Psychosocial associations of emotion-regulation strategies in young adults residing in the United Arab Emirates.

Abstract

The management and expression of emotions can have a positive impact on psychological health and overall functioning. Thus, it is crucial to focus on the study of emotion regulation and the strategies young adults employ to achieve it, namely cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression, as well as their associations with the long neglected psychosocial factors. The current study aimed at exploring the associations between psychosocial factors and the two emotion-regulation strategies, after controlling for potential sociodemographic confounders. This study used a sample of 136 participants from the Indian subcontinent living in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, aged 18-25 years, who completed instruments measuring social anxiety, social support, and parenting styles (authoritative, authoritarian, permissive) as well as the use of the emotion-regulation strategies of suppression and reappraisal. The results indicated that having experienced authoritarian parenting and perceiving low social support were associated with the use of suppression, while having experienced authoritative parenting and low levels of social anxiety were associated with the use of emotional reappraisal. Our study provides evidence on the importance of psychosocial factors for the use of emotion-regulation strategies and suggests their modification for the promotion of adaptive ways of managing emotions.