Emotion Control Values and Responding to an Anger Provocation inAsian-American and European-American Individuals

How to Capture the Rage? Development and Validation of a State-Trait Anger Scale

Our research seeks to contribute to the existing literature on emotion measurement and research by proposing a new anger metric that addresses limitations of previous scales. This metric shows promise in meeting modern standards and drawing from traditional methods, potentially impacting the study of emotions. Additionally, our study explores cross-cultural congruence in assessing anger between English and German speakers, revealing differences in state and trait anger assessment. We offer theoretical perspectives on these cultural variances and emphasize the importance of considering language nuances in cross-cultural emotion assessment. Furthermore, our research delves into the relationship between anger and other emotions within an affective space, suggesting support for the notion that emotions are composite constructs consisting of valence and activation. We also discuss alternative theoretical perspectives on emotion construction to enhance our understanding. Additionally, our study examines the intricate relationship between anger and different forms of aggression, highlighting the association between anger and various aggressive behaviors in work settings. Our findings underscore the influence of personal traits and situational factors on experiences of anger and aggression, offering insights into the relationships between emotional states, traits, and behavior.

Emotion beliefs: conceptual review and compendium

Laypeople hold richly divergent beliefs about emotion, and these beliefs are consequential. Specific forms of belief that have been investigated include the usefulness, contagiousness, duration, dependence upon intersubjective experience, cognitively mediated properties, malleability, and hindering properties of emotion, just to name a few. Progress in this emerging sub-field of research has been hampered by the lack of a widely accepted definition of emotion belief able to capture all of these dimensions. Correspondingly, there has been a proliferation of different terminologies, constructs, and measures. The present review aims to address these obstacles by defining emotion belief, and subsequently re-considering existing constructs and measures that align with this definition. The latter is presented in the form of a comprehensive compendium of 21 different constructs and associated self-report measures that assess varying components of one's beliefs about emotions in general and/or about their own emotions, and an additional 5 scales that were designed to measure one's beliefs about another's emotions. From the more unified conceptualization of emotion belief presented here, critical areas of future research are highlighted.

Shame and anger differentially predict disidentification between collectivistic and individualistic societies

In the present research we tested the differential effects of anger versus shame as emotional predictors of ingroup disidentification in one rather collectivistic (Japan) and two rather individualistic societies (Germany, Canada). We tested the idea that individuals cope with socially undesired emotions by disidentifying from their group. Specifically, we predicted that after a group conflict, anger, an undesired emotion in Japan, would elicit disidentification in Japan, whereas shame, an undesired emotion in Canada and Germany, would elicit disidentification in Germany and Canada. Study 1 (N = 378) found that anger, but not shame, was related to disidentification in Japan, whereas shame, but not anger, was related to disidentification in Canada and Germany. Study 2 (N = 171) shows that, after group conflict, Japanese disidentified more when imagining to feel angry, whereas Germans disidentified more when imagining to feel ashamed. Implications for these findings are discussed.

Lay perspectives on emotion: past, present, and future research directions

Empirical research has demonstrated that individuals vary widely in how they view their emotions. We call the viewpoints that individuals have towards their emotions emotion perspectives. While many subdisciplines of psychology, such as social psychology and clinical psychology, have studied this topic, research thus far can be siloed, despite overlap in terms and constructs. The goal of the current special issue and this introduction is to describe the state of research on emotion perspectives, highlight common themes in streams of emotion perspective research, and present future directions for investigation. The first portion of this introduction to the special issue provides a basic review of emotion perspective research, spotlighting topics such as emotion beliefs, emotion mindsets, lay theories of emotion, and attitudes toward emotion. The second portion of the introduction presents themes that cut across papers in the special issue, with a discussion of future research directions throughout. The goal of this introduction and special issue is to serve as a guide for greater integration in emotion perspective research and to provide a roadmap for emotion perspective research moving forward.

Individual differences in social power: Links with beliefs about emotion and emotion regulation

OBJECTIVE

People differ in how they regulate their emotions, and how they do so is guided by their beliefs about emotion. We propose that social power-one's perceived influence over others-relates to one's beliefs about emotion and to emotion regulation. More powerful people are characterized as authentic and uninhibited, which should translate to the belief that one should not have to control one's emotions and, in turn, less suppression and more acceptance. More powerful people are also characterized as self-efficacious and confident, which should translate to the belief that one can control one's emotions and, in turn, more reappraisal and acceptance.

