Research paper · RP06

Name It to Tame It, Tested

Stuck on a stalled local train, an analyst types one word into her notes app: “dread”. This paper asks whether naming a feeling does any measurable work on its intensity. Across six extractable laboratory experiments in non-clinical adults (N = 261), affect labelling reduced self-reported intensity of high-arousal negative affect by Hedges g = 0.41 (95% CI 0.29 to 0.54) relative to watching without a label. The random-effects (REML) model showed I² = 0% and τ² = 0 on this restricted set. Leave-one-out estimates ranged from g = 0.39 to 0.48. Physiological outcomes were synthesised separately and were not forced into one number. Skin-conductance and amygdala studies more often showed downregulation than did self-report in applied exposure paradigms. In two analogue-fear trials, the body quietened and the rating did not. Emotional granularity could not be tested as a pooled moderator. No eligible trial crossed a granularity measure with a labelling-versus-control contrast on intensity. First-versus-second language of labelling was also untested. One experiment found a reversal at low intensity: labelling a mild aversive picture increased distress. Field evidence is thin. One large observational Twitter study showed a sharp valence reversal after people wrote “I feel…”. No randomised Indian trial was found. Certainty is low to moderate for laboratory self-report, moderate for the replicated amygdala pattern, and very low for granularity and language moderators. The practical reading for an Indian workplace programme is modest and conditional. A short, specific label is a countable daily rep for strong unpleasant affect. It is not a guarantee, not a session, and not a substitute for other skills. People often predict that naming will make the feeling worse. In the high-arousal laboratory tasks reviewed here, the rating usually moved the other way.