Dealing with failure: Prefrontal asymmetry predicts affective recovery and cognitive performance

Individuals differ in how they deal with their emotions after failure. While some stay in a negative mood for hours, others recover quickly. The present study investigates whether prefrontal alpha asymmetry (PFA) influences affective recovery and cognitive performance following failure. Forty-seven participants completed two mental rotation tasks separated by a short break and received negative feedback on their performance. Electroencephalographic (EEG) data was collected before the first task and affective and cognitive changes were tracked using visual analogue scales throughout the experiment. In participants that felt upset, higher right-hemispheric PFA was associated with a persistence of negative affect. These participants showed poor performance on the second task. The findings suggest that PFA is a vulnerability factor that prevents individuals from regaining their initial affective state and impairs their cognitive performance.