Jacquelyn N. Raftery, George Y. Bizer

Whereas prior research has shown that individual differences in emotion  regulation have important implications for relationships, affect and well-being,  we investigated whether such individual differences also impact how people  respond to negative feedback. Participants completed an ambiguous test on which  they would be unable to gauge their performance. Some participants were told  that they performed poorly, while others were told that they performed slightly  above average. Participants then completed a second test that ostensibly  measured a similar construct. Finally, after taking part in an unrelated task,  participants completed the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (Gross & John,  2003) to assess reappraisal (thinking about a situation to change its emotional  impact) and suppression (inhibiting emotion-expressive behavior). Among  reappraisers, those who received negative feedback completed the second test  more quickly and performed better than did such people who received moderate  feedback. No such effects were found among suppressors. These findings suggest  that individual differences in reappraisal and suppression are meaningful in  terms of how negative feedback affects subsequent cognitive performance.