The ability to regulate emotions has been associated with psychological well-being and daily functioning. Recently, researchers have examined a facet of emotion regulation, expressive flexibility, which is the ability to enhance or suppress one’s emotional expressions according to situational demands (Bonanno et al., 2004; Westphal et al., 2010; Burton and Bonanno, 2016). For instance, in response to a friend’s good news, one may enhance displays of joy to demonstrate mutuality and understanding. In response to a boss’s mistake, individuals may suppress laughter to prevent further embarrassment. Higher levels of expressive flexibility has been associated with lower psychological distress, including lower levels of depressive, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress symptoms (Gupta and Bonanno, 2011; Shepherd and Wild, 2014; Rodin et al., 2017; Zhu and Bonanno, 2017; Chen et al., 2018; Levy-Gigi et al., 2020) and greater interpersonal functioning, such as lower levels of peer exclusion and greater likeability among peers and higher quality of relationships (Burton and Bonanno, 2016; Zhou et al., 2016; Wang et al., 2020). Expressive flexibility has also been associated with better adjustment to life stress, higher life satisfaction, and reduced burnout at work (Bonanno et al., 2004; Westphal et al., 2010; Chen et al., 2018; Lenzo et al., 2020).

Being flexible in enhancing and suppressing one’s emotional expressions requires that one is attuned to contextual cues and knowledge of social norms and expectations of the social situation. Because social norms and display rules about emotions are embedded within cultural systems that influences for that specific culture what is socially appropriate, the need for high levels of expressive flexibility and their subsequent associations with mental health may also vary across cultures. Previous research have shown that emotion display rules are associated with the type of emotions that are valued in each culture (Matsumoto et al., 2008). For example, individuals from individualistic cultures tend to focus on the independence and uniqueness of self (Markus and Kitayama, 1991), value high arousal positive states such as excitement more so than individuals from collectivistic cultures who value more calm states (Tsai et al., 2006). As such, they may be more motivated to upregulate or downregulate positive or negative emotions, respectively, after experiencing negative events (Miyamoto and Ma, 2011; Miyamoto et al., 2014). Individuals from collectivistic cultures focus on fitting in with the environment and its prevailing social norms and roles to maintain social harmony (Markus and Kitayama, 1991). As they value low-arousal positive states such as calmness more than individualistic cultures (Tsai et al., 2006), emotion suppression may be more culturally encouraged. Emotion suppression requires that one exercise control to repress one’s emotions, with elements of restraint, moderation and intensity reduction (King et al., 1992; Tsai and Lu, 2018). Consistent with these functions, studies have found that individuals from East Asian cultures display emotions that are more inhibited across a range of emotions and situations in daily life (Gross and John, 2003; Matsumoto et al., 2008; Tsai et al., 2016; Tsai, 2017; Cordaro et al., 2018; Tsai and Lu, 2018). Emotion suppression has been found to be used more frequently among individuals from East Asian cultures, and have mitigated associations with negative mental health outcomes (Butler et al., 2007; Cheung and Park, 2010; Soto et al., 2011; Tsai and Lu, 2018) compared to individuals from Western cultures. In contrast, individuals from Latinx American cultures, which are also considered collectivistic, provide an interesting contrast to European American and East Asian cultures, as they value expression of high arousal positive emotions but view negative emotions as less desirable (Ruby et al., 2012; Senft et al., 2022). Given that Latinx American cultures encourage expression of positive emotions, suppression of positive emotions have been found to be more detrimental to Latinx Americans compared to Asian Americans (Su et al., 2015).

