Cultural and Age Differences in Emotion Regulation in Coping with Stressors

• In Event: Cultural Influences on Children’s Coping with Everyday Stressors

Abstract

Cross-cultural research on emotion regulation in coping with stressors has yielded mixed findings. Research indicates that European-Americans focus on emotional components of problems and value self-expression, whereas East Asians focus on practical components of problems and avoid explicit discussion of emotion (Chen et al., 2012; Ishii et al., 2017; Taylor et al., 2004). These cross-cultural differences have been interpreted as resulting from European-Americans being emotionally expressive and East Asians suppressing their emotions (Kim et al., 2011). However, recent work has shown that East Asians regulate their emotions in ways that differ from those found among European-Americans (Ma, Tamir & Miyamoto, 2018). Whereas European-Americans up-regulate their emotions to promote positive feelings, East-Asians savor negative emotions to motivate problem-solving. However, past cross-cultural research has not directly compared emotion regulation in coping with real-life emotional as compared with practical stressors, and has not assessed cultural influences on the development of everyday emotion regulation.
In a two-study investigation that included subgroups of identical sample size, we examined coping strategies adopted by adults and children from the US and China. Assessing coping with real-life stressors, Study 1 (N = 166) asked European-American and Chinese adults (Mage = 21.9) to describe the way they dealt with their personal problems. Investigating the developmental emergence of coping strategies, Study 2 (N =40) asked American and Chinese adults (Mage = 26.5) and 7-9-year-old children to narrate stories addressing emotional vs practical problems, based on story stem beginnings that we provided to them. These story stems were based on real-life children’s storybooks found in each culture.
Study 1 revealed cultural differences in the priority given to emotional regulation vs problem solving in coping with everyday stressors (see Figure 1). Whereas European-Americans considered addressing the emotional aspects of personal stressors (M = 4.80) more important than addressing the practical aspects (M = 4.24, p = .008), Chinese considered addressing emotional and practical aspects of stressors as equally important (p = .145). Notably, adults from both cultures reported their problems as being resolved equally well (p = .500).
Preliminary analysis of the open-ended data from Study 2 revealed age-related cultural difference in coping (Table 1). Among both children and adults, Chinese mentioned negative emotions more frequently in the stories they generated than did European-Americans. Although no cultural difference occurred in mentioning positive emotions among children, European-American adults mentioned positive emotions more frequently than did Chinese adults. Across all age groups, self-initiated coping was mentioned more frequently by European-Americans than by Chinese in the practical story but was mentioned more frequently by Chinese in the emotional story (p = .049). Whereas European-American adults reported less self-regulation of emotion than did children, Chinese adults reported more self-regulation of emotion than did children.
Across the two studies, we showed that, rather than suppressing their feelings, Chinese are comfortable discussing their negative emotions to a greater extent than are European-Americans. Chinese culture also supports children’s autonomous self-regulation of negative emotions more than does American culture, which downplays negative emotions in its emphasis on positivity.

Authors

• ZHENLAN WANG, Yale University
  Presenting Author

• Xin Alice Zhao, East China Normal University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Joan G Miller, New School for Social Research
  Non-Presenting Author