Emotion Regulation And Culture Summary

Commentary on "Emotion Regulation and Culture" In "Emotion Regulation and Culture: Are the Social Consequences of Emotion Suppression Culture-Specific?" Butler, Lee, and Gross (2007) responded to the gap in literature on the intersections between emotion regulation and cultural values. Conducting a two-part study, they compared emotion suppression between Americans with Western European values and those with Asian beliefs. Emotion suppression refers to the active trimming of emotion-laden behavior during emotional stimulation (Gross & Levenson, 1993, as cited in Butler et al., 2007, p. 30). As a member of a high-context culture, I personally agree with the findings that collectivist cultures use emotion suppression for the benefit of the relationship;

(2007) deserve description and evaluation. The first part of their study included a self-report on the cultural background of the participants. Their participants consisted of 166 women, a representative sample in terms of multicultural characteristics. Findings indicated that women with European values practiced emotion suppression less than those with Asian backgrounds, and the former connected this with self-protection and negative emotion. The second part of the study was a quasi-experimental design which tested the effect of cultural moderation on emotion suppression. Participants were randomly assigned to pairs and asked to watch and discuss a distressful documentary war film. Each pair was randomly designated to either a suppression or control group. In the suppression group, one woman was randomly selected to suppress emotions during the conversation. Findings suggested that suppression produced negative outcomes but more so for those with European than Asian values. Suppressors with bicultural Asian-European values were perceived as less hostile and detached than those with dominant European cultures. In addition, suppressors with bicultural values were more responsive than European counterparts. The study has strengths as it responds to an important gap in literature and tests how participants would actually suppress emotions and respond to suppressors. Nonetheless, the small