These findings on cultural differences in emotion display converge to suggest that cultural scripts have key roles in influencing the extent to which people express or suppress their emotions, and their subsequent associations with mental health. To our knowledge, only one study thus far has directly examined cultural differences in expressive flexibility (Strickland and Skolnick, 2020), and found that the degree of one’s endorsement of collectivist values was associated with expressive flexibility levels. The authors also found that positive enhancement ability was negatively associated with trait anxiety for both United States and Indian samples, and that positive suppression ability and total flexibility levels were negatively associated with trait anxiety for United States but not Indian samples. Outside of that study, while a few researchers have investigated expressive flexibility among participants from other cultures (Bonanno et al., 2011; Chen et al., 2018, 2020; Fu et al., 2018; Lenzo et al., 2020), there has not been direct comparisons made across cultures. For instance, Chen et al. (2018) has found suppression ability to be associated with fewer symptoms of depression and anxiety and enhancement ability to be associated with higher life satisfaction in Chinese samples. It is reasonable to expect one’s ability to enhance or suppress emotion to similarly be shaped by the contextual norms and demands of an individual’s cultural background.

Table 2 shows the descriptive statistics for expressive flexibility subscales across cultural groups. To test our first hypothesis of whether there were significant cultural group differences in expressive flexibility levels and its associated subscales, we conducted a series of one-way ANOVAs. Contrary to our hypothesis, there were no cultural group mean differences in all T1 expressive flexibility variables. Table 1 presents zero-order correlations of study variables. T1 expressive flexibility and enhancement ability was associated with T1 life satisfaction for European Americans. T1 enhancement ability was also associated with T2 life satisfaction for Asian Americans and European Americans. Interestingly, T1 suppression ability was not associated with life satisfaction. T1 expressive flexibility variables were not associated with T1 depressive symptoms.

Our study is the first to our knowledge to examine expressive flexibility and their associations with psychological well-being among three cultural groups. Contrary to our expectations, we did not find the ability to enhance or suppress positive and negative emotions to differ across cultural groups. While this finding may appear at odds with prior research showing cultural differences in emotion display rules (Matsumoto et al., 2008) and the extent to which people expressed or suppressed their emotions (Su et al., 2015; Schouten et al., 2020; Tsai et al., 2021), our finding is corroborated by the study of Strickland and Skolnick (2020) which also did not find significant differences in expressive flexibility levels between United States and Indian samples. Moreover, the lack of cultural differences in the mean levels of expressive flexibility is consistent with a prior study among Asian American and European American college students that also failed to find cultural group differences in the extent to which they expressed their emotions. Another potential reason for the disparity in cultural findings between emotion regulation frequency (e.g., tendency to suppress emotions) and expressive flexibility is that expressive flexibility is conceptually distinct from emotion regulation frequency (Burton and Bonanno, 2016). It may be that one’s ability to enhance or suppress their emotion reflects their competency and control over its usage in appropriate settings, with a discernment on whether the emotion expression or suppression is aligned with the environmental or cultural norm. On the other hand, frequent usage of specific emotion regulation strategies may not be reflective of one’s ability to discern and calibrate the intensity and type of emotion display appropriate to a diverse range of settings, nor does it reflect the repertoire of other emotion regulation techniques that one may have in their toolbox. It is plausible that emotion regulation frequency indicates a conformity to the default coping style valued by the environment and culture rather than the ability to adapt to a range of settings and a deliberate, conscious assessment of the demands of the situation.

