Emotion Beliefs and Depressive Symptoms in Chinese American and Mexican American Parents in Low-Income Immigrant Families

The present study compared two types of emotion beliefs–emotion malleability ( can control beliefs) and emotion control (should control beliefs)–in low-income Chinese American (CA; N = 222) and Mexican American (MA; N = 91) immigrant parents and examined their relations with depressive symptoms. 313 CA and MA immigrant parents ( M age = 40.09 years, 183 mothers 130 fathers) completed validated measures assessing can control beliefs, should control beliefs, depressive symptoms, and socio-demographic variables. No significant differences were detected between CA and MA parents in can control and should control beliefs. Several socio-demographic variables predicted can control and should control beliefs. Can control beliefs were associated with lower depressive (β = −.28, p < .001), while should control beliefs were associated with higher depressive symptoms (β = 1.99, p < .01) in both CA and MA parents. Cultural group did not moderate these relations. CA and MA parents endorsed comparable levels of emotion beliefs and the relations between emotion beliefs and depressive symptoms were consistent across groups. These findings suggest that interventions targeting emotion beliefs among low-income immigrant parents should focus on enhancing can control beliefs while addressing potentially maladaptive should control beliefs.