TY  - JOUR
PY  - 2018//
TI  - Turning off hot feelings: down-regulation of sexual desire using distraction and situation-focused reappraisal
JO  - Biological psychology
A1  - Shafir, Roni
A1  - Zucker, Leemor
A1  - Sheppes, Gal
SP  - 116
EP  - 124
VL  - 137
IS  - 
N2  - Despite the frequent need to down-regulate sexual desire, existing studies are scarce, and focus on strategies that involve disengagement from processing sexual stimuli. Accordingly, the present study compared the efficacy of down-regulating sexual desire via disengagement (attentional distraction) and engagement (situation-focused reappraisal) strategies. Utilizing Event Related Potentials, we measured the Late Positive Potential (LPP) - an electro-cortical component that denotes processing of arousing stimuli, showing decreased amplitudes during successful down-regulation. Additionally, we explored whether the sexual-intensity level of stimuli (validated in a pilot study) impacts the efficacy of, and individuals' behavioral preferences for distraction and situation-focused reappraisal. Supporting our predictions, relative to passive watching, both strategies successfully attenuated self-reported desire and LPP amplitudes, with a marginal trend (p = .07) showing stronger LPP attenuation during distraction compared to reappraisal. While sexual-intensity did not moderate regulatory efficacy, as predicted, disengagement-distraction preference increased for sexually-intense relative to sexually-mild stimuli. Broad implications are discussed.<br><br>Copyright © 2018. Published by Elsevier B.V.<p />  <p>Language: en</p>
LA  - en
SN  - 0301-0511
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsycho.2018.07.007
ID  - ref1
ER  -