A comparative study on the influence of culture in the development of emotion regulation: the case of Mainland Chinese and British adolescent students

Introduction

Every human being in this planet experiences emotions. Everyone conveys emotions in particular ways. Emotion is a cultural construct. Culture is generally referred to as the totality of life. Emotion and its regulation is part and parcel of that totality. Upon reaching a specific developmental phase, one learns what, when, why, and how to do a specific action. Thus, culture dictates the development of regulating emotions, and this view is the exact concern of this study. How would the Chinese, predominantly from the mainland, view emotion, as opposed to the British? What could be embedded within these two cultures that could define the emergence of a particular emotion regulation among their adolescents?

Claire Champion, Nancy Eisenberg, and Yue Ma (2004) have laid down a number of recommendations in pursuing a study on emotion regulation. One of these deals with culture wherein, they prescribed that a comparative study, i.e. looking for similarities and differences between or among cultures on how regulated behavior is construed, when it is regarded desirable, and on how emotion regulation is attained. At the back of this recommendation is the rationale that the bulk of researches on emotion regulation have always been set in the Western cultures or context, specifically in North America. This reference provides justification in pursuing this proposed research. It serves as a missing piece of the puzzle, which the study desires to hunt for.

Statement of the Research Problem

Generally, this study is going to comparatively inquire on the influence of culture in the development of emotion regulation between Chinese and British adolescent students. Specifically, this study intends to answer the following questions:

1.) What are the cultural features of Chinese and British societies, such as belief systems, values, norms, ideologies?

2.) To what extent does culture influences the development of emotion regulation among mainland Chinese and British adolescents?

3.) What are the similarities and differences between Chinese and British cultures that significantly affect the emotion regulation of its adolescent students?

4.) Which specific agent of socialization (parents or family, peers, school) strongly aid adolescents in acquiring the feature of their culture that is related with the development of emotion regulation?

5.) What are the parenting styles or childrearing practices in China and Great Britain?

6.) In what ways do the parenting styles/childrearing practices are similar and/or different between China and Great Britain?

7.) How significant is the school or the adolescent's school experiences in the development of her/his emotion regulation, between the Chinese and British cultures?

8.) How is gender viewed by the Chinese and British cultures; and to what extent does this influence the development of emotion regulation among adolescents?

Research Objectives

The general objective of this research is to generate a cross-cultural study of (the development of) emotion regulation. Specifically, this research aims for the following:

1.) to bring into light culture as a critical factor in the development of emotion regulation;

2.) to contribute a body of knowledge that serves as a manifestation of cultural universal and diversity at the same time; and,

3.) to provide recommendations or policy frameworks in resolving the adolescent behavioral problems or in applied psychology in general.

Review of Related Literature

Culture is widely known as the totality of way of life. Jary and Jary (1991) define culture as "the way of life for an entire society" (p. 101). Values, belief systems, ideologies, norms, mores, language, styles of dressing and all other bodily adornments constitute the concept of culture. Culture is a broad concept. It encompasses everything in a society. In this study though, certain features of culture are going to be used. Only the ones that is significant to the dependent variable - development of emotion regulation. The specific emotional importance of emotion is likewise identified by wider cultural value systems (as cited in Parkinson, 1996). Thus, this study is going to embark on a structural approach to the concept wherein, it is going to uncover the underlying structures within the subjects of this study.

Structuralism, according to Levi-Strauss (1969) specifically seeks to "prove that there is a kind of logic in tangible qualities, and to demonstrate the operation of that logic and reveal its laws" (cited in Lett 1987, p. 101). This then leads to the idea that the expression of emotion regulation can be considered as one of the tangible quality of these governing laws. Structuralism wants to discover the logical order of structures in the society that is embedded in the human psyche. What matters in this approach is the discovery of these unseen common significant things that are embedded in the "structural systems", in Levi-Strauss' terms (1963), that are reflected in how man thinks (Lett 1987, p.56). This study is going to inquire on the values, belief systems, norms, and ideologies of Chinese and British cultures. For instance, one of these refers to the "cultural display rules", a term cited in the work of David Matsumoto.

