On March 20, the Sun Pei research group from the Department of Psychology at Tsinghua University's School of Social Sciences, in collaboration with Columbia University in the United States, published a research paper titled "Emotion regulation flexibility and momentary affect in two cultures" in the authoritative mental health journal Nature Mental Health. The study reveals cross-cultural similarities and differences in the relationship between emotion regulation flexibility and daily emotions in China and the United States.
Over the past decade, new theoretical models of emotion regulation have highlighted the importance of emotion regulation flexibility in addressing psychological distress, challenging traditional theories about the adaptive and maladaptive classification of emotion regulation strategies. To verify these theories, this study used ecological momentary assessment (EMA) to track 158 American participants (12,217 data points) and 144 Chinese participants (11,347 data points). The researchers developed EMA measurement indicators for emotion regulation flexibility across three stages—assessment, regulation, and feedback—and examined their associations with momentary psychological distress (Figure 1). In the study, participants completed four surveys daily over 21 days, reporting situations with intense emotions, situational characteristics, use and changes in emotion regulation, and momentary psychological distress. Assessment flexibility was measured through context sensitivity, regulation flexibility through effective strategy diversity (repertoire), and feedback flexibility through feedback responsiveness by maintaining effective strategies and changing ineffective ones.
Figure 1: Theoretical Framework of Emotion Regulation Flexibility and Operationalized Ecological Momentary Assessment
The results show that in samples from both countries, better momentary assessment and regulation flexibility negatively correlate with momentary psychological distress. The two components of feedback regulation showed different results: maintaining effective strategies is generally beneficial, while changing ineffective strategies is only beneficial for momentary depressive mood (not anxiety). This study's innovative ecological momentary assessment experimental design demonstrates cross-cultural similarities in the benefits of emotional flexibility, as well as the subtle effects of its components on various emotional indicators.
The first author of the paper is Dr. Chen Shuquan from Columbia University's Department of Clinical and Counseling Psychology (undergraduate Class of 2013 in Psychology at Tsinghua University). Associate Professor Sun Pei from the Department of Psychology at Tsinghua University's School of Social Sciences and Dr. Chen Shuquan are the co-corresponding authors of the paper. Additionally, graduate and undergraduate students from multiple research groups within the university provided significant assistance in participant recruitment and data collection. This project was supported by the Tsinghua University Guoqiang Institute (2020GQG1017), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (81671065), and the Tsinghua University Spring Breeze Fund (20201080524).
Paper link: https://www.nature.com/articles/s44220-024-00215-3
