The Social Regulation of Emotion and Updating Negative Contents of Working Memory Luis E. Flores Jr. VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine Howard Berenbaum University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign The social regulation of emotion reduces negative affect and may also help remove negative contents from working memory. The present studies investigated whether the social regulation of emotion (in the form of handholding) altered the ability to update negative contents from working memory and whether a person’s level of desired emotional closeness moderated this effect. In each of 2 studies, an unselected sample of undergraduate students completed an emotional working memory task that measured the ability to remove irrelevant information from working memory and a self-report questionnaire measuring their level of desired emotional closeness. In Study 1 (N = 109), the task consisted only of negative images, and each participant performed half of the task while holding someone’s hand and the other half while not holding someone’s hand. Study 2 (N = 195) included a few changes (e.g., using both negative and neutral images, altering the control condition to consist of holding a stress ball, using a between- participants design, measuring comfort with handholding) to address a few potential alternative expla- nations. Overall, there appeared to be a better ability to update negative contents of working memory in the handholding condition of each study than the control condition among people with high desired emotional closeness but not among people with low desired emotional closeness. The present findings provide evidence that the social regulation of emotion can facilitate the removal of irrelevant negative contents of working memory. This process may be one way in which supportive relationships protect against psychological distress. Keywords: social regulation of emotion, working memory, updating, interpersonal, emotional closeness Supplemental materials: http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/emo0000265.supp Negative events are part of everyday life. Not being able to remove these negative events from working memory once the event is no longer relevant has been found to be associated with maladaptive outcomes (Joormann & Gotlib, 2008). Considering the importance of interpersonal relationships in handling stressors (Cohen, Gottlieb, & Underwood, 2000), the present research in- vestigated whether the social regulation of emotion promotes the removal of negative contents from working memory. Emotion and Working Memory Emotion has been found to influence working memory, which is an executive function characterized as having a limited capacity to temporarily hold information for the purpose of performing a variety of other complex cognitive functions (Baddeley, 2003). One way that emotions influence working memory is by impairing working memory performance for neutral information when an individual is in a negative mood (Cheng & Holyoak, 1985; Mitch- ell & Phillips, 2007; Spies et al., 1996). The effect of emotional contents on working memory performance, however, has been mixed (Kensinger & Corkin, 2003; Levens & Phelps, 2008; Lind- ström & Bohlin, 2011). Overall, emotion appears to hamper work- ing memory performance if attention needs to be given to non- emotional details, but may improve working memory performance if attention needs to be given to the emotional details (Vuilleumier, 2005). Though the ability to hold information in working memory is valuable, so is the ability to remove information that is no longer important. The purpose of temporarily holding information in working memory is to have it available for a task at hand; thus, it is not necessary to maintain irrelevant information active in work- ing memory (Hasher, Zacks, & May, 1999). In addition, having This article was published Online First December 12, 2016. Luis E. Flores, Jr., VISN 4 Mental Illness Research, Education and Clinical Center (MIRECC), VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and Department of Psychiatry, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine; Howard Berenbaum, Department of Psychology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. We thank Aaron Benjamin, Chris Fraley, Paul Gold, Wendy Heller, and Donna Korol for their invaluable feedback throughout this project. We would also like to thank the research assistants whose hard work and dedication made this study possible. This material is partially the result of work supported with resources and the use of facilities at the VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System. The contents of this paper do not represent the views of the U. S. Department of Veterans Affairs or the United States Govern- ment. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Luis E. Flores, Jr., VISN 4 Mental Illness Research, Education and Clinical Cente, VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System, MIRECC—Research Office Building (151R), University Drive C, Pittsburgh, PA 15240. E-mail: floresle@ pitt.edu Emotion In the public domain 2017, Vol. 17, No. 4, 577–588 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/emo0000265 577