As the saying goes, “Into each life, a little rain must
fall.” That is, you can’t go through
life without having anything negative happening.
Let’s take this literally for a second. Presumably, if you had outdoor plans, then a
real rainstorm is a negative event. Of
course, you have a choice when faced with rain about how to keep it from making
you feel too bad. In general, there are two
ways to deal with a negative event like rain.
One possibility is to rethink the event to find the silver
lining. This kind of reappraisal turns what seems to be a
negative into a positive (or at least something less negative). In the case of a storm, you could focus on
the benefits that the rain will bring to plants, flowers, and the environment.
A second possibility is to disengage from the situation. By focusing your attention elsewhere,
you dull the negative impact of the event on yourself. If the rainstorm disrupted an important life
event, then you might have difficulty seeing the positive. In that case, you might just try to ignore
the negative event.
The way I have set up this discussion suggests that people
use both strategies, but they engage them in different situations. When an event is a little negative, then you
may be more likely to reappraise the situation than to disengage from it. When it is highly negative, though, you may
be more likely to disengage than to reappraise.
A paper in the November, 2011 issue of Psychological Science by Gal Sheppes, Susanne Scheibe, Gaurav Suri,
and James Gross explored this question.
In one study, participants were taught labels for both strategies while
viewing a set of 8 pictures depicting negative events. On half they were told to reappraise the
pictures by finding another way to interpret what is happening while on half
they were told to disengage by focusing on something else rather than event
shown in the picture. Participants were
able to use these strategies easily, suggesting that they were already familiar
with these modes of thinking about negative events.
After that, participants saw an additional set of 30
pictures showing negative scenes. Some
were only slightly negative, like a woman looking sad. Others were highly negative, like a
frightened woman bleeding from the face.
After seeing the picture briefly, participants had to decide whether
they were going to reappraise the picture or disengage from it by pressing a
button. Then, they viewed the picture
for another 5 seconds. (In one study,
participants talked about what they were thinking to ensure that they were
really following the strategy they selected.)
The data came out as expected. When faced with a minor negative event,
people preferred to reappraise the situation than to disengage from it. When faced with a major negative event,
people preferred to disengage from the situation than to reappraise it.
Although this choice of strategy may help to protect a
person from negative mood, it does have a consequence. Participants were shown the pictures
afterward in a memory test. People were
much better able to remember the pictures when they reappraised them than when
they disengaged from them. So, if you
are in a situation in which you need to remember a negative event and to learn
from it, then you may need to focus on it rather than disengaging.