Monitoring the Mind: The Relationship Between Individual Differences in Cognitive Control and Emotion Regulation

Abstract

Cognitive control and emotion regulation are two separate mental processes that are each crucial in terms of internal goal-fulfillment. Past research has mapped these skills to overlapping areas of the brain, suggesting that individuals may likely exhibit system functionalities that are positively correlated. In order to address such a possibility, the current study quantitatively measured individual participants’ cognitive control abilities using EEG technology. It also assessed their ability to regulate emotion, using increases in cortisol and heart rate during a laboratory-induced stress manipulation and self-report questionnaires. Results showed no correlation between anxiety induced during the stress manipulation and measures of cognitive control. However, cortisol increase during the EEG task was negatively correlated with measures of cognitive control, indicating that participants who were less able to regulate stress in the EEG portion of the experiment were also less able to exert cognitive control during this task. Such findings may be taken as support for the idea that individual abilities to regulate cognition and emotion are related.