METHOD

Two preregistered studies using four samples (Ntotal  = 1286) tested these hypotheses using cross-sectional and longitudinal surveys as well as diaries.

RESULTS

In Study 1, power related to beliefs about emotion and emotion regulation in hypothesized ways. Study 2 also largely supported the hypotheses: The belief that one should not have to control one's emotions accounted for the links between power and suppression and acceptance, whereas the belief that one can control one's emotions accounted for the link between power and reappraisal.

CONCLUSION

Power and emotion regulation are interconnected, in part because of their links with beliefs about emotions.

Beyond the language barrier: A systematic review of selective mutism in culturally and linguistically diverse children

Selective mutism is a childhood psychiatric disorder that has been associated with adverse psychological, social and educational outcomes. Although evidence suggests that culturally and linguistically diverse children might be overrepresented among children with selective mutism, a direct examination of how migration or minority status are associated with the development and persistence of the disorder is still scarce. Guided by eco-cultural perspectives of development, the current review aims to provide an overview of selective mutism in culturally and linguistically diverse children. A systematic literature review of selective mutism studies that included a group of culturally and linguistically diverse children yielded eight studies that met our inclusion criteria. Although these studies support the view that bilingualism and minority status might be associated with selective mutism, the role of sociocultural factors in the development and persistence of the disorder remained mostly unexamined. The review concludes with a discussion of potential directions for future research, including examination of the cultural and psychological meanings of silence and talk, socialization goals, gender inequality, and parental acculturation strategies.

Coping and post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms among Chinese youth in the peak and remission periods of COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed emergent vulnerability to adolescents' mental health. This longitudinal study investigated the association between coping at the peak of the COVID outbreak (T1) and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) symptoms concurrently, and at the remission periods of COVID in China three months (T2) and six months (T3) later in a sample of 6th to 12th-grade students (N = 782). The results showed that forward-focus coping was negatively associated with PTSD symptoms across all three timepoints and predicted reduced risk for more PTSD symptoms at T2, and trauma-focus coping was positively associated with PTSD symptoms across all three timepoints and predicted higher risk of PTSD symptoms both at T2 and T3. There was an interaction effect of trauma-focus coping and T1 symptoms on later symptoms (T3) - trauma-focus coping was more detrimental for those who had more initial symptoms. The results showed the beneficial effects of future-oriented coping and harmful effects of trauma-focus coping for Chinese youth during the epidemic. Clinical implications of the results were discussed.

Links Between Emotion Regulation Strategies and Internalizing and Externalizing Problems in Chinese American Adolescents

Adolescents from immigrant families are at risk for psychological health issues due to acculturative stress and the marked increases in internalizing and externalizing problems accompanying adolescence. Emotion Regulation (ER) may be an important protective resource for these adolescents. The present study tested the links between ER and internalizing and externalizing problems in 131 first- and second-generation Chinese American adolescents. Adolescents' reappraisal was associated with less internalizing and externalizing problems; adolescents' suppression was associated with more internalizing and externalizing problems. These links were somewhat more pronounced in adolescents high in American cultural orientation as well as in adolescents low in Chinese cultural orientation. Our results advance our understanding of the links between ER and psychological health in Chinese American youth.

Investigating the associations between cognitive appraisals, emotion regulation and symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder among Asian American and European American trauma survivors

This study investigated whether the associations between emotion regulation and cognitive appraisals and symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) differ between Asian American and European American trauma survivors. Asian American (n = 103) and European American (n = 104) trauma survivors were recruited through mTurk and completed an on-line questionnaire assessing cognitive appraisals, emotion regulation and PTSD symptomatology. The European American group reported greater trauma-specific rumination, psychological inflexibility, seeking out others for comfort, and negative self-appraisals than the Asian American group. The Asian American group reported greater secondary control appraisals and cultural beliefs about adversity than the European American group. Second, cultural group moderated the associations between (a) brooding rumination, (b) fatalism, (c) self-blame, and (d) negative communal self-appraisals and PTSD symptoms. These associations were larger for the European American group than the Asian American group. Third, there was an indirect pathway from self-construal (independent and interdependent) to PTSD symptoms through certain emotion regulation approaches and cognitive appraisals. Additionally, cultural group was found to moderate several of these indirect effects. These findings highlight the importance of considering cultural background and cultural values in understanding the processes involved in PTSD. Further research in this area is needed.

