Effects of Emotion Beliefs on Emotion Regulation: Differences across Cultures

This cross-cultural study investigated the effects of emotion beliefs on intrapersonal and interpersonal emotion regulation across the four stages of Gross’s (1998) process model. Adults based in China (N = 161) and the UK (N = 155) completed questionnaires assessing emotion beliefs and regulation. Chinese participants reported stronger beliefs in the controllability, usefulness, and acceptability beliefs of negative emotions and greater overall use of emotion regulation strategies than British participants. Across both cultures, controllability belief predicted the use of both antecedent- and response-focused strategies. Usefulness beliefs predicted greater situation modification and acceptability predicted increased suppression. Controllability beliefs also mediated cultural differences in the use of all strategies, while usefulness and acceptability beliefs mediated cultural differences in suppression. These effects remained significant even after controlling for self-construals. Both acceptability and controllability beliefs were stronger negative predictors of suppression among British than among Chinese. Our findings suggest that selection of emotion regulation strategies depends on emotion beliefs. They also highlight the role of culturally influenced emotion beliefs in shaping emotion regulation beyond self-construals.