Regulation in vicariously learned fear

Given that the adverse effects of observational learning anxiety are more pronounced in the era of self-media, exploring effective emotion regulation methods to intervene in observational learning anxiety is particularly important. Therefore, this study comprehensively employed behavioral and event-related potential (ERP) techniques to induce observational learning anxiety in participants using demonstrator videos. It systematically investigated the intervention effects of interpersonal emotion regulation based on cognitive reappraisal on observational learning anxiety, along with its behavioral and electrophysiological characteristics.Experimental data were collected using E-Prime. Experiment 1 recruited 90 adult participants, all of whom reported no history of psychiatric medication use or mental disorders, were right-handed, and possessed normal vision or corrected vision. Each group comprised 30 participants: the interpersonal regulation group (age 20.47 ± 1.54 years), the self-regulation group (age 20.73 ± 1.24 years), and the no-regulation group (age 20.60 ± 1.20 years). Experiment 2 recruited 48 young participants meeting criteria for physical and mental health without emotional disorders. EEG was recorded using Brain Products equipment. Ultimately, 44 participants yielded valid EEG data: 21 in the self-regulation group (age 20.18 ± 2.01 years) and 23 in the interpersonal regulation group (age 20.13 ± 2.23 years).