Measurement Invariance of the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire for Children and Adolescents in Chinese and American Adolescents Samples

To establish the factor structure of the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire for Children and Adolescents (ERQ-CA) in Chinese and American adolescent samples; to assess measurement invariance of the ERQ-CA in Chinese and American adolescent samples and latent means across early adolescents from two diverse cultural settings. The ERQ-CA was administered to 1221 Chinese adolescents (49.3% males) and 1148 American adolescents (50.1% males), and multi-group confirmatory factor analysis was performed to evaluate measurement invariance.(1) Multi-group confirmatory factor analysis of the ERQ-CA demonstrated full configural invariance, full metric invariance, partial scalar invariance, and partial strict invariance. (2) The latent variable mean comparisons revealed significant differences between the two samples; specifically, Chinese adolescents’ mean scores on the latent variables of cognitive reappraisal (CR) and expressive suppression (ES) were significantly higher than American adolescents’ scores. The findings demonstrated that the ERQ-CA displays appropriate measurement invariance across Chinese and America adolescents and that Chinese adolescents reported higher scores on CR and ES.

The neural bases of expressive suppression: A systematic review of functional neuroimaging studies

Expressive suppression refers to the inhibition of emotion-expressive behavior (e.g., facial expressions of emotion). Although it is a commonly used emotion regulation strategy with well-documented consequences for well-being, little is known about its underlying mechanisms. In this systematic review, we for the first time synthesize functional neuroimaging studies on the neural bases of expressive suppression in non-clinical populations. The 12 studies included in this review contrasted the use of expressive suppression to simply watching emotional stimuli. Results showed that expressive suppression consistently increased activation of frontoparietal regions, especially the dorsolateral and ventrolateral prefrontal cortices and inferior parietal cortex, but decreased activation in temporo-occipital areas. Results regarding the involvement of the insula and amygdala were inconsistent with studies showing increased, decreased, or no changes in activation. These mixed findings underscore the importance of distinguishing expressive suppression from other forms of suppression and highlight the need to pay more attention to experimental design and neuroimaging data analysis procedures. We discuss these conceptual and methodological issues and provide suggestions for future research.

The New ICD-11 Prolonged Grief Disorder Guidelines in Japan: Findings and Implications from Key Informant Interviews

Prolonged grief disorder (PGD) is a new mental health disorder, recently introduced in the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11), World Health Organization Classification of Diseases (WHO). The new ICD-11 guidelines reflect an emerging wave of interest in the global applicability of mental disorders. However, the selection of diagnostic core features in different cultural contexts has yet to be determined. Currently, there is debate in the field over the global applicability of these guidelines. Using semi-structured interviews with 14 key informants, we explored the acceptability of ICD-11 guidelines for PGD according to Japanese health professionals as key informants. The interviews revealed symptoms of grief possibly missing in the ICD-11 PGD guidelines including somatization and concepts such as hole in the heart. Additionally, sociocultural barriers such as stigma and beliefs about the social desirability of emotions may challenge patients' and clinicians' acceptance of the new ICD-11 criteria.

Identifying the determinants of emotion regulation choice: a systematic review with meta-analysis

Day-to-day life is inundated with attempts to control emotions and a wealth of research has examined what strategies people use and how effective these strategies are. However, until more recently, research has often neglected more basic questions such as whether and how people choose to regulate their emotions (i.e. emotion regulation choice). In an effort to identify what we know and what we need to know, we systematically reviewed studies that examined potential determinants of whether and how people choose to regulate their emotions. Eighteen determinants were identified across 219 studies and were categorised as being affective, cognitive, motivational, individual or social-cultural in nature. Where there were sufficient primary studies, meta-analysis was used to quantify the size of the associations between potential determinants and measures of whether and how people choose to regulate their emotions. Based on the findings, we propose that people's decisions about whether and how to regulate their emotions are determined by factors relating to the individual doing the regulating, the emotion that is being regulated, and both the immediate situation and the broader social context in which the regulation is taking place.

