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Reappraisal inventiveness: The ability to

create different reappraisals of critical
situations
a a b
Hannelore Weber , Vera Loureiro de Assunção , Christina Martin , Hans
b a
Westmeyer & Fay C. Geisler
a
Department of Psychology, University of Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany
b
Department of Education and Psychology, Free University of Berlin,
Berlin, Germany
Published online: 17 Sep 2013.

To cite this article: Hannelore Weber, Vera Loureiro de Assunção, Christina Martin, Hans Westmeyer & Fay C.
Geisler , Cognition & Emotion (2013): Reappraisal inventiveness: The ability to create different reappraisals
of critical situations, Cognition & Emotion, DOI: 10.1080/02699931.2013.832152

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 COGNITION AND EMOTION, 2013
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02699931.2013.832152

Reappraisal inventiveness: The ability to create different

reappraisals of critical situations

Hannelore Weber1, Vera Loureiro de Assunção1, Christina Martin2,

Hans Westmeyer2, and Fay C. Geisler1
1
Department of Psychology, University of Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany
2
Department of Education and Psychology, Free University of Berlin, Berlin, Germany

In this article, we propose a new ability approach to reappraisal that focuses on individual differences
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in the ability to spontaneously generate different reappraisals for critical situations. Adopting
concepts from the realms of creativity and divergent thinking, we developed the Reappraisal
Inventiveness Test (RIT) to measure a person’s fluency and flexibility in inventing as many
categorically different reappraisals for an anger-eliciting situation as possible within a limited period
of time. The results of two studies in which we examined the psychometric characteristics of the RIT
provided evidence that the RIT produces reliable test scores. The construct validity of the RIT was
confirmed by positive associations of reappraisal inventiveness with openness to experience and tests
that measure divergent thinking. Moreover, RIT performance proved to be unrelated to the self-
reported habitual use of reappraisal, indicating differences between ability tests and self-report
measures. RIT performance was not significantly related to Neuroticism or to trait anger. In our
view, this points to the notion that effective emotion regulation is a function of both the ability and
the motivation to act upon one’s ability to generate reappraisals for critical situations.

Keywords: Anger; Anger regulation; Emotion regulation; Reappraisal.

In recent years, cognitive reappraisal has become emotion generation to attenuate the emotional
one of the most attended-to strategies of emotion impact of a stimulus or a situation. Empirical
regulation. In the process model of emotion findings attest to the presumed effectiveness of
regulation by Gross (1998; Gross & Thompson, reappraisal at both the trait and state level.
2007), reappraisal is part of the cognitive-change Compared to suppression, for example, the habi-
family of strategies that include changing the way tual tendency to use reappraisal was associated
that one thinks about a critical situation in order with higher psychosocial well-being and adaptive
to alter its emotional impact. According to this responding (Garnefski & Kraaij, 2006; Gross &
model, reappraisal is an antecedent-focused strat- John, 2003; Mauss, Cook, Cheng, & Gross,
egy that is expected to work early in the process of 2007). At the state level, both the spontaneous

Correspondence should be addressed to: Hannelore Weber, Department of Psychology, University of Greifswald, Franz-
Mehring-Str. 47, D-17487 Greifswald, Germany. E-mail: weber@uni-greifswald.de
We wish to thank Katrin Adler, Henriette Lembcke, and Robert Palitschka for their help in collecting and analysing the data.

# 2013 Taylor & Francis 1

 WEBER ET AL.

(Egloff, Schmukle, Burns, & Schwerdtfeger, and that reappraisals can take different forms.
2006) and the instructed use of reappraisal proved Recently, for example, McRae, Ciesielski, and
to be effective in ameliorating negative affect (e.g., Gross (2012) reported a notable variety of tactics
Gross, 1998; Urry, 2009). that participants employed spontaneously in re-
Individual differences in the use of reappraisal appraising negative pictures. Also, the different
are typically conceptualised in terms of the per- kinds of reappraisals that have been induced
ceived frequency (trait level) or intensity (state experimentally in laboratory studies (e.g., instruct-
level) of adopting this strategy and are conse- ing participants to reinterpret contextual aspects of
quently measured via self-report (Egloff et al., stimuli or to distance themselves from emotion-
2006; Garnefski & Kraaij, 2006; Gross & John, evoking pictures by adopting a detached observer
2003). Recently, however, the self-reported use of perspective) speak clearly to the existence of
reappraisal has been contrasted with an ability alternatives for reappraising critical situations
concept of reappraisal that focuses on the effective- (Ochsner & Gross, 2008; Ochsner et al., 2004).
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ness of reappraisal and circumvents the biases in- In our view, the ability to invent different
herent in self-reports. Troy, Wilhelm, Shallcross, reappraisals can be understood as a ‘‘construction
and Mauss (2010) argued that the self-reported competence’’ that Mischel (1973, 1990) has con-
use of reappraisal may be independent of the ceptualised as a rather stable and enduring
ability to use this strategy effectively. In their individual difference in a person’s active, con-
study, the ability to use reappraisal effectively structive manner of retrieving and transforming
when instructed to do so while watching a sad information. Construction competencies refer to
film clip was indexed by two measures: the down- people’s potential for flexibility and the range and
regulation of sadness and changes in sympathetic quality of cognitive constructions of which they
activation. Confirming the assumption that ability are capable rather than what they typically do.
and frequency are distinct concepts, reappraisal Consequently, an ability approach to reappraisal
ability appeared to be unrelated (Troy et al., 2010) that reflects a person’s construction competence
or only weakly related (McRae, Jacobs, Ray, John, should focus on the person’s potential for flex-
& Gross, 2012) to the self-reported use of re- ibility and thus on the person’s inventiveness in
appraisal. Most notably, in the Troy et al. (2010) generating alternative reappraisals. In terms of
study, reappraisal ability evidenced incremental Cronbach’s (1970) seminal distinction between
validity in moderating the relation between the tests that are designed to determine what people
cumulative stress experience and current depressive usually do (i.e., their typical performance) and tests
symptoms, suggesting that reappraisal ability may that are designed to determine what people can do
be an important protective factor for adjusting at their best (i.e., their maximum performance),
to stress. In support of this, reappraisal ability reappraisal inventiveness reflects maximum per-
proved to be positively associated with subjective formance. In general, maximum performance
well-being in the study by McRae, Jacobs et al. refers to tests of ability that are designed to test a
(2012). person’s best possible performance, encouraging
In the present research, we proposed a different the person to show his or her best performance.
ability concept with regard to reappraisal. Rather According to Cronbach’s distinction, the self-
than focusing on the ability to execute reappraisal, reported habitual use of reappraisal refers to
we explored the ability to spontaneously generate ‘‘typical performance’’ assessing a person’s char-
or to invent possible reappraisals for a critical acteristic thoughts and behaviour.
situation. Basically, we conceptualised the ad hoc To measure reappraisal inventiveness in terms
generation of many different reappraisals as an of maximum performance we assessed a partici-
ability that we term reappraisal inventiveness. Our pant’s ability to spontaneously produce or to invent
concept rests on the notion that people have many as many different reappraisals as possible, adopt-
choices when reappraising stimuli or situations ing procedures used in the realm of divergent

