Le L, et al. - The emotional (negative affect) and physiological (skin conductance levels) effects of emotion regulation following exposure to controllable vs uncontrollable stress were investigated. Researchers made 95 undergraduate students to complete measures assessing anxiety, and randomly assigned them to a condition in which they had (a) control or (b) no control over the viewing duration of distressing film clips, and then instructed them to either (a) cognitively reappraise or (b) ruminate about the clips. Observations suggested smaller increases in distress with cognitive reappraisal (CR) than rumination. This difference was evident regardless of stressor controllability condition. They observed CR as efficacious after uncontrollable stress only in low anxious individuals. Contextual factors such as stressor controllability, and individual differences in psychological symptoms were seemed to influence the utility of emotion regulation strategies.