Capturing emotion coherence in daily life: Using ambulatory physiology measures and ecological momentary assessments to examine within-person associations and individual differences

While emotion coherence has long been theorized to be a core feature of emotion, to date, studies examining response coherence have been conducted in laboratory settings. The present study used a combined approach of ambulatory physiology measures and ecological momentary assessment conducted over a 4-week period to examine the extent to which emotional experience and physiology show coherence in daily life within-persons; and whether individual differences in response coherence are associated with between-person differences in well-being, negative emotionality, and gender. Results revealed that, on average, individuals exhibited coherence between subjective experience and physiology of emotion, but that there was substantial between-person variation in coherence in daily life. Exploratory analyses revealed no credible link between levels of response coherence and well-being, negative emotionality, or gender. Findings contribute to the literature by demonstrating a novel methodological approach to measuring coherence in daily life and supporting the generalizability of coherence to ecologically valid contexts.

The Early Memories of Warmth and Safeness Scale: Dimensionality and Measurement Invariance

OBJECTIVES

Research has shown that rearing styles and early emotional memories, especially those related to feelings of threat or safeness, play a key role in subsequent emotional and social adjustment throughout the lifespan. Several authors have argued for the study of early memories of warmth and safeness rather than rearing styles. The Early Memories of Warmth and Safeness Scale (EMWSS) has proven to be a valid instrument to do so. This study adds to previous research about the EMWSS by investigating its dimensionality throughout confirmatory analysis procedures and its measurement invariance between male and females in an adult sample.

METHODS

A sample of 502 adults (51.2% female, Mean age = 36.46 years, SD = 13.79) recruited from a community sample in Portugal was collected. In addition to the EMWSS, participants completed measures of recall of parental rearing behavior, attachment, self-criticism, self-reassuring, self-compassion and psychopathology.

RESULTS

A one-factor measurement model revealed a good fit to the data and the instrument showed excellent internal consistency, with a Cronbach alpha of .96. The EMWSS also proved to be gender invariant. Regarding construct validity, the EMWSS was found to be associated with external variables in the expected direction.

LIMITATIONS

The convenience sample used might be not representative of the general population.

CONCLUSION

This work highlights the relevance of the EMWSS in helping to advance knowledge on how early memories of warmth and safeness impact on psychopathological outcomes, and of making it available for use in research and clinical settings.

Risk factors of severe prolonged grief disorder among individuals experiencing late-life bereavement in Japan: A qualitative study

This article explored how severe prolonged grief disorder (PGD) is associated with psychological and social variables using an interpretative phenomenological analysis. From a sample of 225 Japanese hospitalized adults with depression, seven participants were identified as having PGD based on their medical records and semi-structured interviews. Risk factors appeared to be psychological factors associated with the deceased (dependence on the deceased, feeling sorry for the deceased, intense self-blame, and infrequent expression of anger) and environmental factors (loneliness and isolation, lack of opportunity to determine separation, and release from practical burdens). These findings are discussed in relation to Japanese culture.

Maternal Attribution and Chinese Immigrant Children's Social Skills: The Mediating Role of Authoritative Parenting Practices

OBJECTIVE

This study explores the contributions of Chinese immigrant mothers' parenting cognitions and parenting practices to their children's social skills.

DESIGN

We used a cross-sectional design to examine the mediating role of authoritative parenting in associations between Chinese immigrant mothers' parenting attributions and their children's social skills. Chinese immigrant mothers (N = 208, M age = 37.36 years) reported their attributions regarding successes and failures in their daily caregiving experiences, authoritative parenting practices, and demographic information. Their preschool children's (M age = 4.51 years, 46.2% females) social skills in school were rated by their teachers.

RESULTS

Maternal attributions of successful events to uncontrollable causes and unsuccessful events to controllable causes were associated with more authoritative parenting. In turn, more authoritative parenting was associated with more competent social skills in children. In contrast, maternal attributions of successful events to controllable causes and unsuccessful events to uncontrollable causes were associated with less authoritative parenting, which in turn was associated with poorer social skills in children.

CONCLUSIONS

Promoting Chinese immigrant mothers' attributions that preserve positive efficacy during daily parenting tasks may enhance their engagement in warm, autonomy-promoting and regulatory parenting, which in turn may facilitate their children's social skills.

