Positive resonance: Successful interpersonal emotion regulation facilitated relationship closeness by enhanced inter-brain synchronization
Interpersonal emotion regulation (IER) refers to the dynamic process where a regulator employs specific strategies to alleviate a target's distress. It remains unclear whether successful IER could facilitate interpersonal relationship closeness (IRC). The present study aimed to explore whether...
Saved in:
| Main Authors: | , , , , |
|---|---|
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Elsevier
2025-02-01
|
| Series: | NeuroImage |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1053811925000448 |
| Tags: |
Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
|
| _version_ | 1832087872670269440 |
|---|---|
| author | Tongtong Zhu Xiaoxuan Zhang Luyao Jin Linzi Wang Yanmei Wang |
| author_facet | Tongtong Zhu Xiaoxuan Zhang Luyao Jin Linzi Wang Yanmei Wang |
| author_sort | Tongtong Zhu |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Interpersonal emotion regulation (IER) refers to the dynamic process where a regulator employs specific strategies to alleviate a target's distress. It remains unclear whether successful IER could facilitate interpersonal relationship closeness (IRC). The present study aimed to explore whether successful IER, based on two typical strategies—cognitive reappraisal (CR) and expressive suppression (ES)—for down-regulating the target's negative emotions, could enhance IRC among friend dyads, and to identify the underlying neural correlates of this process using functional near-infrared spectroscopy system. Seventy-four female dyads (friends) were randomly assigned to one of two strategy groups (CR vs. ES), with one participant as the target and the other as the regulator. Our findings revealed that both strategies have down-regulated the target's negative emotions, however, CR strategy was associated with more successful IER outcomes (more improvement of the targets’ negative emotions; higher IRC) than ES strategy. IER recruited the enhanced interpersonal brain synchronization (IBS) of the prefrontal and temporal areas among friend dyads. CR strategy recruited higher IBS of the above-mentioned brain networks than ES strategy in down-regulating the target's sadness, and the reversed IBS pattern was found in down-regulating the target's anger, inferring that CR was more successive in IER of sadness, and ES was more effective in IER of anger. The increased IBS pattern of these brain regions played a mediational role between the effectiveness of down-regulating targets’ negative emotions and the increment of IRC. Our findings revealed a neural coupling mechanism through which successful IER fostered supportive social bonds. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-f21f7339c2514210bf253803b0dd45b8 |
| institution | Kabale University |
| issn | 1095-9572 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2025-02-01 |
| publisher | Elsevier |
| record_format | Article |
| series | NeuroImage |
| spelling | doaj-art-f21f7339c2514210bf253803b0dd45b82025-02-06T05:11:09ZengElsevierNeuroImage1095-95722025-02-01307121042Positive resonance: Successful interpersonal emotion regulation facilitated relationship closeness by enhanced inter-brain synchronizationTongtong Zhu0Xiaoxuan Zhang1Luyao Jin2Linzi Wang3Yanmei Wang4Shanghai Key Laboratory of Mental Health and Psychological Crisis Intervention, School of Psychology and Cognitive Science, East China Normal University, Shanghai, 200062, ChinaShanghai Key Laboratory of Mental Health and Psychological Crisis Intervention, School of Psychology and Cognitive Science, East China Normal University, Shanghai, 200062, ChinaShanghai Key Laboratory of Mental Health and Psychological Crisis Intervention, School of Psychology and Cognitive Science, East China Normal University, Shanghai, 200062, ChinaShanghai Key Laboratory of Mental Health and Psychological Crisis Intervention, School of Psychology and Cognitive Science, East China Normal University, Shanghai, 200062, ChinaShanghai Key Laboratory of Mental Health and Psychological Crisis Intervention, School of Psychology and Cognitive Science, East China Normal University, Shanghai, 200062, China; Shanghai Changning Mental Health Center, Shanghai, 200335, China; Key Laboratory of Philosophy and Social Science of Anhui Province on Adolescent Mental Health and Crisis Intelligence Intervention, Hefei Normal University, Hefei, China; Corresponding author