2 COGNITION AND EMOTION, 2013

 REAPPRAISAL INVENTIVENESS

thinking. Divergent thinking is characterised conceptual convergence of reappraisal inventive-

by the production of many different ideas or ness and divergent thinking, using both person-
solutions, as compared to convergent thinking, ality trait measures (Study 1) and objective tests
which is focused on finding just the one correct (Study 2).
solution. Guilford (1967) conceptualised diver-
gent production as a significant component of
creativity, and divergent thinking is conceptua- STUDY 1
lised as an especially useful approach for studying
The major aim of Study 1 was to analyse the
ideation and creative potential as applied to
psychometric characteristics of the RIT and
everyday problem solving (Runco, 2010). Typi-
provide evidence for its validity. The RIT consists
cally, two parameters are used to measure diver-
of four vignettes that depict anger-eliciting situa-
gent thinking: (i) fluency, that is, the number of
tions. Participants are instructed to imagine the
appropriate, non-identical ideas, and (ii) flexibil-
situation happening to them and, within the
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ity, that is, the number of categorically different

allotted time of three minutes, to generate as
ideas.
many different ways as possible to think about or
In construing a measure of reappraisal inven-
to reappraise the situation in a way that diminishes
tiveness, we were particularly interested in flex-
anger. We used four vignettes*conceptualised as
ibility because it provides information about the
test items*to derive a reliable test score. To
spontaneous shifts in perspectives a person is
provide the statistical basis for testing the relia-
capable of, an ability that may be particularly
bility (internal consistency) of the RIT in this
relevant when adapting to different situations.
initial phase of test development, the vignettes
Flexibility refers to changes in the type of re-
focused on the regulation of a specific emotion,
appraisal or in the specific tactic used to reappraise
that is, anger.
(McRae, Ciesielski et al., 2012; Ochsner, Silvers,
To investigate the validity of the RIT, we
& Buhle, 2012). For example, a person could
selected four constructs to test two basic conten-
reappraise a colleague’s remark that was initially
tions about our concept of reappraisal inventive-
appraised as insulting (and therefore anger-elicit-
ness: First, we propose that reappraisal
ing) as the colleague’s attempt to deflect attention
inventiveness, as measured with the RIT, reflects
from his own failure or to cover up his insecurity.
an individual’s potential for cognitive flexibility
These would be two non-identical reappraisals that
and creative ideation. Second, we expected that
nevertheless can be subsumed under the same
higher spontaneous access to a variety of reapprai-
category, that is, interpreting the colleague’s re-
sals would better prepare people to select reap-
mark as self-defensive. By contrast, reappraising
praisals effectively and would thus facilitate
the colleague’s remark as an attempt to be witty and
effective emotion regulation. More specifically,
entertaining (rather than insulting) would repre-
our three hypotheses were as follows:
sent a change in the type of reappraisal and would
therefore indicate flexibility. 1. We expected convergent validity for the
In the following, we introduce the Reappraisal association between RIT performance and
Inventiveness Test (RIT), which was designed to Openness to Experience. In the five-factor
measure reappraisal inventiveness, and we discuss model of personality, Openness to Experi-
two studies in which we tested its psychometric ence encompasses openness to fantasy, aes-
characteristics. Moreover, we explored aspects of thetics, feelings, actions, ideas, and values
the convergent and discriminant validity of our (Costa & McCrae, 1992). Reflecting the
new measure. In particular, we investigated the tendency for higher cognitive and experien-
expected conceptual distinctness between reap- tial breadth, complexity, and curiosity,
praisal inventiveness and the habitual use of Openness is the personality dimension most
reappraisal (Studies 1 and 2) as well as the closely and consistently related to intellect,

COGNITION AND EMOTION, 2013 3

 WEBER ET AL.

