Cultural Differences in Interpersonal Emotion Regulation.

Area of Science:

• Psychology
• Cross-cultural psychology
• Affective science

Background:

• Emotion regulation (ER) strategies differ across cultures, with a focus on intrapersonal methods.
• Interpersonal ER, using social cues, is gaining attention for its role in emotional regulation.
• Collectivistic cultures, like East Asian societies, may benefit more from interpersonal ER due to high social interconnectedness.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the effectiveness of interpersonal versus intrapersonal ER strategies in East Asian and Western European participants.
• To examine cultural differences in the use and impact of various ER strategies.

Main Methods:

• Randomly assigned East Asian (n=48) and Western European (n=38) participants to interpersonal or intrapersonal ER priming.
• Measured heart rate (HR), heart rate variability (HF-HRV), and subjective affect during an emotion reactivity task.
• Assessed daily use of ER strategies and self-construal.

Main Results:

• East Asians reported higher daily use of social modeling and perspective taking.
• During interpersonal priming, East Asians showed elevated HF-HRV, indicating adaptive ER, but this was not sustained.
• East Asians exhibited increased HF-HRV and decreased HR across both conditions, alongside greater decreases in positive affect.

Conclusions:

• Interpersonal ER strategies may be more beneficial for East Asian groups in immediate stressful situations due to cultural congruence.
• Priming methodology might have limited the observation of longer-term benefits of ER strategies.
• Individual differences in social modeling and self-construal moderated ER prime effects in East Asians.