Mindfulness and Suppression as Emotion Regulation Strategies

This study examines what effect mindfulness has on anxiety and memory levels in comparison to a suppression and control group. Participants underwent natural, suppression, and mindful conditions while being shown a series of positive and negative images and rating how happy/unhappy (valence) they felt and how excited/calm (arousal). After answering a series of questionnaires, participants were tested on their recall levels. The results revealed that arousal and valence ratings of the pictures were not significantly different across conditions, and neither was the recall of the participants. The results of this experiment do not align with previous research and may be due to a few limitations within the study. Therefore, more studies will need to be conducted and further research will need to be completed.