ability, and creativity. Consequently, it has Method

been found to be correlated with intelligence
Participants
(Ackerman & Heggestad, 1997) and crea-
Participants were 93 non-psychology students at
tivity (McCrae, 1987; Silvia, Nusbaum,
the University of Greifswald (68% women;
Berg, Martin, & O’Connor, 2009; Silvia
Mage 23.6 years, SD 3.5). They were recruited
et al., 2008).
from several non-psychology classes in the Hu-
2. We investigated the relation between RIT
manities, Sciences, and Medicine. The partici-
performance and the self-reported habitual
pants received t5 for their participation.
use of reappraisal (as measured by the
Emotion Regulation Questionnaire; Gross &
Procedure
John, 2003). We assumed that RIT perfor-
The RIT was administered in groups of six to
mance would be rather independent of the
eight participants. Upon arrival at the lab, parti-
self-reported tendency to use reappraisal
cipants were instructed that they were going to
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across different emotional situations in daily

complete a test assessing creative ideation or the
life. Similar differences have been previously
‘‘plurality of thoughts’’ with regard to the mani-
confirmed between the habitual use of
fold ways in which everyday situations can be
reappraisal and reappraisal ability (McRae,
perceived. This test would be followed by several
Jacobs et al., 2012; Troy et al., 2010).
questionnaires. Administration of the RIT lasted
3. Finally, we hypothesised that reappraisal
about 25 to 30 minutes, and the entire session
inventiveness would be associated with
lasted about 40 minutes.
constructs that are related to effective emo-
tion regulation because reappraisal inven-
Measures
tiveness enables individuals to come up with
a variety of different perspectives with Reappraisal Inventiveness Test. The Reappraisal
regard to critical situations rather than Inventiveness Test (RIT) comprises an instruction
being fixed to one or only a few perspec- booklet for the participants, a test booklet, and
tives. Given that reappraisal ameliorates standardised instructions for the investigator. The
negative affect (Gross & John, 2003), test booklet consists of four vignettes depicting
people who can select from a number of anger-eliciting situations, which are presented one
different appraisals may be better prepared at a time. The vignettes are presented on a
to overcome biases in interpreting situations separate page, supplemented by a picture to
and thus may be more likely to regulate make the situation more vivid (a full description
their emotions effectively. We measured of the four vignettes is provided in the appendix).
two constructs that indicate individual dif- For each vignette, participants are instructed to
ferences in effective emotion regulation. imagine the situation happening to them (for 20 s)
First, we expected negative correlations and then to turn to the next page when the
between RIT performance and Neuroti- experimenter signals them to do so. This page
cism, which is related to a higher tendency contains a header that repeats the vignette along
to use ineffective strategies for stress and with the picture, supplemented by written instruc-
emotion regulation (Bolger & Zuckerman, tions to generate and write down as many different
1995; Connor-Smith & Flachsbart, 2007; ways as possible to think about the situation in a
Suls & Martin, 2005). Second, because the way that diminishes anger (timed for 3 min).
RIT vignettes required the participants to The task that the participants are asked to
construe anger-eliciting situations in a way complete is illustrated in an instruction booklet.
that diminishes anger, we hypothesised that To maximise flexible productions, participants are
reappraisal inventiveness would be nega- explicitly instructed to generate categorically dif-
tively associated with trait anger. ferent ideas. This is illustrated by listing possible

4 COGNITION AND EMOTION, 2013

 REAPPRAISAL INVENTIVENESS

reappraisals for a sample vignette and demonstrat- categories); (iii) de-emphasising the negative
ing what is meant by generating reappraisals that impact of the harm induced and/or the instigator’s
reflect different categories. The instruction book- wrong-doing (six categories); and (iv) casting the
let had been pre-tested to ensure that the partici- situation in terms of getting even (one category).
pants understood what was being asked of them. Appropriate answers that could not be coded into
The vignettes were constructed to contain the the 17 categories were scored as ‘‘other’’. Inter-
two typical antecedents of anger according to rater reliability was computed on the basis of 30
cognitive emotion theories (Averill, 1982; Ortony, randomly selected participants whose answers
Clore, & Collins, 1988; Roseman, Antoniou, & were independently rated by two graduate stu-
José, 1996; Smith & Lazarus, 1993). Specifically, dents. The results revealed high inter-rater relia-
the vignettes each depict the behaviour of another bility for RIT-fluency, as indicated by the ICC
person who willingly or carelessly induces harm (.84, .91, .92, .93 for the four vignettes, respec-
(see appendix). We designed the vignettes to tively) and RIT-Flexibility (.78, .87, .92, .93).
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reflect everyday experiences that students, who After inter-rater reliability had been established,
were the target sample in the initial phase of RIT all answers were scored by a graduate student. The
development, could easily imagine happening to four vignette scores were summed to yield a mean
them. score for RIT-fluency and for RIT-flexibility,
As a manipulation check, an independent respectively.
sample of 90 students (52% women; Mage 
22.68 years, SD 2.36) were asked to rate the Other measures. The habitual use of reappraisal
intensity of the anger they would experience when was measured with the reappraisal subscale of the
confronted with the situations depicted in the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ; Gross
vignettes on a 7-point scale ranging from 0 to 6. & John, 2003), using the German adaptation of
Mean intensity ratings for the four vignettes were the ERQ (Abler & Kessler, 2009). The reapprai-
M5.33, SD0.84 (laptop), M4.50, SD  sal subscale consists of six items; four items
1.41 (presentation), M4.33, SD 1.45 (plant), measuring suppression were also included, but
and M4.27, SD 1.14 (kitchen). One-sample not analysed. Neuroticism and Openness to
t-tests showed that the anger ratings for all four Experience were measured with the German
vignettes differed significantly from 0, t(89)  adaptation (Borkenau & Ostendorf, 2008) of
40.97, pB.001 (laptop), t(89) 35.10, p B.001 Costa and McCrae’s (1992) Five-Factor Inven-
(presentation), t(89) 28.48, pB.001 (plant), tory, each encompassing 12 items. For assessing
and t(89) 29.78, pB.001 (kitchen). These find- trait anger, we used the German adaptation of the
ings confirmed that the behaviours depicted in the 10-item Trait Anger scale of the State-Trait
vignettes were indeed perceived as anger evoking. Anger Expression Inventory (STAXI; Schwenk-
mezger, Hodapp, & Spielberger, 1992). See
Scoring. The RIT was scored on two scales: Table 1 for Cronbach’s alphas for all measures.
(i) RIT-fluency was scored by the number of ap- In addition, the participants completed a measure
propriate non-identical reappraisals generated; of dispositional optimism (German adaptation of
and (ii) RIT-flexibility was scored by the number the LOT-R; Scheier et al., Bridges, 1994), which
of categorically different reappraisals. For scoring is not related to the present study.
flexibility, we developed a category scheme on the
basis of the reappraisals generated by the partici-
Results and discussion
pants; this scheme was applied to all four vign-
ettes. The 17 categories encompassed: (i) casting Descriptive statistics
the situation in terms of how the harm induced Descriptive statistics of the two RIT scores and the
could be reduced or compensated for (four other measures are shown in Table 1. As can be
categories); (ii) generating positive aspects (six seen, the internal consistencies of the two RIT

COGNITION AND EMOTION, 2013 5

 WEBER ET AL.