Prof. Geert Hofstede (2001) has pioneered a systematic inquiry on cross-cultural work-related values and revealed 5 cultural dimensions - Power Distance, Uncertainty Avoidance, Individualism (or Collectivism), Masculinity, and Long-Term Orientation. Power distance has to do with the status of equality and/or inequality in a society, or whether the members of the society are living in a more or less egalitarian state. Uncertainty avoidance looks at the degree of acceptance for "uncertainty and ambiguity". In such circumstances, societies either place a premium on laws, rules, regulations, or codes of conducts to create order, or on a multiplicity of voices. Individualism is a feature of Western societies wherein they stress on individual work/performance. Collectivism, on the other hand, is a key element in certain societies wherein, what matters is to work together as a collective or as members of a group. As for masculinity, the concept deals with the degree of equality or inequality between the male and the female. Long-term orientation, as the term implies, looks at the "long-term devotion to traditional, forward thinking values". In other words, societies are either open or close to change.

However, the limitation of these cultural dimensions by Prof. Geert Hofstede is that these concepts are applicable particularly in the workplace or work environments, and this study does not concern this specific setting. Its significance lies in the fact that he is able to identify the dominant characteristics of culture across cultures. It is deemed that these concepts would be useful as a data in seeking for the characteristics of culture between the subjects of this study.

Confucian principles or philosophy is one of the popular features of Chinese cultures. One of the essential Chinese belief systems is a direct proportion between emotional inhibition and well-being, as it is deemed functional in individual/personal and group harmony at the same time (as cited in Pham pp. 101 - 102). Tying this with Prof. Hofstede's work, Chinese culture belongs to the collectivist category. This is just an example of how the study is going to search for the cultural features of the subjects at hand.

In the longitudinal study conducted by Hing Keung Ma (2001), the conclusion arrived at is that the correlation between father-adolescent conflict and adolescent social behavior is stronger than its correlation with mother-adolescent conflict. Note still that in this study, the Confucian principle of father-son relationship is evident in this finding. Despite of the difference in research path with this proposed study, it only goes to show that cultural features have indeed a bearing on an individual's behavior. That the notion of gender be included has been derived from this citation.

Generally speaking, socialization refers to the lifelong process of learning and/or acquiring the culture (norms, values, beliefs, etc.) of a society by its members. According to Barry Chevannes (2001), is the ways and means by which children, from birth until adolescence, are being molded according to the values, customs, and behavioral norms of the society that are considered accepted for the other adult and non-adult members of the society (p. 14). And so, the intervening variables of this research is based on the idea of socialization. Parents, school, peers, personality, gender, and other social groups/organizations belonged into serve as the factors that constitute the intervening variables.

Lynne Kostiuk and Gregory Fouts (2002) have specified in their work a couple of studies that reveal the diverse experiences of emotion socialization between a boy and a girl. In their study, they have found out that adolescent girls possess a fairly small amount of knowledge regarding their "negative internal state" and/or are incapable of expressing these to the people outside of them, most especially to their fathers. It is therefore only legitimate to take in the research question raised above - how do both cultures (Chinese and British) view gender? Being a male or a female may mean a different form or leaning of emotion regulation.

According to Sheri Stegall (2006), parents and peers are the agents that are likely to influence the socialization of a child when it comes to the expression of emotions; but, age, nature of the relationship between the parent and the child, as well as the "demands of the specific social context" are the other factors that need to be considered. With regard to parental socialization, it has been said that,

"parents provide contingencies for their children's emotion management, thereby shaping future emotional behavior through reinforcement or punishment. Not surprisingly, parents who are generally warm, responsive, and accepting of their children's emotions have children who are well regulated. On the other hand, parents who minimize or punish children's emotional displays have children who are less likely to discuss their emotions or seek out an adult or peer for help during emotion-provoking situations. These children appear to have learned that there are negative consequences for asking for help in alleviating negative emotional states. In contrast, parents who report using either problem-focused (i.e., encourage constructive action) or emotion-focused (i.e., use of internal strategies of ER) responses to their children's negative emotions have children who display low-intensity anger, use verbal objection as a means of coping with anger, and exhibit adaptive coping. Significant gender effects have also been reported, with boys being especially vulnerable to punitive socialization (as cited in Stegall, 2006)."

