Cultural and gender differences in emotion regulation: relation to depression.
Level 4 - case-series / case-control
Cross-sectional comparative survey
PubMed 23805826 · doi:10.1080/02699931.2013.792244
What was done
Cross-sectional comparative survey assessing the relationship between emotion regulation strategies (reflective pondering, brooding, anger suppression, and reappraisal) and depressive symptoms among college students in two locations: Seoul, Korea (n=380) and Miami, USA (n=384).
What was found
Korean students reported significantly more frequent use of brooding than American students, while American students reported more anger suppression. Women used both rumination types (reflective pondering and brooding) and anger suppression more than men across both countries, though gender differences disappeared when controlling for depressive symptoms. The link between reappraisal and depressive symptoms was stronger in the Korean sample, whereas the link between anger suppression and depressive symptoms was stronger in the US sample. The abstract reported no exact numerical values or effect sizes.
Why it matters
It demonstrates that emotion regulation strategies and their associations with depressive symptoms differ across cultural contexts, showing that regulation models may not generalize universally.
Limits
The study is cross-sectional, precluding causal conclusions. The sample is restricted to college students from two specific urban areas (Seoul and Miami), limiting generalizability. No numerical statistics or effect sizes were provided in the abstract.