title: The Sex Differences in Regulating Unpleasant Emotion by Expressive Suppression: Extraversion Matters.
abstract: Males are known for more suppression of emotional displays than females. However, when the emotion regulation effect of expressive suppression is greater in males, and how this sex difference varies with emotion display-related personality (e.g., extraversion), are undetermined. Event-related potentials were recorded while male and female participants different in extraversion were required to attend to or suppress emotional expression to negative pictures. Sex and extraversion did not modulate self-reported emotional experience. However, late positive potential (LPP) amplitudes showed an extraversion-moderated sex difference in the 2000-3000 ms and the 3000-4000 ms time epochs. LPP amplitudes were decreased during suppression versus viewing conditions in ambivert males, while this effect was absent in ambivert females. However, the LPP amplitudes of extraverts were similar for suppression and viewing conditions, irrespective of sex and timing. Regardless of early, middle, or late time windows, LPP amplitudes were positively related to self-reported emotion. These results suggest a male advantage for using expressive suppression for emotion regulation in non-extraverted, ambivert individuals.
authors.affiliation: The Laboratory for Affect Cognition and Regulation, Key Laboratory of Cognition and Personality of Ministry of Education, Faculty of Psychology, Southwest UniversityChongqing, China; School of Psychology, Southwest UniversityChongqing, China.
authors.forename: Ayan
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Cai
authors.affiliation: The Laboratory for Affect Cognition and Regulation, Key Laboratory of Cognition and Personality of Ministry of Education, Faculty of Psychology, Southwest UniversityChongqing, China; School of Psychology, Southwest UniversityChongqing, China.
authors.forename: Yixue
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Lou
authors.affiliation: The Laboratory for Affect Cognition and Regulation, Key Laboratory of Cognition and Personality of Ministry of Education, Faculty of Psychology, Southwest UniversityChongqing, China; School of Psychology, Southwest UniversityChongqing, China.
authors.forename: Quanshan
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Long
authors.affiliation: The Laboratory for Affect Cognition and Regulation, Key Laboratory of Cognition and Personality of Ministry of Education, Faculty of Psychology, Southwest UniversityChongqing, China; School of Psychology, Southwest UniversityChongqing, China.
authors.forename: Jiajin
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Yuan
keywords: event-related potentials; expressive suppression; extraversion; late positive potentials; sex difference