# Effect of Emotion Mindsets on Emotion Processing: A Multilevel Experimental Investigation

> **NIH NIH R21** · UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN · 2020 · $188,919

## Abstract

7. Project Summary/Abstract
Adolescence is marked by significant challenges, with critical implications for emotional health. During this
stage, youth, especially girls, are exposed to increasing stress and show heightened emotional sensitivity,
particularly within social contexts. Some adolescents may not yet have developed effective regulatory
strategies, leading to difficulties managing these more intense emotions and consequent maladaptive health
outcomes. Such health issues inhibit the ability of adolescents to reach their potential and create a significant
societal burden. However, recent models of adolescent brain development highlight the potential for cognitive
flexibility and growth during this period of rapid change. Given these potential risks and resources of
adolescence, significant scientific and practical advances can be made by identifying individual differences that
predict healthy vs. unhealthy emotional functioning during this stage. This research seeks to identify one
psychological factor, mindsets about emotion, that may contribute to adolescent emotional risk or resilience.
The guiding scientific premise for this research is that a growth emotion mindset (GEM) will promote adaptive
emotion processing (EP), whereas a fixed emotion mindset (FEM) will disrupt EP. Because stress exposure
and emotional sensitivity are particularly salient in adolescent girls, the research will focus on this group. Using
an experimental design, girls scoring high on a FEM will be randomly assigned to either a mindset
manipulation or a control group (brain education). Each group will complete a 25-minute computer-based
lesson followed by a social stressor and an fMRI session that includes resting state, an emotional challenge,
and a task assessing cognitive control within an emotional context. Two specific aims will be addressed: (1) to
determine whether a laboratory-induced GEM, relative to a FEM, predicts more adaptive EP at the neural,
behavioral, and psychological levels of processing; and (2) to determine whether neural processing of emotion
accounts for the effect of a GEM manipulation on behavioral and psychological processing of emotion.
Integrating across the fields of developmental psychology and social affective neuroscience, this exploratory
proof-of-concept research will provide insight into the influence of mindsets on multiple levels of EP, a key step
to refining theories of adolescent emotional development and furthering basic science efforts to understand
cognition-emotion interactions during adolescence. This study builds on a strong empirical database
establishing the effect of mindsets on multiple domains of functioning but will be the first to examine the
implications of a growth vs. fixed mindset about emotion for EP in adolescent girls, thereby elucidating one
specific youth attribute that can support or disrupt emotional development. More broadly, this line of research
can yield clear and compelling implications for policy ...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9987347
- **Project number:** 5R21HD097537-02
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN
- **Principal Investigator:** KAREN D RUDOLPH
- **Activity code:** R21 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $188,919
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2019-08-01 → 2023-07-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9987347

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9987347, Effect of Emotion Mindsets on Emotion Processing: A Multilevel Experimental Investigation (5R21HD097537-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9987347. Licensed CC0.

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