UC Davis

Objective

We examined whether two key emotion regulation strategies, cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression, moderated the relations between discrimination (i.e., foreigner objectification and general denigration) and adjustment.

Methods

Participants were U.S. Latino/a and Asian-heritage college students (N = 1,279, 67% female, 72% U.S. born) from the Multi-Site University Study of Identity and Culture (MUSIC). Students completed online self-report surveys in 2009.

Results

Multi-group path analysis demonstrated that a fully constrained model fit well for both Latino/a and Asian-heritage student data. The results showed that with increasing levels of denigration (but not foreigner objectification), the combination of lower cognitive reappraisal and higher expressive suppression was related to greater depressive symptoms, anxiety, and aggression.

Conclusions

Our findings highlight the importance of examining multiple emotion regulation strategies simultaneously-considering what strategies are available to individuals and in what combination they are used-to understand how best to deal with negative emotions resulting from experiencing discrimination.