Longitudinal associations between emotion regulation strategies and subjective well‐being in migrant and non‐migrant adolescents in urban China

Abstract

This study examined the long‐term reciprocal impact of two key emotion regulation strategies, cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression, on the subjective well‐being of migrant and non‐migrant adolescents in urban China. A total of 2397 middle school students from urban China (864 migrant, Mage = 13.05 years, SD = 0.62, 41.7% girls; 1533 non‐migrant, Mage = 13.01 years, SD = 0.47, 50.1% girls) were followed from 2016 to 2017. Data on the two emotion regulation strategies (measured using the Chinese version of the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire) and subjective well‐being (measured using the Subjective Well‐Being Inventory) were collected. Although no differences were found in the use of cognitive reappraisal, migrant adolescents reported greater use of expressive suppression than non‐migrant adolescents. Furthermore, a two‐group cross‐lagged panel analysis showed that cognitive reappraisal positively predicted subjective well‐being among both migrant and non‐migrant adolescents, whereas expressive suppression was positively related to subjective well‐being in only migrant adolescents. Migrant adolescents with higher levels of subjective well‐being jointly used cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression, while non‐migrant adolescents were prone to only using cognitive reappraisal. These findings indicate that group‐level context influences both the utilisation and functionality of emotion regulation strategies among migrant and non‐migrant adolescents in urban China.