Most of our measures of a key cognitive process don’t agree

An international study published in Nature found that three common ways of measuring cognitive reappraisal do not reliably agree. This matters because reappraisal, the practice of reframing situations to lessen their emotional impact, is central to cognitive behavioural therapy and is linked to emotional resilience.

Researchers compared questionnaire scores, emotional ratings after reappraisal tasks, and amygdala activity measured using 40 functional MRI datasets. The brain effect was small: detecting it with 80 per cent statistical power would require a single study of 1,105 participants. Individual differences across the three measures showed almost no correlation, leading the researchers to call for a reassessment of how reappraisal capacity is measured and interpreted.