Date of Award
Summer 8-22-2026
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Ph.D. in Psychology
Organizational Unit
College of Arts Humanities and Social Sciences, Psychology
First Advisor
Kateri McRae
Second Advisor
Kimberly Chiew
Third Advisor
Heidi Vuletich
Fourth Advisor
Lavita Nadkarni
Copyright Statement / License for Reuse
All Rights Reserved.
Keywords
Mental time travel, Cognitive reappraisal, Emotion regulation, Culture, Psychology
Abstract
In the current work, we reported results of two research studies that explore how mental time travel might support the use and efficacy of cognitive reappraisal. Results from a recent, well-powered cross-cultural reappraisal study demonstrated that reappraisal, while effective across many cultures, is not a universally effective emotion regulation strategy in all cultures (Wang et al., 2021). Therefore, it is important to understand factors that might interact with its use and efficacy. We tested the hypothesis that mental time travel is one such factor. To explore cultural components of time travel in Study 1, we used available data from the abovementioned study and tested whether measures of reappraisal success relate to existing and freely available cultural measures, such as GLOBE’s future orientation practices and values (Ashkanasy et al., 2004) and Hofstede’s dimensions of long-term orientation and uncertainty avoidance (Hofstede et al., 2010). We did not see any evidence that reappraisal efficacy in decreasing negative emotions is related to countries’ levels of intolerance of uncertainty, long-term orientation and future orientation practices and values. We saw similar lack of effect in increasing positive emotion for most indices except long-term orientation which was negatively associated with positive emotion. In Study 2, participants from US and Mexico completed a reappraisal tactics task, along with battery of individual differences surveys. Prior cross-cultural research in both of these countries indicated differences in time orientation (Spears et al., 2000), so we predicted that cultural time orientation would influence the use and efficacy of reappraisal tactics. The results demonstrated that while the change future consequences tactic was used more often than the change current circumstances tactic in both cultures, it was used significantly more often in Mexico compared to the United States. Results of this research suggest that there are cultural differences in use and efficacy of reappraisal tactics and provide future directions for improving emotion regulation across cultures.
Copyright Date
8-2026
Publication Statement
Copyright is held by the author. User is responsible for all copyright compliance.
Rights Holder
Valeriia Vlasenko
Provenance
Received from ProQuest
File Format
application/pdf
Language
English (eng)
Extent
99 pgs
File Size
1.1 MB
Recommended Citation
Vlasenko, Valeriia, "Mental Time Travel as a Mechanism of Cognitive Reappraisal" (2026). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 2811.
https://digitalcommons.du.edu/etd/2811