Thus, one of the intervening variables of this proposed study is going to be the parents - childrearing practices or parenting style. The subsequent section is another interesting reference on the concept of the parent as a socializing agent.

In the course of developing the emotion regulation of the offspring by the parents, part of this process is the latter socializing the former to a particular worldview in accordance to the cultural group by which they both belong into. Eventually, what has been learned from the parents inside the home is being reinforced outside, i.e. by the fellow members of the cultural group (Zech, Rime and Nils, 2004, p. 179). From this, the idea that the parents are the transmitters of culture can be derived. Furthermore, this leads to the generalization that the parents or their parenting styles intervene in the event that culture influences the emotion regulation of their children. There has been plenty of researches that pertain to the significance of "a responsive, involved parental environment" on the emotion regulation development (as cited in Grolnick 2002, p. 95). Other than the childrearing practice/parenting style, it would likewise be useful to look at the dimension of parents according to the nature of relationship between the parent and the adolescent child.

The central idea asserted by Nancy Eisenberg, Qing Zhou, Jeffrey Liew, Claire Champion, and Sri Untari Pidada (2006) is that cultural diversity mirrors variations in views or approaches on emotion regulation and ways of doing so (p. 177). For instance, these authors have illustrated the point by taking the case of the expression of negative emotions between Americans and Chinese wherein, the former directly and boldly utilize language their negative emotions while the latter indirectly and discretely do so. These authors have also uttered that the parents as well as their parenting manners influence the exhibition and regulation at the same time of emotions in their children. Furthermore, one of the key characteristics of Chinese culture (particularly in Mainland China) is collectivism, as opposed to individualism, which is predominant in Western societies (as cited in Eisenberg et al., 2006, p. 177). With this at hand, Eisenberg et al. (2006) have generated its implication that the direct and bold expression of emotion is regarded as an illegitimate act within the group.

Cultural display rules serve as the framework by which people alter their expressions (as cited in Matsumoto, 2001, p. 173). This means that people (emotionally) respond to events in accordance to the norms of their culture or society. For instance, when Americans and Japanese watch stressful films, it has been found out that both display expressions of disgust, anger, fear, and sadness while alone; but with the presence of an experimenter, the latter "invariably smile to conceal their negative feelings" while the former still continue to exhibit their negative feelings (as cited in Matsumoto, 2001, p. 173). This means that there are implied or underlying rules of society that define the "right" or proper act. There is a proper or accepted way of expressing one's emotion, to put it simply. Similarly, this study is going to search for those underlying "rules" that influence the development of emotion regulation. The difference lies in that, it is not going to focus merely on the (visible) expression of emotion.

Joseph Campos, Carl Frankel and Linda Camras (n.d) defines emotion as the ways and means or encoding the importance of a certain event that occurred given that, a person interprets that importance; and, its quality is based on the "nature" of its importance, while the degree and pressure of its response is based on the "degree of perceived significance" (p. 8). Emotion can likewise denote feeling. It is produced out of a certain event that took place. Upon its occurrence, a person attaches something to that event, which becomes then the emotion.

Defining the concept of Emotion Regulation is not an easy task for the reason that relatively few researches have been conducted yet on it. According to Kring and Werner (2004), a few scholars concur on what makes up emotion regulation (p. 363). This means that there is still an ongoing debate regarding what affects or influences emotion regulation. Gross (1998) defines emotion regulation as "…the processes by which individuals influence which emotions they have, when they have them, and how they experience and express these emotions" (as cited in Kring and Werner, 2004, p. 363). In the event that a person is confronted by a certain emotion, he or she tends to manipulate in accordance with the ways it is felt and expressed. A person does something to manager her or his emotions, which id dependent on the context.

