Affect labeling: the role of timing and intensity
Levy-Gigi and Shamay-Tsoory tested two conditions that ought to matter for naming feelings: when you do it, and how strong the feeling is. In the first experiment, participants labelled their reaction to distressing images either while viewing, immediately afterwards or ten seconds later, and the reduction in distress was the same in all three. That is a direct challenge to the familiar advice to pause and count to ten before speaking, at least as far as this mechanism goes. The second experiment varied the intensity of the images instead, and produced the more useful result. Labelling reduced distress for strongly aversive images, and increased distress for mildly aversive ones. The practical reading is that naming a feeling helps when the feeling is large and can make things worse when it is small, which suggests putting words to minor irritations may amplify them. This vault cites it as the boundary condition on affect labelling.
Levy-Gigi and Shamay-Tsoory tested two conditions that ought to matter for naming feelings: when you do it, and how strong the feeling is. In the first experiment, participants labelled their reaction to distressing images either while viewing, immediately afterwards or ten seconds later, and the reduction in distress was the same in all three. That is a direct challenge to the familiar advice to pause and count to ten before speaking, at least as far as this mechanism goes. The second experiment varied the intensity of the images instead, and produced the more useful result. Labelling reduced distress for strongly aversive images, and increased distress for mildly aversive ones. The practical reading is that naming a feeling helps when the feeling is large and can make things worse when it is small, which suggests putting words to minor irritations may amplify them. This vault cites it as the boundary condition on affect labelling.
Written from the abstract, OpenAlex.
What our sources record
Reproduced as it was written when this source was checked, figures and all.
doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0279303. Two experiments, n = 63 and n = 79. Labelling reduced distress for high-intensity aversive material and increased distress for low-intensity material; timing of the label had little effect.
Where we use it
- Why Saying It Out Loud Makes It Feel Smaller, Why We Care
Reliability of this reference
The link below was matched against the publisher's record on title, first author and year, and all three agree.
The source
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0279303
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0279303