Cultural Differences in Perceptual Strategies Underlying Emotion Regulation

Cultural norms for the experience, expression, and regulation of emotion vary widely between individualistic and collectivistic cultures. Collectivistic cultures value conformity, social harmony, and social status hierarchies, which demand sensitivity and focus to broader social contexts, such that attention is directed to contextual emotion information to effectively function within constrained social roles and suppress incongruent personal emotions. By contrast, individualistic cultures valuing autonomy and personal aspirations are more likely to attend to central emotion information and to reappraise emotions to avoid negative emotional experience. Here we examined how culture affects perceptual strategies employed during emotion regulation, particularly during cognitive reappraisal and emotional suppression. Eye movements were measured while healthy young adult participants viewed negative International Affective Picture System (IAPS) images and regulated emotions by using either strategies of reappraisal (19 Asian American, 21 Caucasian American) or suppression (21 Asian American, 23 Caucasian American). After image viewing, participants rated how negative they felt as a measure of subjective emotional experience. Consistent with prior studies, reappraisers made lower negative valence ratings after regulating emotions than suppressers across both Asian American and Caucasian American groups. Although no cultural variation was observed in subjective emotional experience during emotion regulation, we found evidence of cultural variation in perceptual strategies used during emotion regulation. During middle and late time periods of emotional suppression, Asian American participants made significantly fewer fixations to emotionally salient areas than Caucasian American participants. These results indicate cultural variation in perceptual differences underlying emotional suppression, but not cognitive reappraisal.

Measurement Invariance of the Five Factor Model of Personality: Facet-Level Analyses Among Euro and Asian Americans

Relative to broad Big Five domains, personality facets provide incremental value in predicting life outcomes. Valid between-group comparisons of means and correlates of facet scores are contingent upon measurement invariance of personality measures. Research on culture and Big Five personality has been largely limited to cross-national comparisons of domains, without assessing measurement invariance across ethnoracial groups within the same country. Using the NEO Inventories, we tested facet-level measurement invariance between Euro (N = 418, 63.2% women, M_age = 18.43) and Asian Americans (N = 429, 56.6% women, M_age = 18.00). Multigroup exploratory factor analysis within a confirmatory factor analysis framework showed partial strong invariance. Assertiveness and activity did not load onto extraversion as strongly for Asian Americans. Self-consciousness showed a stronger cross-loading onto extraversion among Asian Americans than Euro Americans. Achievement striving, competence, warmth, tender-mindedness, and excitement seeking showed noninvariant intercepts across groups. Collectivistic values emphasizing interpersonal harmony and modesty should be considered when examining narrow and broad traits among Asian Americans.

Children's Emotion Knowledge and Internalizing Problems: The Moderating Role of Culture

This study examined in a cross-cultural context the prospective relation between children's emotion knowledge and internalizing problems. European American ( N = 33) and immigrant Chinese children ( N = 22) and their mothers participated. Children's emotion knowledge was assessed at three-and-a-half years of age using a task to elicit their understanding of situational antecedents of discrete emotions. Mothers reported on children's internalizing problems using the Behavior Assessment System Children (BASC) when children were seven years of age. The relation of children's emotion knowledge to internalizing problems was moderated by culture. Whereas early emotion knowledge was associated with decreased internalizing problems later on for European American children, it was associated with increased internalizing problems for immigrant Chinese children. The findings shed critical light on the different functional meanings of emotion knowledge across cultures.

Effects of Emotion Suppression on Life Satisfaction in Americans and Chinese

The present study aimed to uncover culturally different ways in which emotion suppression affects life satisfaction. To do so, we manipulated American and Hong Kong Chinese participants to perceive that they had suppressed their emotions to either a greater extent (high suppression) or a lesser extent (low suppression). In the control condition, there was no manipulation. Then, participants indicated how satisfied they were with their lives. We found that American participants reported lower life satisfaction in the high-suppression (vs. control) condition, but no difference was found between the low-suppression and the control condition, suggesting that high use of emotion suppression undermines Americans’ life satisfaction. In contrast, Hong Kong Chinese participants reported higher life satisfaction in the low-suppression (vs. control) condition, but no difference was found between the high-suppression and the control condition, suggesting that Hong Kong Chinese benefit from low use of emotion suppression. The implications of these findings are discussed.

