# Large Language Models are Capable of Offering Cognitive Reappraisal, if Guided

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2404.01288 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.01288/

## Key facts

- Cited by 13 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 31 of its 79 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 1 Apr 2024.

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 31)

- [Llama 2: Open Foundation and Fine-Tuned Chat Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.09288/) (2023)
- [Chain-of-Thought Prompting Elicits Reasoning in Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2201.11903/) (2022)
- [ReAct: Synergizing Reasoning and Acting in Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.03629/) (2022)
- [BERTScore: Evaluating Text Generation with BERT](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1904.09675/) (2019)
- [Self-Refine: Iterative Refinement with Self-Feedback](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.17651/) (2023)
- [G-Eval: NLG Evaluation using GPT-4 with Better Human Alignment](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.16634/) (2023)
- [Survey of Hallucination in Natural Language Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2202.03629/) (2022)
- [Instruction-Following Evaluation for Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.07911/) (2023)
- [A Multitask, Multilingual, Multimodal Evaluation of ChatGPT on Reasoning, Hallucination, and Interactivity](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.04023/) (2023)
- [HaluEval: A Large-Scale Hallucination Evaluation Benchmark for Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.11747/) (2023)
- [Towards Emotional Support Dialog Systems](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.01144/) (2021)
- [A Long Way to Go: Investigating Length Correlations in RLHF](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.03716/) (2023)
- [Do Large Language Models Latently Perform Multi-Hop Reasoning?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.16837/) (2024)
- [LLM-Eval: Unified Multi-Dimensional Automatic Evaluation for Open-Domain Conversations with Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.13711/) (2023)
- [MISC: A MIxed Strategy-Aware Model Integrating COMET for Emotional Support Conversation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.13560/) (2022)
- [AugESC: Dialogue Augmentation with Large Language Models for Emotional Support Conversation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2202.13047/) (2022)
- [Cognitive Reframing of Negative Thoughts through Human-Language Model Interaction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.02466/) (2023)
- [Human-AI Collaboration Enables More Empathic Conversations in Text-based Peer-to-Peer Mental Health Support](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.15144/) (2022)
- [Improving Multi-turn Emotional Support Dialogue Generation with Lookahead Strategy Planning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.04242/) (2022)
- [minicons: Enabling Flexible Behavioral and Representational Analyses of Transformer Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.13112/) (2022)
- [Control Globally, Understand Locally: A Global-to-Local Hierarchical Graph Network for Emotional Support Conversation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2204.12749/) (2022)
- [HealMe: Harnessing Cognitive Reframing in Large Language Models for Psychotherapy](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.05574/) (2024)
- [PAL: Persona-Augmented Emotional Support Conversation Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.09235/) (2022)
- [Large Language Models Produce Responses Perceived to be Empathic](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.18148/) (2024)
- [Inducing Positive Perspectives with Text Reframing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2204.02952/) (2022)
- [Training Models to Generate, Recognize, and Reframe Unhelpful Thoughts](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.02768/) (2023)
- [Modeling emotion in complex stories: the Stanford Emotional Narratives Dataset](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1912.05008/) (2019)
- [Facilitating Multi-turn Emotional Support Conversation with Positive Emotion Elicitation: A Reinforcement Learning Approach](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.07994/) (2023)
- [Evaluating Subjective Cognitive Appraisals of Emotions from Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.14389/) (2023)
- [Why Do You Feel This Way? Summarizing Triggers of Emotions in Social Media Posts](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.12531/) (2022)

## Built on by (most cited first, 13 of 13)

- [Expressing stigma and inappropriate responses prevents LLMs from safely replacing mental health providers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.18412/) (2025)
- [Human-like Affective Cognition in Foundation Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.11733/) (2024)
- [A Survey of Large Language Models in Psychotherapy: Current Landscape and Future Directions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.11095/) (2025)
- [GPT-ology, Computational Models, Silicon Sampling: How should we think about LLMs in Cognitive Science?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.09464/) (2024)
- [SPRI: Aligning Large Language Models with Context-Situated Principles](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.03397/) (2025)
- [Tailored Emotional LLM-Supporter: Enhancing Cultural Sensitivity](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.07902/) (2025)
- [Modeling Subjectivity in Cognitive Appraisal with Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.11381/) (2025)
- [A Generic Review of Integrating Artificial Intelligence in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.19422/) (2024)
- [Does "Reasoning" with Large Language Models Improve Recognizing, Generating, and Reframing Unhelpful Thoughts?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.00163/) (2025)
- [Discourse Diversity in Multi-Turn Empathic Dialogue](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.11742/) (2026)
- [Visually grounded emotion regulation via diffusion models and user-driven reappraisal](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.10861/) (2025)
- [Signs of Struggle: Spotting Cognitive Distortions across Language and Register](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.20771/) (2025)
- [From Momentary Emotion Inference to Sustained Emotion Support: Evaluating a Companion Agent in a Longitudinal Study](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.16344/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Large language models (LLMs) have offered new opportunities for emotional support, and recent work has shown that they can produce empathic responses to people in distress. However, long-term mental well-being requires emotional self-regulation, where a one-time empathic response falls short. This work takes a first step by engaging with cognitive reappraisals, a strategy from psychology practitioners that uses language to targetedly change negative appraisals that an individual makes of the situation; such appraisals is known to sit at the root of human emotional experience. We hypothesize that psychologically grounded principles could enable such advanced psychology capabilities in LLMs, and design RESORT which consists of a series of reappraisal constitutions across multiple dimensions that can be used as LLM instructions. We conduct a first-of-its-kind expert evaluation (by clinical psychologists with M.S. or Ph.D. degrees) of an LLM's zero-shot ability to generate cognitive reappraisal responses to medium-length social media messages asking for support. This fine-grained evaluation showed that even LLMs at the 7B scale guided by RESORT are capable of generating empathic responses that can help users reappraise their situations.