| Description |
Affect suppression (AS) is an emotion regulation strategy that is known to be associated with temporary depletion of executive functioning. The purpose of this study was to examine the ramification of this effect on clinical neuropsychological evaluations, as well as whether this effect generalizes to working memory and processing speed. Fifty-six adults (mean age 22.89) completed the Burden of State Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (measuring AS burden generally vs. on the day of testing), subtests from the Delis-Kaplan Executive Function System, and the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale III Working Memory and Processing Speed subtests. Individuals with high AS burden on the day of testing exhibited poorer executive performance, but only when their general AS burden was low. The magnitude of this effect was clinically significant (i.e., 2/3 of SD). This effect held even after accounting of demographics, depression levels, processing speed, and working memory. AS did not account for variance in working memory or processing speed performances above and beyond executive functioning. These results suggest that AS burden on the day of testing has deleterious effects on executive functioning and represents a clinically meaningful bias in clinical evaluation. |