One primary aim of the current study was to understand whether the associations between expressive flexibility and psychological well-being differ across cultures. While prior work on expressive flexibility has found it to be associated with lower levels of depressive symptoms and higher life satisfaction (Gupta and Bonanno, 2011; Rodin et al., 2017), we found that overall expressive flexibility was not associated with life satisfaction or depressive symptoms over time for all three cultural groups. However, when examining enhancement and suppression ability separately, there appeared to be differences across this domain. Contrary to our hypothesis that relative to Asian Americans, enhancement ability would be more strongly associated with psychological well-being among European Americans, we found that greater enhancement ability was associated with higher life satisfaction over time among Asian Americans only. It may be that Asian Americans with greater enhancement ability reflect individuals who are more attuned to the social and relational norms of the dominant United States culture, and thus are more efficacious and effective in social settings in which emotions serve social functions. Greater abilities to enhance their emotional displays in social situations may in turn lead to improved interpersonal and intrapersonal outcomes. Moreover, East Asian Americans have been found to have greater attunement to relational harmony and context sensitivity in previous studies (Masuda et al., 2012; Imada et al., 2013; Ito et al., 2013), which may have also contributed to the well-being benefits of expressive flexibility for this cultural group. Finally, this finding was corroborated by a prior study among individuals from China, which also found a positive association between enhancement ability and life satisfaction (Chen et al., 2018). Nonetheless, more research is needed to better understand and replicate this cultural group difference. Contrary to the findings with enhancement ability, our results indicated that suppression ability was not associated with higher life satisfaction over time for all three cultural groups, despite well-known cultural differences in suppression usage and frequency (Su et al., 2015; Schouten et al., 2020; Tsai et al., 2021). This finding corroborates findings of Chen et al. (2018) in a Chinese sample, and also supports previous work suggesting that enhancement and suppression ability may have distinct influences on psychological well-being (Cameron and Overall, 2018; Chen et al., 2018; Strickland and Skolnick, 2020).

There are several limitations to our study that warrant consideration. First, our sample was limited to first-year college students in a large private university in New York at a time when the COVID-19 pandemic led to numerous social distancing restrictions (e.g., remote learning, discouragements of social activities, and absence of school-sanctioned social events). Mental health symptoms may also have been more elevated in this group given the disruption by the COVID-19 pandemic to their social and academic life in the midst of a crucial transitory period from high school to college. Given the social nature and function of emotion displays, it would be important for future studies to examine expressive flexibility and their associations outside of the pandemic period, or at a time when social distancing restrictions are lifted. Additionally, given findings of Strickland and Skolnick (2020) that one’s endorsement of collectivist values played a role in their expressive flexibility levels, and it is plausible that sample groups living in different geographic areas would have led to greater differentiation in their expressive flexibility levels, compared to our sample where all participants reside in the United States even as they are ethnically different. Third, while we focused on life satisfaction and depressive symptoms as indicators of psychological well-being, future studies can expand the scope of these measures by examining other important indicators, such as social functioning. Fourth, this study used self-reported ethnic group identification as a proxy for culture. Future studies can consider culture-specific or contextual dimensions (e.g., individualism–collectivism, emotion restraint or harmony values, and context sensitivity) to aid in our understanding of the source and mechanism behind the aforementioned cultural differences. Fifth, while we considered enhancement and suppression of positive and negative emotions collectively in this study, future studies can consider exploring greater nuances in the valence of emotions or type of emotions in enhancement or suppression ability. Finally, given the stability of life satisfaction and psychological well-being over 3 months, it may be that the short duration between the survey timepoints prevented an ideal test of the influence of expressive flexibility over time. Our recruitment also resulted in an unequal number of participants across the three ethnic groups. Future research with longer follow-up periods, more repeated measurements within individuals and with larger sample sizes are needed to advance our understanding of the mental health benefits of expressive flexibility.

This paper is the first to our knowledge to examine expressive flexibility across three cultural groups and their associations with psychological well-being over time. While our findings are preliminary and exploratory, we found that enhancement ability may be a culturally-unique indicator for well-being over time among Asian Americans, adding to findings within the nascent field of expressive flexibility. Future studies are needed to further investigate cultural differences in expressive flexibility and their associations with psychological well-being.

The original contributions presented in the study are included in the article/supplementary material, further inquiries can be directed to the corresponding author.

The studies involving human participants were reviewed and approved by NYU-IRB-FY2020-4261. The patients/participants provided their written informed consent to participate in this study.

JA was the primary author on this manuscript and data analyses, while WT is JA’s PhD mentor supervising the project as well as leading the data collection process.

The study was funded by the New York University Steinhardt Office of Faculty Development and Diversity—Diversity Innovation Grant.

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.