Table 1. Descriptive statistics and correlation matrix for the variables included in Study 1

Variable a M (SD) 1 2 3 4 5

1. RIT-fluency .75 17.82 (4.36) *

2. RIT-flexibility .72 17.35 (4.22) .97** *
3. Reappraisal (ERQ) .75 4.52 (0.99) .10 .08 *
4. Openness to experience .76 34.35 (6.86) .24** .28** .17 *
5. Neuroticism .85 34.82 (7.97) .00 .04 .17 .03 *
6. Trait anger (STAXI) .70 20.25 (4.16) .03 .03 .20* .26** .39**

Notes: N93. ERQ  Emotion Regulation Questionnaire; STAXI  State-Trait Anger Expression Inventory. *p .056; **p B.01.

indices (computed across the four vignettes) were performance (i.e., reappraisal inventiveness).
satisfactory and confirmed our assumption that the These findings are also consistent with the
four vignettes, which are heterogeneous in content previously documented independence between
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but homogeneous in the focal emotion, are the self-reported use of reappraisal and reappraisal
sufficient to yield reliable scores. Notably, the ability (Troy et al., 2010; see also McRae, Jacobs
range of the means for RIT-fluency (929) and et al., 2012).
RIT-flexibility (929) indicated sufficient variance Contrary to our expectations, however, the
for a meaningful analysis of individual differences. RIT scores were unrelated to Neuroticism and
RIT-fluency and RIT-flexibility were extremely trait anger, which we had selected to capture
highly correlated, indicating nearly identical mea- individual differences in effective emotion regula-
sures. To test the extent to which participants are tion (Table 1). We will discuss possible explana-
able to spontaneously produce categorically similar tions for these findings and their implications in
or different reappraisals, a modified RIT version more detail in the general discussion.
could be designed in which participants are asked
to invent reappraisals but are not explicitly asked
for flexibility. STUDY 2

Correlations between RIT performance and other In Study 1, we used Openness to Experience to
constructs examine the expected relation between reappraisal
Table 1 presents the correlations between the two inventiveness and individual differences in creativ-
RIT indices and the other variables. As was ity and cognitive flexibility. However, although
predicted, the two RIT scores (and slightly more consistently associated with intelligence and crea-
so for flexibility) were positively correlated with tivity (Ackerman & Heggestad, 1997; Silvia et al.,
Openness to Experience. This confirmed our 2008, 2009), Openness to Experience is a broad,
assumption that reappraisal inventiveness*in par- multifaceted personality dimension that refers to
ticular, the ability to generate different typical rather than maximum performance. There-
perspectives*is associated with the personality fore, in Study 2, we used maximum performance
dimension that reflects an individual’s cognitive measures of divergent thinking to examine the
complexity and creativity and that has been found expected positive relation between reappraisal in-
to be consistently related to intelligence and ventiveness and divergent thinking more directly.
creativity (Ackerman & Heggestad, 1997; Silvia A second aim of Study 2 was to replicate the
et al., 2008, 2009). The correlations between RIT- findings of Study 1 concerning the expected
fluency and RIT-flexibility and ERQ reappraisal conceptual distinctness of reappraisal inventive-
were not significant, suggesting the expected ness and the self-reported habitual use of re-
distinctness of typical performance (i.e., self- appraisal. Moreover, in addition to measuring the
reported habitual use of reappraisal) and maximum general inclination to use reappraisals as assessed

6 COGNITION AND EMOTION, 2013

 REAPPRAISAL INVENTIVENESS

with the ERQ, we added an anger-related four vignettes, respectively; RIT-Flexibility: .93,
measure of reappraisal to examine whether in- .94, .92, .92). These findings largely replicated
dependence would also be obtained when both those obtained in Study 1, demonstrating again
measures*typical and maximum performance* that scoring the RIT was highly reliable.
were focused on anger regulation.
Finally, in Study 2, the participants were asked Divergent thinking measures. We used four subt-
to rate the anger intensity they would feel when ests of the German Berlin Intelligence-Structure
actually confronted with the situations described Test (BIS-Test; Jäger, Süß, & Beauducel, 1997),
in the vignettes. Our hypothesis was that higher which measures divergent thinking in terms of
anger intensity would be associated with a fluency and flexibility applied to verbal content.
stronger focus on the anger-eliciting, hostile The four subtests require the participants to
features of the situation (Wilkowski & Robinson, produce and write down as many different ideas
2008, 2010). We expected that such a hostile bias as possible in a limited amount of time. They were
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would impede a person’s ability to shift from presented in the following order: (i) the Masselon
hostile to non-hostile interpretations of a situa- test, requiring the participants to form sentences
tion and thus would impede the person’s ability to that include the three words human, technology,
generate new, anger-diminishing reappraisals. and feeling (2 min); (ii) the Characteristics and
Abilities test, requiring the participants to find
Method different characteristics and abilities that a sales-
person should not have (2.5 min); (iii) the Insight
Participants
test, which asks participants to find reasons and
Participants were 94 psychology students at the
explanations for why many people think that X is
Free University of Berlin (84% women; Mage 
a likable person (2 min); and (iv) the Possible
22.6 years, SD3.1). They participated in ex-
Applications test, requiring the participants to
change for course credit.
find different applications for foam material
(2 min). In accordance with the BIS test manual
Measures (Jäger et al., 1997), the Masselon test was scored
in terms of fluency (the number of appropriate
Reappraisal Inventiveness Test. The RIT was ideas); the other three subtests were scored in
administered based on the instruction used in terms of both fluency and flexibility (the number
Study 1 and scored as described in Study 1, with of categorically different ideas). Flexibility was
one exception. After completing the test, partici- scored based on category schemes provided in the
pants were given a questionnaire that contained BIS manual. In addition to the subtest scores,
short descriptions of the four scenarios. They were mean scores for BIS-fluency and BIS-flexibility
asked to recall the four episodes and to rate the were computed by averaging the four single
extent to which they would get angry in each scores. As noted in the BIS manual, the number
situation on a 7-point scale ranging from 0 Not of correct solutions on the Masselon test reflects
at all to 6 Extremely. The anger intensity ratings flexibility. Therefore, the Masselon test was
were measured retrospectively so that ratings included in the BIS-flexibility mean score. Due
would not interfere with completing the test. to problems in the time schedule, the Possible
As in Study 1, inter-rater reliability for RIT Applications test was included only after the first
scores was computed on 30 randomly selected two groups had been tested; this reduced the
participants, whose answers were independently sample size of the participants who completed all
rated by one of the authors (CM, who scored all four BIS subtests to N86.
answers) and a graduate student. Inter-rater
reliability, as indicated by the ICC, proved to be Other measures. The habitual use of reappraisal
very high (RIT-Fluency: .98, .93, .97, .97 for the was measured with the reappraisal subscale of the

