Effects of the simultaneous use of acceptance and cognitive reappraisal on anger, positive and negative affect after experimental anger elicitation

After participants (N = 99; Xage = 25.41 years; SD = 8.81 years) recalled a recent anger unsolved event, they were instructed to either (1) reappraise the event, (2) accept the emotions elicited by the event, (3) accept the emotions and reappraise the event; (4) reappraise the event and accept their elicited emotions, or (5) to deal with their emotions as usual (control group). The results show that all emotion regulation instructions lead to a lower level of post-instructions anger intensity and negative affect. In terms of positive affect, only the instruction of simultaneous use of acceptance and reappraisal leads to a higher level of post-instructions positive emotions. The results showed no significant differences between cognitive reappraisal, acceptance, simultaneous use of acceptance and cognitive reappraisal, simultaneous use of reappraisal and acceptance, and control group on post-instructions anger level, post-instruction positive affect, post-instruction negative affect.