at: Shanghai Key Laboratory of Mental Health and Psychological Crisis Intervention, School of Psychology and Cognitive Science, East China Normal University, No. 3663, North Zhong Shan Road, Shanghai, 200062, China.Interpersonal emotion regulation (IER) refers to the dynamic process where a regulator employs specific strategies to alleviate a target's distress. It remains unclear whether successful IER could facilitate interpersonal relationship closeness (IRC). The present study aimed to explore whether successful IER, based on two typical strategies—cognitive reappraisal (CR) and expressive suppression (ES)—for down-regulating the target's negative emotions, could enhance IRC among friend dyads, and to identify the underlying neural correlates of this process using functional near-infrared spectroscopy system. Seventy-four female dyads (friends) were randomly assigned to one of two strategy groups (CR vs. ES), with one participant as the target and the other as the regulator. Our findings revealed that both strategies have down-regulated the target's negative emotions, however, CR strategy was associated with more successful IER outcomes (more improvement of the targets’ negative emotions; higher IRC) than ES strategy. IER recruited the enhanced interpersonal brain synchronization (IBS) of the prefrontal and temporal areas among friend dyads. CR strategy recruited higher IBS of the above-mentioned brain networks than ES strategy in down-regulating the target's sadness, and the reversed IBS pattern was found in down-regulating the target's anger, inferring that CR was more successive in IER of sadness, and ES was more effective in IER of anger. The increased IBS pattern of these brain regions played a mediational role between the effectiveness of down-regulating targets’ negative emotions and the increment of IRC. Our findings revealed a neural coupling mechanism through which successful IER fostered supportive social bonds.http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1053811925000448Interpersonal emotion regulationCognitive reappraisalExpressive suppressionInterpersonal relationship closenessInterpersonal brain synchronization |
| spellingShingle | Tongtong Zhu Xiaoxuan Zhang Luyao Jin Linzi Wang Yanmei Wang Positive resonance: Successful interpersonal emotion regulation facilitated relationship closeness by enhanced inter-brain synchronization NeuroImage Interpersonal emotion regulation Cognitive reappraisal Expressive suppression Interpersonal relationship closeness Interpersonal brain synchronization |
| title | Positive resonance: Successful interpersonal emotion regulation facilitated relationship closeness by enhanced inter-brain synchronization |
| title_full | Positive resonance: Successful interpersonal emotion regulation facilitated relationship closeness by enhanced inter-brain synchronization |
| title_fullStr | Positive resonance: Successful interpersonal emotion regulation facilitated relationship closeness by enhanced inter-brain synchronization |
| title_full_unstemmed | Positive resonance: Successful interpersonal emotion regulation facilitated relationship closeness by enhanced inter-brain synchronization |
| title_short | Positive resonance: Successful interpersonal emotion regulation facilitated relationship closeness by enhanced inter-brain synchronization |
| title_sort | positive resonance successful interpersonal emotion regulation facilitated relationship closeness by enhanced inter brain synchronization |
| topic | Interpersonal emotion regulation Cognitive reappraisal Expressive suppression Interpersonal relationship closeness Interpersonal brain synchronization |
| url | http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1053811925000448 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT tongtongzhu positiveresonancesuccessfulinterpersonalemotionregulationfacilitatedrelationshipclosenessbyenhancedinterbrainsynchronization AT xiaoxuanzhang positiveresonancesuccessfulinterpersonalemotionregulationfacilitatedrelationshipclosenessbyenhancedinterbrainsynchronization AT luyaojin positiveresonancesuccessfulinterpersonalemotionregulationfacilitatedrelationshipclosenessbyenhancedinterbrainsynchronization AT linziwang positiveresonancesuccessfulinterpersonalemotionregulationfacilitatedrelationshipclosenessbyenhancedinterbrainsynchronization AT yanmeiwang positiveresonancesuccessfulinterpersonalemotionregulationfacilitatedrelationshipclosenessbyenhancedinterbrainsynchronization |