A cultural comparison of cognitive emotion regulation strategies: Moderation of cultural values on psychological well-being

Abstract

Objectives. While studies have begun to look at cultural differences in emotion regulation, to date no study has explored cultural differences among cognitive emotion regulation strategies. This study aimed to find cultural differences among the nine Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (CERQ) subscales, which include self-blame, acceptance, positive refocusing, refocus on planning, putting into perspective, positive reappraisal, rumination, catastrophizing, and blaming others, as well as the effects of these cognitive emotion regulation strategies on psychological distress and interpersonal functioning. While previous studies have found differences in the use of cognitive emotion regulation strategies across culturally different samples, here it was hypothesized that cultural values would mediate the relationship between country and cognitive emotion regulation strategy, and would also moderate the relationship between cognitive emotion regulation strategy and measures of psychological well-being. Method. Questionnaires were distributed to local and non-local students in classes as well as the student residence halls of a local university in Hong Kong. Forty-three North American students and 66 Hong Kong Chinese students took part in the study. Results. Individualism partially mediated the relationship between country and positive reappraisal, and country and catastrophizing. Individualism significantly moderated the relationship between positive reappraisal and psychological distress, whereas Uncertainty avoidance significantly moderated the impact of catastrophizing on psychological distress and interpersonal relationships. Conclusions. Findings showed that the buffering effect of positive reappraisal on psychological distress was reduced for individualistic cultures, whereas the negative effect of catastrophizing on psychological distress was reduced for uncertainty avoidant cultures. Furthermore, the negative effect of catastrophizing on interpersonal relationships was also lowered for uncertainty avoidant cultures. These results suggest that the psychological impacts of different cognitive emotion regulation strategies are not all universal. Implications on clinical interventions are discussed.