Teuber- Emotion regulation among Chinese and German children and adolescents

Emotion regulation is a critical capacity influencing youth development (Eisenberg et al., 2010).
Adaptive emotion regulation contributes to social competence (Kao et al., 2020; Monopoli & Kingston, 2012) and mental health, while maladaptive emotion regulation is linked to social dysfunction and various mental health issues (Daniel et al., 2020; McLaughlin et al., 2011; Morris et al., 2010).

Cognitive Reappraisal: Changing the emotional impact of a situation via cognitive reinterpretation, considered an adaptive strategy (Gross & John, 2003).
- Effective in down-regulating negative emotions and occurs early in an emotion-generative process.
Expressive Suppression: Inhibition of ongoing emotion-expressive behaviors, typically viewed as maladaptive (Gross et al., 1998a).
- Occurs later in the emotion-generative process, leading to cognitive resource expenditure and feelings of incongruence.

The study compares emotion regulation strategies between Chinese and German children and adolescents, assessing cultural influences (collectivism vs. individualism).
The Emotion Regulation Questionnaire for Children and Adolescents (ERQ-CA) is used, assessing measurement invariance between the two cultures and exploring cultural differences in emotion regulation strategies and their association with youth behavior.

Participants: 1196 students (52% girls; Mean age = 12.46 years, SD = 1.12)
- 765 participants from China (Mean age = 12.59 years, SD = 1.01)
- 431 participants from Germany (Mean age = 12.23 years, SD = 1.27)
Data collected in 2019; study complies with ethical standards approved by Bielefeld University.

Multi-Group Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA): Tested ERQ-CA structure and measurement invariance.
Structural Equation Modeling (SEM): Analyzed relationships between emotion regulation strategies and psychosocial adjustment variables (behavior problems and prosocial behavior).
Statistical tools: RStudio, multiple imputation for handling missing data.

The ERQ-CA showed partial measurement invariance between the cultural groups, allowing valid cross-cultural comparisons.
- Chinese students reported higher levels of both cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression than German students.

Cognitive reappraisal is positively associated with prosocial behavior and negatively associated with behavior problems across both cultures.
Expressive suppression is linked to increased behavior problems but does not correlate significantly with prosocial behavior.

Cultural influences shape how children express and regulate emotions. There are norms within cultures dictating acceptable emotional expressions (Matsumoto et al., 2008).
Collectivism (e.g., China) values group harmony, often promoting expressive suppression, while individualism (e.g., Germany) favors personal expression.

These findings emphasize the need to promote adaptive emotion regulation strategies (like cognitive reappraisal) to enhance psychosocial adjustment in children and adolescents from different cultural backgrounds.
Recommendations: Parents and educators should focus on discussing emotions and encouraging healthy expression among youth across both cultures.

Cross-sectional design limits the ability to draw causal inferences; longitudinal studies are encouraged.
Self-report limitations due to potential response biases; using multi-informant strategies could improve assessment validity.
Further studies to explore additional emotion regulation strategies and their developmental trajectories are suggested.