COGNITION AND EMOTION, 2013 7

 WEBER ET AL.

German version (Abler & Kessler, 2009) of the Table 2. Descriptive statistics and correlations between RIT
indices and BIS subtests (Study 2)
ERQ (Gross & John, 2003); the suppression
subscale items were also included. Cronbach’s RIT- RIT-
alpha was .71 (reappraisal) and .73 (suppression). Variable a M (SD) fluency flexibility
To assess the habitual use of anger-regulation
RIT-fluency .87 25.38 (6.82)
strategies, we used the reaction subscales of the RIT-flexibility .82 22.00 (5.49) .95**
Anger-Related Reactions and Goals Inventory Masselon test .23* .23*
(ARGI; Kubiak, Wiedig-Allison, Zgoriecki, & Characteristics and .55** .56**
Weber, 2011). The seven ARGI reaction subscales abilities test
measure the habitual use of anger venting, feed- Insight test .49** .35**
Possible .50** .46**
back, distraction, downplaying, humour, rumina- applications testa
tion, and submission. Each subscale consists of BIS mean score .73 41.47 (10.98) .61** .60**
four items rated on a 4-point scale ranging from fluencya
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1 Almost never to 4 Almost always. Cronbach’s BIS mean score .61 25.33 (5.12) .55** .59**
alpha for the seven ARGI subscales ranged flexibilitya
between .72 (humour) and .91 (rumination). Notes: N94. an 86 . *pB.05; **p B.01.

Procedure and RIT-flexibility scores were correlated with

Participants were tested in small groups of three to BIS-flexibility scores (with the exception of the
10 individuals. Each session lasted about one hour. Masselon test, which does not offer a category
The two maximum performance tests were always scheme for scoring flexibility). As expected, sig-
administered first, with half of the group sessions nificant positive correlations were found between
beginning with the RIT, and the other half RIT performance and the BIS subtests, attesting
beginning with the four BIS subtests. After the to the convergent validity of the RIT. The non-
tests, participants were asked to complete the corresponding correlations between RIT-fluency
ERQ and the ARGI. and BIS-flexibility and between RIT-flexibility
and BIS-fluency were similar in size to those
Results and discussion between the RIT and BIS fluency and flexibility
Descriptive statistics scores (Table 2). In addition to the high correla-
Descriptive statistics of the two RIT indices and tion between RIT-fluency and RIT-flexibility,
the BIS divergent thinking subtests are shown in these rather high correlations are most likely due
Table 2. The internal consistencies of the two RIT to the high correlation between BIS-fluency and
indices were slightly higher than those obtained in BIS-flexibility (r .84, pB.001). Similar to the
Study 1 and confirmed that the four RIT vignettes RIT, the high correlation between BIS fluency
yielded reliable test scores. As in Study 1, RIT- and flexibility can be explained by the BIS
fluency (range: 942) and RIT-flexibility (range: instructions that likewise further flexibility.
933) were nearly redundant (correlation between As shown in Table 2, the correlations between
the two means: r .95, pB.001), indicating again RIT performance and the Masselon test were lower
that the instructions were effective for maximising than for the other three tests. A likely explanation
flexibility. for these findings is that the Masselon test, which
asked participants to form sentences that include
Relations between RIT performance and divergent three given words, captures verbal ability in
thinking addition to divergent production (Beauducel &
Table 2 presents the corresponding correlations Kersting, 2002). By contrast, the other three BIS
for fluency and flexibility, that is, RIT-fluency subtests indicate that an object (Possible Applica-
scores were correlated with BIS-fluency scores tions test), a person (Insight test), or an occupation

8 COGNITION AND EMOTION, 2013

 REAPPRAISAL INVENTIVENESS

(Characteristics and Abilities test) were perceived r .09, p.41, and between anger intensity and
from many different perspectives. Thus, these tasks RIT-fluency, r .05, p .62. These findings did
more strongly resemble the RIT-inherent task of not support our hypotheses that higher anger
producing different reappraisals. Notably, how- intensity would be associated with a poorer
ever, whereas the moderate correlations between performance on the RIT. The most likely expla-
RIT performance and the BIS subtests suggest that nation for these findings is that the anger intensity
reappraisal inventiveness shares a common abil- ratings, provided retrospectively after completing
ity*divergent thinking*with the other tests, the RIT, did not reflect the anger that people felt
generating anger-reducing reappraisals clearly con- when they imagined the situation depicted in the
stitutes a qualitatively distinct part of divergent vignette, but rather it reflected the anger that
thinking. participants would experience if they were con-
fronted with such a situation. That is, the ratings
Relations between RIT performance and habitual likely reflected the anger-inducing potential of the
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emotion regulation vignettes and thus may serve as a manipulation

