Effect of Arousal Suppression on Executive Functioning
Austin A. Gillespie, Laura G. Holmes, A. Renee Nilssen,& Donald S. Strassberg
Department of Psychology University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah
RESULTS
INTRODUCTION
Source
• Executive functioning has been defined as the cognitive process that
encompasses an individual's ability to organize thoughts and activities,
prioritize tasks, manage time efficiently, and make decisions.1
• Executive suppression has been defined as an emotion regulation strategy
characterized by effortful control of facial affect and other automatic
emotional response.2
• Research has shown that using self-control or self-regulatory resources
detrimentally affect one’s ability to utilize self-regulatory resources on
successive tasks.2
• Additionally, expressive suppression has been shown to lead to the
depletion of executive functioning resulting in a subsequent drop in
cognitive performance. 2
• We hypothesized that the effective suppression of arousal would have a
deleterious effect on executive functioning resulting in a subsequent drop
in cognitive performance when administering neuropsychological
assessments. This drop would be expressed through lower scaled scores
when comparing pre-suppression and post-suppression neuropsychological
scores.
Time
Sum of Squares
Df
Mean Square
F
Sig
Control
Linear
.019
1
.040
.109
.458
Age
Linear
.024
1
.008
.022
.882
Education
Linear
.189
1
.348
.940
.338
Experimental
Condition
Linear
1.870
1
1.870
5.058
.030
• A one-way between-subjects ANOVA was conducted to compare the
effect of arousal suppression on cognitive ability and performance for
the experimental and control conditions.
• There was a significant effect of arousal suppression on cognitive ability
and performance for the experimental and control conditions [F(1,1) =
5.85, p = .023].
• These results did not support our hypothesis. However, we found that
participants in the arousal suppression condition performed better on the
DKEFS than those who were in the free arousal condition. More
specifically, those participants who were thought to be exerting their
executive functioning performed better on tasks measuring executive
function after suppression than those who were instructed to watch
the stimuli without suppression.
CONCLUSIONS
• In this study, suppression of sexual arousal resulted in better
performance on successive cognitive measures. Although it will require
additional research to understand this phenomenon, it may be that left
frontal lobe activation associated with the active executive functioning
task of arousal suppression subsequently improved performance on the
DKEFS. While engaging in the act of arousal suppression, the
executive functioning processes may be activated in a way that did not
occur for the non-suppression (control) group.
• It is also possible that the control group experienced poorer cognitive
perforamnce due to blood being re-routed from other systems to the
penis.
• Further research is needed to determine why suppression of sexual
arousal functions differently than suppression of other emotions.
METHOD
Participants:
• 63 adult male participants were recruited using the University of Utah
recruiting software ranging in age from 18 – 42 years (M = 22.57 , SD =
4.57) and were randomly assigned to experimental and control groups
•15 participants were removed from the data due to inarousability and another
4 participants were removed for being outliers on cognitive testing
• Control and experimental groups did not differ in age or education
demographic characteristics
• Participants were screened and verified that they identified as heterosexual
or bisexual at the time of the study
REFERENCES
Measures:
Delis-Kaplan Executive Functioning System (DKEFS):3 Executive functioning
was assessed using the Delis-Kaplan Executive Function System (D-KEFS)
battery. An executive composite was created by computing the arithmetical
mean of 5 age-corrected scaled scores from the battery (Color-Word
Interference Inhibition, Color-Word Interference Switching, and three scores
from the Design Fluency Test). Scores were selected for inclusion in the
composite with the goal of maximizing the composites’ internal consistency
reliability. The tasks were administered twice, once before and once after the
experimental manipulation. Chronbach’s Alphas for the first and second
administration were .705 and .680, respectively.
• Penile Plethysmograph (PPG)
• The PPG was used to objectively measure arousal among participants in the presence of
sexually explicit material. Some participants were told to respond as they normally
would or to allow themselves to get an erection (control) while others were told to do
their best to suppress sexual arousal (experimental).
• Participants were shown an 8 minute sexually explicit video in two consecutive
viewings.
• During the first viewing, both conditions were advised to allow themselves to
respond normally or allow themselves to have an erection while viewing the video
• For the second viewing, participants in the experimental condition were asked to do
whatever it took to suppress their sexual arousal (aside from touching themselves)
while still paying full attention to the explicit video. Control participants were again
advised to allow themselves to respond normally.
Executive function. (2015). In The Editors of the American Heritage
Dictionaries (Ed.), The American Heritage Dictionary of Medicine.
Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin. Retrieved from
https://login.ezproxy.lib.utah.edu/login?url=http://search.credoreference.c
om/content/entry/hmmedicaldict/executive_function/0
2 Franchow, E. I., & Suchy, Y. (2015). Naturally-occurring expressive
suppression in daily life depletes executive functioning. Emotion, 15(1),
78-89. http://dx.doi.org.ezproxy.lib.utah.edu/10.1037/emo0000013
3 Delis, D. C., Kramer, J. H., Kaplan, E., & Holdnack, J. (2004). Reliability
and validity of the Delis-Kaplan Executive Function System: An update.
Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society, 10, 301–303.
doi:10.1017/S1355617704102191
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