Cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression: Links to racial-ethnic discrimination and adjustment among Latino/a and Asian-heritage college students.
We examined whether two key emotion regulation strategies, cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression, moderated the relations between discrimination (i.e., foreigner objectification and general denigration) and adjustment.



Participants were U.S. Latino/a and Asian-heritage college students (N = 1,279, 67% female, 72% U.S. born) from the Multi-Site University Study of Identity and Culture (MUSIC). Students completed online self-report surveys in 2009.



Multi-group path analysis demonstrated that a fully constrained model fit well for both Latino/a and Asian-heritage student data. The results showed that with increasing levels of denigration (but not foreigner objectification), the combination of lower cognitive reappraisal and higher expressive suppression was related to greater depressive symptoms, anxiety, and aggression.



Our findings highlight the importance of examining multiple emotion regulation strategies simultaneously-considering what strategies are available to individuals and in what combination they are used-to understand how best to deal with negative emotions resulting from experiencing discrimination.
University of Potsdam, Germany. Electronic address: juang@uni-potsdam.de.
Linda P
LP
Juang
University of Potsdam, Germany.
Ursula
U
Moffitt
University of Texas at Austin, USA.
Su Yeong
SY
Kim
University of Minnesota, USA.
Richard M
RM
Lee
The Pennsylvania State University, USA.
José Angel
JA
Soto
Pomona College, USA.
Eric
E
Hurley
California State University, Monterey Bay, USA.
Robert S
RS
Weisskirch
University of California at Davis, USA.
Shelley A
SA
Blozis
Texas A&M University, USA.
Linda G
LG
Castillo
California State University, Northridge, USA.
Que-Lam
QL
Huynh
University of Massachusetts, USA.
Susan Krauss
SK
Whitbourne
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000374:Aggression / Q000523:psychology; D001007:Anxiety / Q000523:psychology; D001213:Asian / Q000523:psychology* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D003863:Depression / Q000523:psychology; D000066498:Emotional Adjustment; D005260:Female; D006630:Hispanic or Latino / Q000523:psychology* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D063505:Racism / Q000523:psychology*; D057566:Self Report; D013334:Students / Q000523:psychology / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014495:Universities; D055815:Young Adult
Asian American; College students; Discrimination; Emotion regulation; Latino/a