The Effects Of State Depression By Expressive Suppression And Acceptance On Chinese Samples

Previous research and life experience suggest that the effects of emotion regulations may be influenced by cultural factors and emotional intensity levels. Studies from European-American cultures consistently reported that expressive suppression was associated with worse emotional consequence; however, expressive suppression in East Asian cultural background was associated with positive and beneficial results. Shallcross and colleagues showed that acceptance predicted lower levels of depressive symptoms after higher, but not lower life stress. Liverant and colleagues suggested that suppression was no longer effective at moderate and higher levels of anxiety about the experience of depressed mood. Therefore, this academic thesis conducted two studies to investigate the following two questions:the first study explored whether the cultural factors affect the effects of suppression and acceptance on the depressive mood induced by a frustrating task in a Chinese sample. We predicted that suppression might be as similarly effective as, or even more effective than, acceptance in regulating subjective experience of state depression and physiological arousal (SCR) in Chinese subjects. The second study explored whether the emotional intensity level affected the effects of suppression and acceptance on the depressive mood. For the lower strength of sadness,research predicted expression suppression could effectively reduce the subjective emotional experience and acceptance has no significant effect; however, for the high strength level of sadness, acceptance could significantly reduce the sad mood experience, and expression suppression no longer has the positive effect.In the first study, we adopted a frustrating arithmetic task to induce depressive emotion with high ecological validity. Sixty-four subjects were randomly assigned to one of three instructions:suppression, acceptance or no-regulation during a frustrating arithmetic task. The experience of depressive emotion and skin conductance response (SCR) were recorded during pre-frustration baseline, frustration induction and post-frustration recovery phases, respectively. Results suggested suppression instruction was associated with decreased depressive experiences and smaller SCR activity during frustration. There were no significant differences between acceptance and control groups in both subjective depression and SCR activity during frustrationIn the second study, we adopted standardized assessment of disaster film to induce low intensity and high intensity of sadness under depressive state. Sixty-five subjects were randomly assigned to one of three instructions:suppression, acceptance or no-regulation during a viewing sad films. The experience of depressive emotion was recorded during baseline, sadness induction and recovery phases, respectively, under the condition of low intensity of sadness,Results suggested suppression group decreased sad experiences compared with the control group,and there was no significant difference between acceptance group and control group; under the higher intensity of sadness, compared with both expression suppression gro up and acceptance group, there is less sadness gain in control groupContrary to the studies from European-American cultures, the first study suggested, suppression is an adaptive and effective emotion regulation strategy in East Asian cultures and more effective than acceptance in regulating negative emotion in Chinese subjects. The second study showed under the condition of low intensity of sadness, suppression group was associated with decreased sad experiences compared with the control group,and there was no significant difference between acceptance group and control group; under the condition of high intensity of sadness evoked, expression suppression and acceptance group significantly reduced experiences compared to the control group. In conclusion, these findings suggest that cultural context and negative emotional intensity levels should be considered in understanding the emotional consequences of suppression and acceptance strategies.