The correlations between RIT performance and check rather than a measure of actually experi-
the self-reported habitual tendency for reappraisal, enced anger.
as measured with the ERQ, were non-significant
and indicated near independence (RIT-fluency:
r .02, ns; RIT-flexibility: r .02, ns). GENERAL DISCUSSION
These findings largely replicated those of Study
1. The RIT indices were also not significantly In this article, we have proposed a new ability
related to the self-reported habitual use of anger- approach to reappraisal that focuses on individual
regulation strategies, with correlations for the differences in the ability to spontaneously gen-
seven ARGI reaction subscales ranging between erate different reappraisals for anger-eliciting
r .08 and r .15, ns (RIT-fluency) and be- situations. Adopting concepts from the realm of
tween r .08 and r.17, ns (RIT-flexibility). creativity and divergent thinking, we developed
Notably, nearly independent associations were the Reappraisal Inventiveness Test (RIT) to
obtained between RIT performance and the two measure a person’s fluency and, maximised
reactions that are forms of reappraisal, that is, through the test instructions, flexibility in invent-
downplaying (r .01, and r .02, ns, for RIT- ing as many categorically different reappraisals as
fluency and RIT-flexibility, respectively) and possible within a limited amount of time. The
humour (r .08, and r .06, ns). These results of two studies provided evidence that the
findings indicated that even with a measure that RIT produces reliable test scores. In the follow-
directly taps anger regulation rather than emotion ing, we will discuss the three main findings of the
regulation in general, the self-reported habitual two studies that attest to the construct validity of
use of reappraisal is largely independent of the RIT and the possible role of reappraisal
reappraisal inventiveness. We will come back to inventiveness in emotion regulation.
these findings in the general discussion. First, concerning the construct validity of the
RIT, the two studies confirmed the expected
Relations between RIT performance and anger association between reappraisal inventiveness and
intensity measures that indicate cognitive complexity, flex-
The anger intensity ratings for the four vignettes ibility, and creativity. In Study 1, RIT perfor-
ranged from M 3.64 to M 4.84, with an overall mance was positively associated with Openness to
mean rating of M4.25, SD 0.8 on the 0 to 6 Experience, which is the personality dimension
scale. Additional analyses showed non-significant most closely related to intelligence and creativity
associations between anger intensity (mean score (Ackerman & Heggestad, 1997; McCrae, 1987;
across the four vignettes) and RIT-flexibility, Silvia et al., 2008, 2009). In Study 2, even more

COGNITION AND EMOTION, 2013 9

 WEBER ET AL.

substantial correlations were obtained between of reappraisal may result in a decreased activation
RIT performance and maximum performance in the cognitive control network when reappraisal
tests of divergent thinking. The higher correla- becomes automatic and requires less cognitive
tions between RIT performance and the BIS effort (Drabant, McRae, Manuck, Hariri, &
subtests as compared to the correlations between Gross, 2009). Similarly, we would speculate that
RIT and Openness to Experience may also reflect due to their ease in retrieving possible reapprai-
the shared method. Both RIT and BIS are tests of sals, persons high in reappraisal inventiveness
ability in which participants appeared to be highly would also need less cognitive effort (as indicated
motivated to give their best performance. Never- by smaller activation), particularly when asked to
theless, these findings clearly support our conten- spontaneously produce different reappraisals, that
tion that reappraisal inventiveness indicates an is, to generate new meanings.
individual’s potential for cognitive flexibility and A further promising line of research on the
creative ideation. cognitive processes involved in reappraisal inven-
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The next logical step in testing the extent to tiveness would be to investigate the strategies
which the RIT can capture an individual’s potential people use to generate reappraisals. This could be
for retrieving and transforming information would achieved by asking participants to think aloud
be to study the higher order cognitive processes when working on the RIT. For example, the
implicated in the fluency and flexibility with which think-aloud method has been successfully applied
a person generates different perspectives of critical by Gilhooly and colleagues (2007) in research on
situations. Generally, it can be expected that the the processes and strategies that underlie diver-
successful cognitive control of emotional experi- gent thinking.
ence and expression*of which reappraisal is a Information about the strategies and cognitive
possible mechanism*implicates a set of executive processes involved in generating reappraisals could
functions such as working memory capacity, also be obtained when participants*after having
inhibition, and category shift (Gyurak, Goodkind, completed the RIT*would be asked to distin-
Kramer, Miller, & Levenson, 2012). Working guish their ‘‘old’’ reappraisals (i.e., those that they
memory capacity may be particularly necessary had retrieved from prior experiences) from those
when reappraisals have to be sustained against that are ‘‘new’’ (i.e., invented on the spot). We
competing emotional responses (Schmeichel, posit that the ability to fluently and flexibly
Volokhov, & Demaree, 2008). Moreover, fluency produce new reappraisals and the use of effective
and flexibility in generating new perspectives strategies to create them will constitute the core of
require the inhibition of dominant responses and reappraisal inventiveness as it reflects the potential
the ability to switch sets in order to change to adapt to new situations that exceed routines.
strategies to overcome habits, as has been demon- A second set of findings obtained in the
strated for divergent thinking (Benedek, Franz, present studies supporting the construct validity
Heene, & Neubauer, 2012; Gilhooly, Fioratou, of the RIT relates to our hypothesis that re-
Anthony, & Wynn, 2007; Nusbaum & Silvia, appraisal inventiveness would be distinct from the
2011). self-reported habitual use of reappraisal. The
Future research on the cognitive processes results of the two studies suggested that RIT
involved in reappraisal inventiveness should be performance was largely independent of the
extended to its possible neural correlates. Neuroi- habitual use of reappraisal, as measured with the
maging studies provide evidence that reappraisal is ERQ that measures frequency and does not ask
associated with increased activity in lateral and about performance (Gross & John, 2003). These
medial prefrontal brain regions and regions of the findings are in agreement with prior studies that
anterior cingulate cortex that are linked to similarly documented independence or small
cognitive control (Kalisch, 2009; Ochsner& correlations between ERQ reappraisal and reap-
Gross, 2008; Ochsner et al., 2012). Frequent use praisal ability, as indexed by the down regulation

