Emotion Malleability Beliefs Influence the Spontaneous Regulation of Social Anxiety

The current study examined how manipulating individuals’ beliefs about emotion’s malleability influences the choices they make in how they spontaneously regulate their anxiety during a stressful social situation. Participants were randomly assigned to receive either an experimental manipulation that emotions are malleable or that emotions are fixed then completed an impromptu, brief speech task designed to elicit anxiety. We predicted that...