Change the Things You Can: Emotion Regulation Is More Beneficial for People from Lower Than from Higher Socioeconomic Status
Publication Date
2-1-2017
Document Type
Article
Organizational Units
College of Arts Humanities and Social Sciences, Psychology
Keywords
Young adult, Humans, Adult, Female, Male, Social class, Emotions, Physiology, Emotion regulation, Cognitive reappraisal
Abstract
Emotion regulation is central to psychological health, and several emotion-regulation strategies have been identified as beneficial. However, new theorizing suggests the benefits of emotion regulation should depend on its context. One important contextual moderator might be socioeconomic status (SES), because SES powerfully shapes people’s ecology: lower SES affords less control over one’s environment and thus, the ability to self-regulate should be particularly important. Accordingly, effectively regulating one’s emotions (e.g., using cognitive reappraisal) could be more beneficial in lower (vs. higher) SES contexts. Three studies (N = 429) tested whether SES moderates the link between cognitive reappraisal ability (CRA; measured with surveys and in the laboratory) and depression. Each study and a meta-analysis of the 3 studies revealed that CRA was associated with less depression for lower SES but not higher SES individuals. Thus, CRA may be uniquely beneficial in lower SES contexts. More broadly, the effects of emotion regulation depend upon the ecology within which it is used.
Copyright Date
2016
Copyright Statement / License for Reuse
All Rights Reserved.
Publication Statement
Copyright is held by the American Psychological Association. User is responsible for all copyright compliance. This article was originally published as:
Troy, A. S., Ford, B. Q., McRae, K., Zarolia, P., & Mauss, I. B. (2017). Change the things you can: Emotion regulation is more beneficial for people from lower than from higher socioeconomic status. Emotion, 17(1), 141–154. https://doi.org/10.1037/emo0000210
Accepted Manuscript is openly available through the "Link to Full Text" button.
The published Version of Record is available at libraries through Compass or Worldcat.
Rights Holder
American Psychological Association
Provenance
Received from CHORUS
Language
English (eng)
Publication Title
Emotion
Volume
17
Issue
1
First Page
141
Last Page
154
ISSN
1931-1516
Recommended Citation
Troy, A. S., Ford, B. Q., McRae, K., Zarolia, P., & Mauss, I. B. (2017). Change the things you can: Emotion regulation is more beneficial for people from lower than from higher socioeconomic status. Emotion, 17(1), 141–154. https://doi.org/10.1037/emo0000210