10 COGNITION AND EMOTION, 2013

 REAPPRAISAL INVENTIVENESS

of negative affect and physiological activity when First, the two trait measures we used to assess
confronted with aversive stimuli (Troy et al., emotion regulation success in Study 1 may be too
2010). Notably, in Study 2, independence was unspecific to capture regulation success based on
also assured when scales that assessed anger- reappraisal inventiveness ability. In future studies,
specific reappraisal were used, indicating that the regulation success should be examined in situa-
independence of RIT performance and the ten- tions in which the ability to produce many
dency to reappraise was not due to differences different reappraisals is likely to enhance regula-
between emotion-specific (RIT) and emotion- tion success, such as in new or highly taxing
unspecific measures (ERQ). situations. Moreover, we would expect that people
Method variance inherent in self-reports and who are better able to be inventive in their
maximum performance tests is a likely explanation reappraisals would be more flexible in changing
for why the habitual tendency to reappraise and their reappraisal when it becomes more difficult to
reappraisal inventiveness provide different informa- implement a certain reappraisal and/or to main-
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tion, but there are additional reasons. One possible tain certain reappraisals. They can be expected to
explanation is that in their typical use of reappraisal, be more likely to switch and to adjust their
people rely on just one or a few strategies for reappraisals. Thus, we would expect them to be
reappraisal that are routinely adopted, for instance, especially more successful in the dynamic process
distancing oneself from an aversive situation. Use of of implementing and maintaining their reapprai-
these strategies, once deliberately enacted, may sals (Kalisch, 2009).
become habitual and automatic over time (Gyurak, Second, as we argued above, the ability to
Gross, & Etkin, 2011). Possible alternatives for generate many different perspectives may surface
construing emotional experiences may no longer be only when people are motivated to act upon their
consciously considered unless specific events require ability to generate different reappraisals. More
people to open their minds to new ways of specifically, the motivation to come up with
construing experiences. In other words, the ability different anger-diminishing reappraisals (on which
to come up with a broad range of reappraisals for the RIT focuses) implies that people are motivated
critical situations may make a difference only when to down-regulate their anger in the first place. This
people are motivated to break from their routines in may not be the case for people high in trait anger.
interpreting experiences. This is most likely to occur For example, according to the trait-anger model by
when people are confronted with new situations, Wilkowski and Robinson (2008), people high in
the construal of which needs conscious reflection trait anger are more prone toward hostile inter-
and effort (Gyurak et al., 2011). The motivation to pretations and are less likely to adopt cognitive
seek alternatives for interpreting situations (and strategies such as reappraisal to control automatic
thus to act upon one’s reappraisal inventiveness) hostile biases. Notably, however, whereas trait
may be particularly high when people have to face anger was found to be negatively associated with
situations that tax or exceed the effectiveness of the the use of reappraisal (Kubiak et al., 2011; see also
reappraisal strategies they typically use. Table 1) it was unrelated to reappraisal inventive-
Finally, a third set of findings that merits ness. This suggests that people high in trait anger
special attention is related to our hypothesis that may principally be able to generate anger-diminish-
reappraisal inventiveness would be negatively ing reappraisals when explicitly asked to do so. The
related to constructs that indicate poor emotion crucial question, then, appears to be whether they
regulation. Contrary to our expectation, however, are motivated to break their automatic biases in
RIT performance was unrelated to Neuroticism or interpreting hostile situations. Anger can be per-
trait anger. We see several possible explanations ceived as legitimate (Averill, 1982; Weber, 2004)
for these findings besides the differences between and/or instrumental in reaching certain goals
maximal performance and self-report measures (Tamir, Mitchell, & Gross, 2008), and people
that we discussed before. high in trait anger may be more likely to perceive

COGNITION AND EMOTION, 2013 11

 WEBER ET AL.

