Emotion regulation after childhood maltreatment: Suppression tendency and reappraisal capacity

Background: Childhood maltreatment is associated with a higher risk for developing psychologicaldisorders, such as depression or anxiety. Dysfunctional emotion regulation (ER) has beenimplicated as a neurocognitive mechanism linking adverse childhood experiences to an increasedrisk for psychopathological outcomes.Objective: This pre-registered study investigated the relation between childhood maltreatment anddifferent aspects of ER, including implementation capacity and effort as well as tendency andflexibility in strategy selection.Methods: In a non-clinical adult sample (N = 227), childhood maltreatment was assessed with theChildhood Trauma Questionnaire. In two experimental ER tasks, participants viewed pictures ofvarying emotional intensity while applying one of three ER strategies (distraction, reappraisal,suppression) or without any active regulation. The ER implementation task allowed to assessemotion reactivity, implementation capacity, and subjective effort for ER. The ER selection taskallowed to assess tendency and flexibility in strategy selection.Results: Childhood maltreatment was associated with a lower capacity to implement reappraisal(r = -0.12), and a stronger tendency to choose suppression (r = 0.15). Contrary to our hy-potheses, there was no significant association to experimentally assessed emotion reactivity,subjective effort exerted on ER, or ER flexibility.Conclusions: We show that people with childhood maltreatment experiences do not only choosesuppression more frequently but seem to have a lower capacity to implement reappraisal toreduce negative affect. This sheds light on potentially underlying mechanisms of difficulties in ERafter childhood maltreatment.