title: Convergence in feeling, divergence in physiology: How culture influences the consequences of disgust suppression and amplification among European Americans and Asian Americans.
abstract: Much empirical work documents the downsides of suppressing emotions. Emerging research points to the need for a more sophisticated and culturally informed approach to understanding the consequences of emotion regulation. To that end, we employed behavioral, self-report, and psychophysiological measures to examine the consequences of two types of emotion regulation (suppression and amplification) in a sample of 28 Asian Americans and 31 European Americans. Participants were shown a neutral film and then a series of disgust-eliciting films during which they were asked to regulate their response by suppressing or amplifying their emotional behavior (counterbalanced). Despite self-reporting equal levels of disgust, European Americans showed greater skin conductance reactivity than Asian Americans in both regulation conditions, but not in response to a neutral film. These findings extend work on divergence in the consequences of emotion regulation across different cultural groups, which could help identify optimal emotion regulation strategies for health and well-being.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania, USA.
authors.forename: José A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Soto
authors.affiliation: Office of Organizational Effectiveness, Central Washington University, Ellensburg, Washington, USA.
authors.forename: Elizabeth A
authors.initials: EA
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.affiliation: School of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Arizona State University, Phoenix, Arizona, USA.
authors.forename: Nicole A
authors.initials: NA
authors.lastname: Roberts
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001213:Asian; D044466:Asian People / Q000208:ethnology*; D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D005712:Galvanic Skin Response / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D000068356:Self-Control / Q000523:psychology*; D014481:United States / Q000208:ethnology; D044465:White People / Q000208:ethnology*; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Amplification; Asian Americans; Cultural differences; Emotion regulation; Psychophysiology; Suppression