts propose that reappraisal should be less effective for moods because moods lack a clear object (Manstead & Fischer, 2000; Rottenberg & Gross, 2007). Mood regulation research has sometimes treated reappraisal (positive reframing) as effective (Larsen, 2000; Thayer et al., 1994; Parkinson & Totterdell, 1999), yet empirical tests directly comparing its efficacy for emotions versus moods have been lacking. The authors build on recent distinctions between emotion and mood regulation (Meyers & Tamir, 2024) and address gaps by isolating intentionality while controlling for intensity and source of affect, and by contrasting reappraisal with distraction.

Study 1 (EMA, naturalistic): Participants and design: 184 university students (Mage=24.28, SD=2.37; 81.52% female; 54.89% employed; 86.41% single; 51.09% current MDD). EMA over 10 days using the SEMA3 app, six smartphone prompts/day (10:00–22:00) with stratified random intervals; at least 30 minutes between prompts; 30-minute response window. Compensation up to 50.5 USD or 19 credits. Data: 8,275 surveys collected; 66 excluded (attention check failures, zero variance, <1-min submissions), leaving 8,206 (compliance M=74.33%, SD=23.14%). Measures (1–9 scale): experienced sadness (“In the last two hours, to what extent did you feel sadness?”); affect type (emotion vs mood): yes/no to “felt sad about something in particular” (yes=emotion; no=mood); regulation strategies: reappraisal (“I changed the way I thought about things, so they became less negative”) and distraction (“I tried to distract myself from what was making me feel bad and think about something else”). Analytic approach: Multilevel modeling in R (lmerTest), confidence intervals via sjPlot; semi-partial R² via r2glmm; simple effects via reghelper. Level-1 predictors person-mean centered; random slopes for continuous Level-1 predictors. Autoregressive models predicting sadness at time t from reappraisal at t−1, affect type at t−1, war onset (binary: pre- vs post-October 7), their interactions, and sadness at t−1; depressive status included as a covariate. Due to within-day lagging, 5,631 observations used for prospective analyses (missing sadness at t−1 excluded). Tests of alternative explanations included models with distraction and models controlling for intensity. Study 2 (Experiment, causal): Design: 2 (affect type: emotion vs mood) × 2 (strategy: reappraisal vs distraction) within-subjects. Participants: 65 undergraduates (Mage=24.38, SD=2.91; 83.07% female; 49.23% single), recruited from university; exclusions based on attention checks (4 items) and manipulation checks (7 items): 7 failed attention checks; 16 failed most manipulation checks; final N=65. Compensation: 3 credits or 8 USD. Materials and measures: 16 sad clips (8 lyrical, 8 instrumental) selected via pilot (N=60) to match sadness, valence, arousal, and unfamiliarity; plus 2 happy clips to reduce habituation. Lyrical clips (native language) and instrumental clips (classical + two songs with lyrics removed). Baseline current feelings: sadness (sad, gloomy, downhearted; α=0.90) plus filler happiness items. After each clip: sadness/gloom (αpre=0.96; αreg=0.97), valence (1 very negative–9 very positive), arousal (1 low–9 high), filler happiness items, and intentionality (yes/no: sad about something in particular) as manipulation check. Strategy training: reappraisal (reinterpret meaning while focusing on the clip; e.g., “this will be resolved soon”) and distraction (shift attention away; e.g., daily activities, streets, shapes); practiced on emotional, non-musical stimuli. Training duration M=3.53 min (SD=1.32). Regulation phase: listen to 18 clips again in random order; before each clip, instructed to use reappraisal or distraction (randomized); post-clip ratings as above; difficulty of implementation; open-ended manipulation check on 7 clips (“What did you say to yourself…”); passing criterion: correctly described instructed strategy ≥4/7. Analytic approach: Mixed-effects models with random intercepts for participant and stimuli; by-subject random slope for strategy. Intentionality manipulation checked via logistic regression (random-effects model did not converge). Regulation success operationalized as difference scores: post-regulation minus pre-regulation for the same clip (more negative for sadness indicates greater decrease; larger positive for valence indicates greater increase).

