Robust evidence suggests that motivation increases both cognitive effort and memory encoding.
Despite growing recognition that emotion regulation may be a motivated process, motivational
effects on the cognitive mechanisms underlying emotion regulation and subsequent memory for
encountered stimuli remain largely uncharacterized. We manipulated extrinsic and intrinsic
motivation to down-regulate negative affect in an emotion regulation paradigm including
emotional and neutral stimuli. Participants were trained in two regulation strategies (cognitive
reappraisal and distraction) and reported trial-by-trial strategy use. Both extrinsic and intrinsic
motivation were associated with decreased negative affect and a shift in regulation strategy use.
Specifically, use of reappraisal (a cognitively effortful strategy) increased with motivation. 24-
hour recognition memory for presented stimuli was modulated by both emotional content and
motivation condition. These findings suggest that interacting motivational and cognitive
processes during emotion regulation can adaptively shape subsequent memory for the
encountered stimuli, with implications for both cognitive and clinical science.