Our ability to put the brakes on impulsive actions may be more fragile than we realise, particularly when emotions come into play. A new systematic review has shown that emotional stimuli, whether positive or negative, can significantly interfere with response inhibition, the cognitive process that allows us to suppress inappropriate or unwanted behaviours.
The review, published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology, examined 93 peer-reviewed studies involving over 3,400 healthy adults. It focused on how emotions influence performance in two widely used cognitive tasks: the Go/No-Go (GNG) and the Stop-Signal Task (SST). Both are designed to measure response inhibition, but they differ in approach. GNG requires individuals to withhold a response, while SST asks them to cancel an already initiated action.
The analysis found that emotional stimuli do affect response inhibition in around 60 percent of the studies. Interestingly, the emotional quality (or valence) of the stimuli mattered more than how intense or arousing they were. For example, stimuli with a more positive emotional tone were more likely to disrupt a person’s ability to stop their actions than those that were negative or neutral. This contradicts a common assumption that negative emotions, such as fear or anger, would be more disruptive.
That said, the relationship between emotion and inhibition was not straightforward. Some studies showed that high arousal made inhibition harder, while others suggested the opposite. The type of task also mattered. Emotional effects were more reliably observed in SST tasks than in GNG tasks, possibly because SSTs offer more precise measurement of inhibitory timing.
Another key factor was whether the emotional content was relevant to the task. When participants had to respond directly to emotional features – such as identifying happy or angry faces – emotions had a stronger impact on their ability to inhibit responses. This suggests that attention to emotional detail amplifies its disruptive effect.
The findings support the idea that different types of emotions, even those with similar levels of valence and arousal, can have distinct effects on our ability to control behaviour. This points to the relevance of discrete emotion theories, which argue that emotions like fear or joy affect the brain in unique ways, beyond general categories like “positive” or “negative”.
Researchers concluded that response inhibition is not solely determined by cognitive control mechanisms, but is also shaped by a complex interaction of emotional factors, task design, and individual traits. They called for future studies to take into account not just valence and arousal, but also task relevance and the type of emotional stimuli used.
Understanding how emotions interfere with inhibition has implications beyond laboratory settings. From decision-making in high-stress environments to impulse control in everyday life, the findings shed light on why we sometimes fail to stop ourselves, even when we know we should.