their anger as justified and/or instrumental than Urry, 2012). High reappraisal inventiveness might
people low in trait anger. be a cognitive resource that is able to moderate the
A third possible explanation for the non- age-related decline in the ability to down-regulate
significant correlations between reappraisal inven- negative emotions through reappraisal. As it has
tiveness and both Neuroticism and trait anger is been shown that some types of reappraisal may be
that reappraisal is just one strategy out of a broad unaffected by age or even improved, particularly
variety of strategies of emotion regulation. For positive reappraisal, a higher spontaneous access
example, reappraisal proved to be an important to a broader range of reappraisals may compensate
strategy for controlling aggressive-impulsive be- for losses in some types of reappraisals (Urry &
haviour in response to provocation (Barlett & Gross, 2010). In a similar way, high reappraisal
Anderson, 2011), but it is just one element of a inventiveness might compensate for an impaired
larger set of effective cognitive, expressive, and ability to reappraise due to deficits in cognitive
behavioural strategies (e.g., Deffenbacher, 2006). control that are associated with disorders such as
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To effectively regulate one’s emotions across depression (Johnstone, van Reekum, Urry, Kalin,
different situations, one needs to master a broad & Davidson, 2007; Joormann & Gotlib, 2010).
repertoire of different strategies and its flexible,
situation-appropriate use (Cheng, 2003). How-
ever, findings of a recent study indicate that in
Limitations
response to one (short) stimulus the use of a single When developing a new measure that is intended to
strategy is more effective in attenuating negative capture a new construct, a number of limitations
emotions than the use of multiple strategies have to be acknowledged in addition to those
(Aldao & Nolen-Hoeksema, 2013). It would already discussed. First, the RIT should be extended
be particularly interesting to examine whether to other emotions than anger and to the down-
people with higher emotional reactivity, who may regulation as well as to the up-regulation of
be more inclined to use multiple strategies to emotional experiences. We would expect reappraisal
regulate their (intense) emotions, profit from inventiveness to be consistent across different emo-
such a regulation mode, or whether they would tions and regulation goals. However, emotions (and
profit more from sticking to a single strategy. The regulation goals) may differ in their possible range
effectiveness of focusing on a single strategy of reappraisals. For example, the possible variety of
implicates that an effective strategy is adopted reappraisals of anger-inducing situations may be
early in the regulation process (Kalisch, 2009; broader than that of sadness-inducing experiences.
Sheppes & Meiran, 2007; Urry, 2009). We would Second, in addition to studying the consistency of
speculate that people with higher reappraisal reappraisal inventiveness across different emotions,
inventiveness would be better prepared to sponta- the retest reliability of the RIT should be examined.
neously generate effective reappraisals and to Using parallel scenarios seems to be most appro-
profit from adhering to a single strategy. priate for this purpose, because participants may
Generally, reappraisal inventiveness can be likely remember their former answers when pre-
viewed as a cognitive resource and we assume sented with the same vignettes a second time, or
that being trained to generate different appraisals they may feel challenged to find new answers. A
would improve this resource. We would expect third limitation is that in its present form, the RIT
that people would particularly benefit from such a vignettes concentrate on experiences that students
cognitive resource when their reappraisal effec- can imagine happening to them. The thematic focus
tiveness is endangered. For example, in a previous of the vignettes should therefore be broadened to
study, older people appeared to be less successful include situations that are relevant to other people.
at decreasing their negative emotions through A further serious limitation is that we did not
reappraisal, presumably due to a decline in assess the anger people felt when imagining the
cognitive control ability (Opitz, Rauch, Terry, & situations depicted in the vignettes, which should

12 COGNITION AND EMOTION, 2013

 REAPPRAISAL INVENTIVENESS

be done in future studies using the RIT. More- versions could be extended to other strategies of
over, future research that aims to investigate the emotion regulation to examine whether flexibility
possible influence of state anger on reappraisal generalises to emotion regulation in general.
inventiveness may use different designs to mea-
sure reappraisal inventiveness. For example, re-
appraisal inventiveness could be tested in studies Conclusions
in which participants are confronted with emo- In the present research, we proposed an ability
tion-eliciting film clips or pictures that are concept of reappraisal that refers to inventiveness in
typically used to examine the effects of instructed generating many different reappraisals for a critical
reappraisal (e.g., Gross, 1998; Ochsner & Gross, situation. Conceptualised and measured as a form
2008; Ochsner et al., 2012). Specifically, partici- of creative ideation and divergent thinking, reap-
pants could be instructed to generate as many praisal inventiveness was found to be associated
reappraisals as possible rather than to focus on one with Openness to Experience and objective diver-
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type of reappraisal. Alternatively, participants

gent thinking tests. It proved to be unrelated to the
could be asked to produce different reappraisals
self-reported habitual use of reappraisal, confirming
when recalling an actual personal anger episode.
the expected different information inherent in
Moreover, to further examine the validity of the
maximum and typical performance measures. To
RIT, it would be instructive to create studies to
examine the actual variety of reappraisals that determine the contribution of reappraisal inven-
people use across different everyday experiences. tiveness to effective emotion regulation in future
These studies would provide a more appropriate research, the ability to generate different reapprai-
criterion for the RIT than the general tendency to sals should be examined in contexts in which people
use reappraisal, as measured with the ERQ. are motivated to call upon their abilities.
Finally, in its present form, the RIT instruction Generally, research is also needed to investigate
emphasises flexibility, asking participants to pro- in greater detail the cognitive processes that
duce categorically different reappraisals. In re- underlie the generation of reappraisals and, in
search on divergent thinking, fluency refers to the particular, the variety of reappraisals an individual
number of non-identical ideas, encompassing is capable of. In his psychology of personal
ideas that are conceptually similar, whereas flex- constructs, Kelly (1955) proposed the idea of
ibility refers to the number of categorically ‘‘constructive alternativism’’ that refers to his
different ideas. In our view, it is highly instructive contention that events ‘‘are subject to as great a
to conceptually distinguish between the extent to variety of constructions as our wits will enable
which people are able to produce similar ideas or us to contrive’’ (Kelly, 1970, p. 1). He did not
are able to change categories. To further examine specifically refer to emotional experiences, yet his
the distinction between fluency and flexibility in basic assertion that alternatives in construing
generating reappraisals, modified versions of the experiences always exist highlights the idea of
RIT should be used to clearly distinguish between reappraisal inventiveness. It refers to the human
the two parameters. In addition to the present ability to question and reconsider one’s perception
RIT instruction that focuses on flexibility, a to such an extent ‘‘that even the most obvious
fluency version could be designed in which
occurrences of everyday life might be utterly
participants are asked to generate possible re-
transformed if we were inventive enough to
appraisals within a given category (e.g., positive
construe them differently’’ (Kelly, 1970, p. 1).
reappraisal). With category-focused versions it
could also be tested to what extent participants
Manuscript received 21 September 2012
are able to invent reappraisals across different Revised manuscript received 29 June 2013
categories, providing an alternative index for Manuscript accepted 27 July 2013
flexibility. In a related way, category-focused First published online 17 September 2013

COGNITION AND EMOTION, 2013 13

 WEBER ET AL.

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subjective scoring methods. Psychology of Aesthetics,
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1931-3896.2.2.68 pare a presentation with a fellow student at the
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rather go to the beach.
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Troy, A. S., Wilhelm, F. H., Shallcross, A. J., & Mauss,
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Urry, H. L. (2009). Using reappraisal to regulate
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