Convergence in feeling, divergence in physiology: How culture influences the consequences of disgust suppression and amplification among European Americans and Asian Americans

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.

Adolescents' stigma attitudes toward internalizing and externalizing disorders: Cultural influences and implications for distress manifestations

OBJECTIVE

This study examined predictors of stigma attitudes toward common youth emotional behavioral problems to test the hypothesis that interdependent cultural values would be associated with differential stigma towards externalizing versus internalizing disorders. Furthermore, we examined whether problem-specific stigma attitudes would predict adolescent's own self-reported manifestations of distress.

METHOD

1224 Vietnamese American and European American adolescents completed measures of social distance stigma attitudes in response to vignettes depicting youth with internalizing (depression, social anxiety, somatization) and externalizing (alcohol use, aggressive behaviors, delinquency) disorders. A subset of 676 youth also provided self-reports on their own adjustment prospectively over six months.

RESULTS

Measurement models revealed clear separation of negatively correlated factors assessing stigma toward externalizing versus internalizing problems. Values related to family interdependence were significantly associated with greater tolerance of internalizing disorders and lower tolerance of externalizing disorders. Stigma towards internalizing disorders was associated with lower concurrent self-reported internalizing symptoms, whereas stigma towards externalizing symptoms was associated with lower concurrent externalizing symptoms and greater decreases in externalizing symptoms over time.

CONCLUSIONS

The results of the study suggest that stigma attitudes are differentiated by problem type and may represent one cultural factor shaping distress manifestations.

Culture and emotion regulation

While anthropological research has long emphasized cultural differences in whether emotions are viewed as beneficial versus harmful, psychological science has only recently begun to systematically examine those differences and their implications for emotion regulation and well-being. Underscoring the pervasive role of culture in people's emotions, we summarize research that has examined links between culture, emotion regulation, and well-being. Specifically, we focus on two questions. First, how does culture lead individuals to regulate their emotions? And second, how does culture modulate the link between emotion regulation and well-being? We finish by suggesting directions for future research to advance the study of culture and emotion regulation.

Prevalence and correlates of anger in the community: results from a national survey

INTRODUCTION

Little is known about the prevalence and correlates of anger in the community.

METHODS

We used data derived from a large national sample of the U.S. population, which included more than 34,000 adults ages 18 years and older. We defined inappropriate, intense, or poorly controlled anger by means of self-report of the following: (1) anger that was triggered by small things or that was difficult to control, (2) frequent temper outbursts or anger that lead to loss of control, or (3) hitting people or throwing objects in anger.

RESULTS

The overall prevalence of inappropriate, intense, or poorly controlled anger in the U.S. population was 7.8%. Anger was especially common among men and younger adults, and was associated with decreased psychosocial functioning. Significant and positive associations were evident between anger and parental factors, childhood, and adulthood adverse events. There were strong associations between anger and bipolar disorder, drug dependence, psychotic disorder, borderline, and schizotypal personality disorders. There was a dose-response relationship between anger and a broad range of psychopathology.

CONCLUSIONS

A rationale exists for developing screening tools and early intervention strategies, especially for young adults, to identify and help reduce anger.

Factor structure and correlates of the Mandarin version of the Managing the Emotions of Others (MEOS) scale

The English-language version of the Managing the Emotions of Others (MEOS) scale has been found to have a six-factor structure. This includes two pairs (Enhance, Divert and Worsen, Inauthentic) that respectively describe prosocial and non-prosocial interpersonal emotion management, together with an emotional concealment factor (Conceal) and a factor assessing poor self-rated emotional skills. A Mandarin translation of the MEOS was completed by 277 Chinese student participants. Factor analysis indicated a four-factor structure comprising a merged Enhance/Divert factor, together with Worsen, Inauthentic and Conceal factors. The emergence of a different factor structure compared to Western samples may be related to culture-dependent attitudes to emotional expression. The associations of the MEOS factors with Five-Factor model personality, the Dark Triad and trait emotional intelligence (EI) were examined; these were similar to but generally weaker than those found for the English-language version.