Study 1 (EMA): A three-way interaction between reappraisal intensity, affect type, and war onset predicted subsequent sadness, B=0.03, SE=0.01, p=.028, 95% CI [0.00, 0.06]. Before the war, greater reappraisal was prospectively associated with larger decreases in sadness when sadness was an emotion (B=−0.10, SE=0.04, p=.003, 95% CI [−0.18, −0.03]), but not when sadness was a mood (B=0.00, SE=0.03, p=.897, 95% CI [−0.05, 0.05]). After war onset, reappraisal was not associated with changes in sadness for emotion (B=0.01, SE=0.03, p=.817, 95% CI [−0.06, 0.07]) or mood (B=−0.01, SE=0.03, p=.586, 95% CI [−0.07, 0.03]). Distraction did not show a significant interaction with affect type and war onset (B=−0.00, SE=0.01, p=.907, 95% CI [−0.02, 0.02]). Differences in intensity did not account for the effect (three-way interaction with intensity: B=0.01, SE=0.01, p=.111). Study 2 (Experiment): Intentionality manipulation successful—participants reported feeling sad about something in particular more often with lyrical vs instrumental clips (28.3% vs 19.8%), OR=1.59, SE=0.13, p<.001, 95% CI [1.36, 1.87]; sadness intensity did not differ between clip types (B=0.24, SE=0.14, p=.085). Main test: significant Strategy × Affect Type interaction predicting change in sadness, B=−0.10, SE=0.05, p=.032, 95% CI [−0.20, −0.01]. Reappraisal produced larger reductions in sadness for emotions than moods (emotion M=−1.71, SE=0.17; mood M=−1.27, SE=0.17), t(36)=−2.40, p=.022, d=0.29. Distraction produced similar reductions across affect types (emotion M=−1.49, SE=0.17; mood M=−1.47, SE=0.17), t(33)=0.15, p=.885. There were no significant differences between reappraisal and distraction within emotion, t(183)=−1.42, p=.159, or mood, t(177)=1.29, p=.200. For valence, Strategy × Affect Type interaction was significant, B=0.16, SE=0.05, p=.001, 95% CI [0.07, 0.25]; reappraisal increased valence more for emotions than moods (emotion M=0.75, SE=0.13; mood M=0.19, SE=0.13), t(62)=4.00, p<.001, d=0.39; distraction showed no difference, t(55)=0.59, p=.559. Arousal showed no significant effects.

Across daily-life and experimental contexts, cognitive reappraisal was more effective when regulating emotions than moods, consistent with the idea that reappraisal targets intentionality—what an affective state is about—present in emotions but typically absent in moods. In Study 1, before a major external stressor (war onset), reappraisal prospectively reduced sad emotion but not sad mood; distraction effects did not depend on affect type. In Study 2, with matched intensity and source but manipulated intentionality, reappraisal more successfully decreased sadness and increased valence for emotion-inducing (lyrical) stimuli than mood-inducing (instrumental) stimuli; distraction did not show affect-type specificity. These results address the central hypothesis and suggest that emotion and mood regulation may involve distinct processes, with strategy efficacy depending on affect type and its intentionality. The findings have implications for optimizing regulation strategies in everyday life and for clinical interventions—using reappraisal when affect has a clear object may yield better outcomes, while other strategies might be preferable for mood regulation.

The paper provides empirical evidence that cognitive reappraisal, which targets the meaning and object of affective experience, is more effective for regulating emotions than moods. This distinction clarifies when reappraisal is likely to work best and supports the broader claim that emotion regulation and mood regulation differ in meaningful ways. Future work should test stronger manipulations of intentionality, examine physiological indicators of regulatory success, address arousal effects with larger samples, and evaluate generalizability across diverse populations and clinical groups to identify strategies optimized for mood regulation.

Limitations include reliance on self-report measures; relatively low intentionality ratings in Study 2 despite successful manipulation; no observed effects on arousal, potentially due to limited power; predominantly young adult samples with Study 2 limited to healthy participants; and contextual influence of war onset in Study 1, after which reappraisal effects on sadness diminished for both emotions and moods. Generalizability to broader and clinical populations requires further investigation.