As for Thompson (1994), emotion regulation is made up of extrinsic and intrinsic courses of action "responsible for monitoring, evaluating, and modifying emotional reactions, especially their intensive and temporal features, to accomplish one's goals" (as cited in Kring and Werner, 2004, p. 364). This definition at hand is realized by the author as something that controls emotions and its responses, which are dependent on the context, i.e. "intensive and temporal features" or degree and of time, respectively. The inclusion of the idea of context is similar with Gross' conception of emotion regulation. The author has added the idea of intentionality wherein, the individual controls the emotion for the intention of attaining a specific goal.

According to James Gross (1998), there exists two kinds of emotion regulation, and these are reappraisal and suppression. Reappraisal can be understood in the light of expression in that, one controls her/his emotion through its expression. Expressive behavior and emotional experience are said to be minimized. Nevertheless, in such state, there are no signs of destructive physiological effects. On the other hand, in suppression, expressive behavior is also minimized. There are no changes in emotional experience, heightened physiological responding, impaired memory, and interference with social interactions" (as cited in Kring and Werner, 2004, p. 369 - 370). The latter is most likely to lead the individual to suffer from a mental disorder. This speaks for why emotion regulation is related with psychopathology. These are the dimensions of emotion regulation, which is going to be investigated on.

James Gross (1998) has identified five processes of emotion regulation: situation selection, situation modification, attentional deployment, cognitive change, and response modulation (pp. 281 - 285). Situation selection is the process of moving towards or away from specific persons, locations, or things. Subsequently, a person could alter the situation in such a way to manage to a certain extent the situation that causes a certain emotion. Attentional deployment can be simply understood as a matter of diverting one's attention, and this is done by way of distraction, concentration, and rumination. Cognitive change, from the term cognition alone, implies utilizing cognition, i.e. by thinking over the problem, in the process of regulating the emotion. Lastly, given that all of these processes have been passed through, response modulation is when one directly regulates emotion by engaging into a certain activity like exercise or play or taking in drugs. Basically, these concepts define the visible procedures in emotion regulation. The study is going to take hold of these concepts, as it is believed to be necessary in understanding further the dependent variable.

Other than the parents as one of the intervening variables, it has been found out that it is equally important to consider the individual state of the person. According to Richard Lazarus (1994), the key "individual difference variables" in relation to expression lie outside the individual, their environment that is, and in their personalities, which consist of their "goal hierarchies" as well as their perspectives toward the world and the self (p. 336). This study supports this author's stance that personality needs to be incorporated, as one of the intervening variables, because it defines, in one way or another, the will of the person to manage the occurrence of internal/external processes.

Authors Ramsden and Hubbard (2002) have cited the claim stated by a number of authors that the aggressive behavior of children foretells their adolescent behavior, e.g. delinquency, academic performance and substance abuse (p. 657+). In their study, they have analyzed the relationship between family emotion variables and childhood aggression by looking at two variables within the former - family emotional expressiveness and parental emotion coaching. Denham and Grout (1993) have found out that those children who belong to families that articulate more positive affect are likely to interrelate with peers in the light of a prosocial behavior, while Boyum and Parke (1995) have found out that those on the other side are likely to interrelate with peers in an aggressive manner (as cited in Ramsden and Hubbard, 2002, p. 657+). These statements only verify the piece of information that the parents serve as a crucial element in studies that concern emotion, be it in the light of behavior, regulation, etc. In this study though, it attempts to compare and contrast the parenting style and childrearing practices of British and Chinese parents too. The succeeding paragraphs are about to provide reviews that deals with the adolescents of mainland China and British.

Adolescence is the stage between the ages 12 to 18. Sheri Stegall (2006) has cited the following scholarly findings with regard to emotion or emotion regulation during the adolescence stage: At this point, there is a heightened capability of a person to engage in a process of emotion regulation. Motivation, emotion type, and social-contextual factors provide the basis by which there is a more differentiated decisions that pertain to emotion regulation. That there is an increased understanding on "interpersonal consequences" intended for a specific emotional display and varying social relationships with parents against peers has a bearing on the adolescent's emotion regulation decisions. This is the nature of a person in this specific developmental stage. This is believed to be a critical stage because it serves as the transition stage from childhood to adulthood. The succeeding paragraph is going to tell something about the British adolescents.

