Abstract: Multiple studies suggest objective affect labeling can dampen affect-related responses, for example, the affect-related responses of participants were lower during labeling the emotional faces compared to control condition. However, there have dissimilar opinions about the effect of subjective affect labeling(i.e., labeling ones own emotion) on affect-related respondes. The present study used positive and negative emotional faces as experimental materials, with happy emotional face images as positive stimuli and sad emotional face images as negative stimuli. Half of these faces were male, and half were female. The research used a 3 (labeling types)×2 (emotion types) experimental design, in which there were three levels of labeling types:subjective affect labeling, objective affect labeling and gender labeling. And emotion types had two levels:sad and happiness. In the Experiment, the objective affect labeling condition referred to observing the facial emotion expressed in the description given below the face, and then selecting the appropriate word (angry or happy). Subjective affect labeling refers to observing the face pictures, and then selecting the appropriate word (angry or happy) accoding to the feeling of the paticipant. Gender labeling refers to observing the face pictures, and then choosing the right words for the face's gender (Li Na or Zhang Tao). If the subject believed the face images are men, they should choose the marked word "Zhang Tao", or "Li Na" if they believe the images are women. The results show that:the amplitudes of objective affect labeling in the LPP were lower, compared with gender labeling, regardless of positive emotion or negative emotion.

Key words: subjective affect labeling, objective affect labeling, gender labeling