Beyond "somatization" and "psychologization": symptom-level variation in depressed Han Chinese and Euro-Canadian outpatients

The finding that people of Chinese heritage tend to emphasize somatic rather than psychological symptoms of depression has frequently been discussed in the culture and mental health literature since the 1970s. Recent studies have confirmed that Chinese samples report more somatic and fewer psychological depression symptoms compared to "Western" samples. The question remains, however, as to whether or not these effects are attributable to variation in all the constituent symptoms or to a subset. If the latter, there is the additional possibility that some symptoms might show a divergent pattern. Such findings would have implications for how cultural variations in symptom presentation are interpreted, and would also inform the cultural study of affective experiences more broadly. The current study addressed these issues in Chinese (n = 175) and Euro-Canadian (n = 107) psychiatric outpatients originally described by Ryder et al. (2008). Differential item functioning (DIF) was used to examine whether specific somatic and psychological symptoms diverged from the overall patterns of cultural variation. Chi-square analyses were used to examine atypical somatic symptoms (e.g., hypersomnia), previously neglected in this literature. No DIF was observed for the typical somatic symptoms, but Euro-Canadians reported greater levels of atypical somatic symptoms, and showed higher rates of atypical depression. DIF was observed for psychological symptoms-the Chinese reported high levels of "suppressed emotions" and "depressed mood," relative to their overall psychological symptom reporting. Chinese outpatients also spontaneously reported "depressed mood" at similar levels as the Euro-Canadians, contrary to prevailing ideas about Chinese unwillingness to discuss depression. Overall, the findings provide a more nuanced picture of how culture shapes symptom presentation and point toward future studies designed to unpack cultural variation in narrower subsets of depressive symptoms.

The cultural shaping of alexithymia: values and externally oriented thinking in a Chinese clinical sample

OBJECTIVE

Alexithymia is a multi-faceted personality construct characterized by difficulties in identifying and describing emotional states. Originally based on observations of American psychosomatic patients, the construct is now studied in a variety of cultural contexts. However, few studies have critically examined alexithymia from a cultural perspective. Dere et al. [1] recently found support for the hypothesis that one alexithymia component - externally oriented thinking (EOT) - is linked to cultural values, among Euro-Canadian and Chinese-Canadian students. The current study examines this association in a Chinese clinical sample.

METHODS

Outpatients presenting at three hospital-based psychology clinics in Hunan province, China (N=268) completed a structured clinical interview and self-report measures of alexithymia and cultural values. All participants endorsed clinically significant levels of depressed mood, anhedonia, and/or fatigue.

RESULTS

As expected, EOT was negatively predicted by Modernization and Euro-American values. Two other alexithymia components, difficulty identifying feelings and difficulty describing feelings, were unrelated to cultural values.

CONCLUSION

These findings suggest that cultural variations in the importance placed on emotional experience must be taken into account in cross-cultural alexithymia research. Such studies should also consider separately the specific components of alexithymia; failure to do so can lead to overestimation of alexithymia in groups where scores are driven by culturally-promoted EOT.

Processes linking cultural ingroup bonds and mental health: the roles of social connection and emotion regulation

Cultural and ethnic identities influence the relationships individuals seek out and how they feel and behave in these relationships, which can strongly affect mental and physical health through their impacts on emotions, physiology, and behavior. We proposed and tested a model in which ethnocultural identifications and ingroup affiliations were hypothesized explicitly to enhance social connectedness, which would in turn promote expectancy for effective regulation of negative emotions and reduce self-reported symptoms of depression and anxiety. Our sample comprised women aged 18-30 currently attending college in the Southwestern US, who self-identified as Hispanic of Mexican descent (MAs; n = 82) or as non-Hispanic White/European American (EAs; n = 234) and who completed an online survey. In the full sample and in each subgroup, stronger ethnocultural group identity and greater comfort with mainstream American culture were associated with higher social connectedness, which in turn was associated with expectancy for more effective regulation of negative emotions, fewer depressive symptoms, and less anxiety. Unexpectedly, preference for ingroup affiliation predicted lower social connectedness in both groups. In addition to indirect effects through social connection, direct paths from mainstream comfort and preference for ingroup affiliation to emotion regulation expectancy were found for EAs. Models of our data underscore that social connection is a central mechanism through which ethnocultural identities-including with one's own group and the mainstream cultural group-relate to mental health, and that emotion regulation may be a key aspect of this linkage. We use the term ethnocultural social connection to make explicit a process that, we believe, has been implied in the ethnic identity literature for many years, and that may have consequential implications for mental health and conceptualizations of processes underlying mental disorders.

