Cultural Differences in Emotion Regulation and Social Support Seeking

Given the negative influences of stress on health, it is important to examine beneficial processes like social support, which can promote greater health. However, the willingness to seek social support may be qualified by emotion regulation strategy. Research indicates that there are cultural differences in both social support seeking and emotion regulation processes. In this ecological momentary assessment design, participants (N = 49) reported on their daily stress, whether they sought social support during stressful times, and if they emotionally suppressed (N = 913). They also responded to individual differences measures, including interdependent cultural orientation and ethnicity. Multilevel modeling was used to test cultural differences in the association of emotional suppression mediating the link between stress and social support seeking. Although results did not suggest that emotional suppression mediated the link between stress and support seeking, after adjusting for emotional suppression, stress did predict social support seeking especially for Asian/Asian American participants. Stress predicted tangible but not emotional support. Furthermore, consistently across models, although stress did not predict emotional suppression, greater emotional suppression predicted greater social support seeking. Taken together, during stressful times, requesting particular types of support (e.g., tangible support) may be especially helpful. As culture influences social support processes, it is important to consider that different ethnicities tend to seek support differentially. Furthermore, emotional suppression may play an important role in social support processes. Overall, the complex interplay between stress, emotion regulation, and social support seeking have implications for support seeking in daily life

Attachment insecurity, heart rate variability, and perceived social support in a diverse sample of young adults

Psychological and physical factors are robustly associated with perceived social support. Drawing from the literature on attachment style in adults and psychophysiology, we examined the possibility that the interaction of attachment insecurity and resting heart rate variability (HRV) was associated with perceived social support in a diverse sample of young adults living in the U.S (N = 145, Mage = 20.45) that was majority Latino (n = 77). Analyses revealed three key findings. First, in the overall sample, attachment avoidance and attachment anxiety were negatively associated with perceived social support, but in the Latino sample, only attachment avoidance was negatively associated with perceived social support. Second, HRV was not associated with perceived social support in the overall sample nor in the Latino sample. Third, attachment insecurity and HRV interacted to predict perceived social support only in the Latino sample such that, for those with lower levels of HRV, attachment anxiety was positively associated with perceived social support. This study underscores the importance of examining both psychological and physiological processes with careful consideration of ethnicity/culture in order to better understand perceived social support

Multi-Ethnic Variation in the Ties That Bind Rumination and Heart Rate Variability: Implications for Health Disparities

Higher self-reported rumination, a common form of trait perseverative cognition, is linked with lower resting heart rate variability (HRV), which indicates poorer cardiac function and greater disease risk. A prior meta-analysis and systematic review indicates that in samples with fewer European Americans, the association of rumination with both heart rate and blood pressure was stronger. Thus, trait rumination may be more strongly associated with HRV among ethnically minoritized populations, but few studies exist. The current study therefore investigated whether differences in the association of self-reported rumination with resting HRV varied by ethnicity in a sample (N = 513; Mage = 19.41; 226 Women) of self-identified African Americans (n = 110), Asian Americans (n = 84), and European Americans (n = 319). Participants completed a 5-min baseline period to assess resting HRV, followed by the Ruminative Responses Scale, which contains three facets of rumination including brooding, depressive, and reflective rumination. On average, Asian Americans reported higher levels of rumination relative to European Americans. African Americans had higher average HRV than Asian Americans. Adjusting for covariates, higher self-reported rumination was significantly associated with lower HRV in both African and Asian Americans, but not significantly so in European Americans. This finding was consistent for brooding and reflective, but not depressive rumination. Overall, this study lends insight into a psychological mechanism – rumination – that may impact health disparities among ethnically minoritized individuals, contributing to an understanding of how stress gets under the skin among such populations

Cultural Differences in Stress and Affection Following Social Support Receipt

Files here can be used to replicate Pourmand, Lawley, & Lehman (2021