Compassion-based mood regulation after retrieving negative autobiographical memories

We present two studies looking at the effect of mood-repair strategies following a negative mood induction via the recall of personal negative events. With this proposal, we intend to create a controlled protocol to help individuals effectively manage the emotions that arise from retrieving negative autobiographical memories. In Study 1, conducted in a population of undergraduate university students, the experimental task consists of the recall of an autobiographical negative event, used to elicit negative mood, followed by one of three mood-repair conditions: self-compassion instructions, positive reappraisal (benefit-finding), and a control condition with no regulation strategy. Individuals will be asked to remember a specific event in their lives in which something went wrong, they had some responsibility for what happened, and the emotions associated with the event were negative ones (e.g., shame, guilt, sadness...). Immediately afterwards, participants will be randomised to one of the 3 mood-repair conditions: self-compassion, benefit-focused reappraisal, or the control condition. Self-report measures will be collected before the negative mood induction (T1), following the recall task (T2), and after the mood repair strategies (T3). In Study 2, the population will comprise participants from mindfulness meditation-based courses: Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction (MBSR) and Compassion Cultivation Training (CCT). In this second study, the task will consist of exactly the same negative mood induction procedure as Study 1 but, given the nature of these programs, the mood regulation conditions will only include compassion and control.