From the Texas A&M University media release:
If you’ve quit smoking, can resist that scrumptious donut or miss a party to study, you may be a champion of self-control. If so, then you may also be better at controlling negative emotions such as anger and anxiety, according to researchers at Texas A&M University.
“We chalk it up to emotion regulation,” says Brandon Schmeichel, a professor of psychology who specializes in “inhibitory ability,” a person’s capacity to override a response. His study with co-author David Tang, a graduate student in psychology, is called “Stopping Anger and Anxiety: Evidence That Inhibitory Ability Predicts Negative Emotional Responding” and was published in Cognition and Emotion.
“People who are good at self-control are regulating their emotions in resisting an impulse. They spontaneously apply that capacity to down-rate negative emotions,” Schmeichel explains.
The researchers tested subjects’ inhibitory abilities with the “stop-signal task,” a commonly used laboratory measure in which subjects are asked to respond as quickly as possible to a square or circle on a computer screen by pressing a button. On a minority of trials, a beep sounds shortly after the shape appears, cuing the subjects not to press the button. People who are better able to inhibit the button-pressing response are thought to have better inhibitory control. “The stop-signal task is a well-validated measure of inhibitory control, but few studies have investigated the relationship between stop-signal performance and emotional responding,” say the researchers.
Following the stop-signal task, some subjects were put into an emotional state by having to recall a time when they were anxious or angry, while others were asked to recall a neutral time.
The results showed those subjects with better inhibitory control reported emotional memories, but their current emotional state was less affected than those with less inhibitory control. In other words, poorer inhibitory control contributed to bigger increases in negative emotions after retrieving negative emotional memories.
“Regardless of whether they recalled an angry memory or an anxious memory, participants with poorer inhibitory control reported an increase in anxiety,” says Schmeichel. “For these participants, retrieving negative emotional memories was an anxiety-provoking experience.”
He adds that anger worked somewhat differently than anxiety. “Participants did not report experiencing much anger when they recalled an anxious memory,” he notes. “But when they recalled an angry memory, participants with poorer inhibitory control reported more anger than those with better inhibitory control.”
Schmeichel says the study may hold clues to how some people can manage anger and anxiety. “If you are the kind of person with poor inhibitory control, it may be best to avoid situations that may elicit anger or anxiety, because it may be more challenging for you to inhibit your emotions after they’ve started.”
He suggests relying on friends and family to keep you mindful of situations before they happen. “If you have poor control, it’s good to have a buddy that doesn’t,” he notes.
To sharpen self-control skills, Schmeichel recommends a “big-picture” approach. “It takes practice, but in a moment of temptation, focus on the big picture — you want to smoke that cigarette, but step back and remember your family and how much you mean to each other.”