Based on the sources collated, it appears that in one way or another, British adolescents are suffering from a problematic state. Russell Viner, adolescent medicine consultant at Great Ormond Street Hospital in London, remarks that the adolescents in the British population are the only (age) group that suffers from a health condition, i.e. social health troubles such as accidents, suicide, substance (drugs and alcohol) intake, pregnancy, and sexually transmitted diseases. The causes of which have to do with poor social skills and bullying in schools, considering the British Medical Association has suggested making British teenagers to learn basic social skills and creating anti-bullying regulations in schools as the resolutions behind (as cited in Tarko, 2006). The study is going to look for certain aspects of British culture that may generate an understanding of such behavior. There must be something in their culture that lead them to engage in substance intake.

Lorna Duckworth (2001) presents in her article the reality that British adolescents consume drugs and alcohols, and their parents are said to be partly responsible for this. It has been said that 1 in 5 British adolescents smoke daily starting from the age of 13, 1 in 3 had been intoxicated by alcohol for more than 20 times, and almost 40& of them had undertook illegal drugs. Britain is said to occupy the topmost position in all these things across Europe. Sociologist Martin Plant has been cited in that, parents' "lack of communication and control" accounts for the drug and alcohol engagement of these British adolescents (p.5). This study is going to investigate on this reference from Martin Plant, considering that it is a characteristic of parenting style or childrearing practice. From this, it appears that the act of substance intake is a form of emotion regulation among British adolescents. This study is just about to uncover the truth behind this case.

According to the Royal College of Psychiatrists (2004), in the United Kingdom, current reviews reveal that 1 in 4 primary school pupils and 1 in 10 secondary school pupils suffer from the act of bullying. Bullying is when an individual or group of individuals picks on another individual or group of individuals by way of physical harm, hiding or destroying one's personal belongings, teasing them (e.g. because of "race" or ethnicity, physical disabilities etc.), verbal harm (e.g. spreading oral or written rumors), excluding them in games or any social gatherings. Bullying has a significant long-term effect for the one being bullied. Given this reality in British schools, this proposed study has decided to include the school, specifically the adolescents' childhood experiences in the school, as one of the intervening variables. One can understand bullying as a form of masculinity in a society.

The reality of the Chinese adolescents from mainland China is quite different. It has been reported that roughly the entire primary and middle schools in the country have a tendency to make known the class ranks of students following an exam, and this leads to a massive psychological pressure to adolescents (Xinhua News Agency, 2004). It appears that Chinese adolescents as students are being socialized to a culture of merits.

In a survey conducted by Beijing Normal University, Chinese adolescents are found to carry "positive and healthy attitudes toward life and study, despite the mixed influences of traditional Chinese and modern Western cultures" (Xinhua News Agency, 2003). 72.9% places a premium on health and friendship. Professor Dina Pei says that after China opened doors to the rest of the world, equality, freedom and democracy have become the features of the life values that they cling to. More over, Chinese adolescents, according to Prof. Pei, are shouting for independence in that, they wanted to produce their own instead of their parents decision and lead their own lives. This account goes to show that culture is indeed dynamic. It appears that Chinese adolescents are yearning for an individual decision-making process, but not necessarily mean a matter of moving towards individualism. This is going to be one of the dangers that this study hopes to handle eventually. Culture is not static but dynamic.

It would likewise be necessary to include the social groups by which the adolescents are part of as one of the intervening variables. One specific social group is the religious group by which one belongs. Churches at New England (United States of America) is teaching among its followers the principle that "emotion was essentially a private aspect of religion" (Corrigan, 2004, p. 88). Religion, being an element of culture and agent of socialization too, can significantly affect the transmission of culture to a specific recipient element such as the development of emotion regulation. To illustrate, take this report from Maxine Frith (2004). She has reported Brittany, a British adolescent girl who, because of strong attachment to the Silver Ring Thing, an evangelical American movement, avows to control her sexual behavior and go against the predominant active sexual activities of her fellow British adolescents. These statements only imply that religion may either reinforce or weaken the prevailing culture of the society. Likewise, it affects the influence of culture in generating a specific form of emotion regulation.