Unpacking Cultural Differences in Alexithymia

The current study provides a cultural examination of alexithymia, a multifaceted personality construct that refers to a general deficit in the ability to identify and describe emotional states, and that has been linked to a number of psychiatric illnesses. Though this construct has been critiqued as heavily rooted in “Western” norms of emotional expression, it has not received much empirical attention from a cultural perspective. Recently, Ryder et al. (2008) found that higher levels of alexithymia among Chinese versus Euro-Canadian outpatients were explained by group differences in one component of alexithymia, externally oriented thinking (EOT); they proposed that Chinese cultural contexts may encourage EOT due to a greater emphasis on social relationships and interpersonal harmony rather than inner emotional experience. The current study examined the hypothesis that EOT is more strongly shaped by cultural values than are two other components of alexithymia, difficulty identifying feelings (DIF) and difficulty describing feelings (DDF). Euro-Canadian ( n = 271) and Chinese-Canadian ( n = 237) undergraduates completed measures of alexithymia and cultural values. Chinese-Canadians showed higher levels of EOT than Euro-Canadians ( p < .001). EOT, and not DIF or DDF, was predicted by Modernization and Euro-American values in both groups. Furthermore, cultural values mediated the effect of group membership on levels of EOT. These results suggest that cultural differences in alexithymia may be explained by culturally based variations in the importance placed on emotions, rather than deficits in emotional processing. The study also raises questions about the measurement and meaning of EOT, particularly from a cross-cultural perspective.

Can seeking happiness make people unhappy? [corrected] Paradoxical effects of valuing happiness

Happiness is a key ingredient of well-being. It is thus reasonable to expect that valuing happiness will have beneficial outcomes. We argue that this may not always be the case. Instead, valuing happiness could be self-defeating, because the more people value happiness, the more likely they will feel disappointed. This should apply particularly in positive situations, in which people have every reason to be happy. Two studies support this hypothesis. In Study 1, female participants who valued happiness more (vs. less) reported lower happiness when under conditions of low, but not high, life stress. In Study 2, compared to a control group, female participants who were experimentally induced to value happiness reacted less positively to a happy, but not a sad, emotion induction. This effect was mediated by participants' disappointment at their own feelings. Paradoxically, therefore, valuing happiness may lead people to be less happy just when happiness is within reach.

The Affective Paradox

Despite generally more challenging developmental, environmental, economic, health, and social contexts, minority populations in the United States often report a lower frequency of many negative affects. In some views, such findings reflect a reporting or response bias among minority groups. However, an alternate view suggests that reports of negative emotion differ because minorities do not consciously experience certain discrete emotions as frequently. A study of 1,364 women from six ethnic subpopulations tested this thesis using trait anger as an exemplar. As expected, linear regressions demonstrated that while social desirability explained some ethnic variance in anger reports, a measure of repressive coping explained additional variance in trait anger and eliminated ethnic effects; social desirability no longer predicted trait anger once repressive coping was controlled. Results are discussed in terms how of how developmentally oriented, emotion regulation theories may supplement reporting bias conceptualizations of affective differences across ethnic groups. Implications and directions for future research are given.

Cultural context moderates the relationship between emotion control values and cardiovascular challenge versus threat responses

Cultural context affects people's values regarding emotions, as well as their experiential and behavioral but not autonomic physiological responses to emotional situations. Little research, however, has examined how cultural context influences the relationships among values and emotional responding. Specifically, depending on their cultural context, individuals' values about emotion control (ECV; the extent to which they value emotion control) may have differing meanings, and as such, be associated with differing responses in emotional situations. We examined this possibility by testing the effect of two cultural contexts (28 female Asian-American (AA) versus 28 female European-American (EA) undergraduate students) on the associations between individuals' ECV and emotional responding (experiential, behavioral, and cardiovascular) to a relatively neutral film clip and a laboratory anger provocation. In the AA group, greater ECV were associated with reduced anger experience and behavior, and a challenge pattern of cardiovascular responding. In the EA group, greater ECV were associated with reduced anger behavior but not anger experience, and a threat pattern of cardiovascular responding. These results are consistent with the notion that individuals' values about emotion are associated with different meanings in different cultural contexts, and in turn, with different emotional and cardiovascular responses.