Motivational conflict influences the timing of emotions and their regulation

Our emotional responses to stressors do not occur in a vacuum; rather, they are dependent upon the context in which they take place. In recent years, there has been a growing interest in identifying such contextual influences on emotional processes. However, two important questions have yet to be answered. First, little is known about how motivational context (e.g., motivational conflict) can affect the timing of emotional experiences (i.e., affective chronometry). Second, the influence of motivational context on the utilization of emotion regulation strategies has been largely unexplored. We recruited 166 participants and assigned them to a motivational conflict condition (watch a disgust-eliciting film clips while anticipating a food tasting) or one of two no conflict conditions (watch a disgust-eliciting film while anticipating a food-unrelated task or watch a craving-inducing film clip while anticipating a food tasting). We found that motivational conflict moderated the time course of anxiety. These findings highlight the importance of examining motivational processes when seeking to understand how and when individuals experience and regulate their emotions.