Emotion Beliefs and Emotion Regulation Strategies Associated With Anxiety Symptoms Among Grade 7

Abstract

The current study aimed to investigate the relationship among two fundamental emotional beliefs (controllability and goodness), emotion regulation strategies, and anxiety symptoms. The study evaluated the mediatory effects of emotion regulation strategies on the relationship between emotion beliefs and anxiety. Grade 7 and 8 adolescents in China (n = 598) answered relevant questionnaires. Results demonstrated that individuals who believed that emotions were relatively controllable or that anxiety was relatively good reported lower levels of anxiety. Further, the link between beliefs about emotion controllability and anxiety was partially mediated by reappraisal and rumination, suggesting that believing that emotions were relatively controllable could reduce anxiety via increased reappraisal and less rumination. Decreased rumination was more important in early adolescents. Additionally, the link between beliefs about anxiety goodness and anxiety symptoms was also mediated by reappraisal, suggesting that adolescents who believed that anxiety was relatively good were more likely to adopt reappraisal, which in turn decreased anxiety symptoms. These findings contribute to our understanding of emotion beliefs of early adolescents in China and their effects. They suggest that enhancing controllable beliefs about emotion and good beliefs about anxiety in adolescents who are less likely to actively regulate their emotions may be valuable in reducing their anxiety.

Plain Language Summary

Beliefs about controllability of emotion and goodness of anxiety and emotion regulation strategies associated with anxiety symptoms among grade 7–8 adolescent students in China

Purpose: The present study measured both emotion controllability and goodness beliefs to analyze the links between emotion beliefs, emotion regulation, and anxiety in daily life among early adolescents in China. Methods: Chinese adolescents of grades 7 and 8 (n = 598) answered relevant questionnaires. Conclusion: The present study demonstrated that students who believed that emotions were relatively controllable or that anxiety was relatively good used reappraisal more frequently, which led to lower anxiety. Also, adolescents who believed that emotions were relatively controllable were less likely to use rumination, which decreased anxiety. Implication: First, incremental beliefs about emotion predicted fewer anxiety symptoms, implying that enhancing incremental beliefs about emotion may be an effective intervention in anxious adolescents. In particular, enhancing incremental beliefs in adolescents who are less likely to actively regulate their emotions may be valuable in reducing their anxiety. Second, based on the study findings suggesting that adolescents who believed anxiety was relatively good experienced fewer anxiety symptoms, both parents and teachers should encourage adolescents to experience the benefits of anxiety, and thereby reduce its negative effects. Finally, reappraisal appears to be a particularly healthy regulatory strategy, suggesting the need for appropriate guidance and training by parents and teachers. Nonetheless, it may be necessary to help adolescents understand the adverse effects of suppression and rumination.

Keywords

beliefs about controllability of emotion beliefs about goodness of anxiety emotion regulation strategies anxiety adolescents

Introduction

Among a large number of beliefs about the world individuals hold, the beliefs about emotion are particularly impactful because they are tied to individuals’ emotional, clinical, and interpersonal outcomes (De Castella et al., 2013; Karnaze & Levine, 2018; Romero et al., 2014; Schroder et al., 2015; Tamir et al., 2007). Studies mainly investigated two fundamental beliefs about emotion: emotional controllability and goodness. Believing that emotional experiences cannot be controlled represents an entity belief about emotion, while the opposite end of the spectrum indicates an incremental belief about emotion. Emotional goodness (e.g., helpful, useful, desirable) or badness (e.g., harmful, useless, unwanted) reflects individual attitude toward emotions (Ford & Gross, 2018, 2019).

Previous studies reported that individuals with stronger entity beliefs experienced greater anxiety, and the effect of entity belief was partially mediated by emotion regulation (Deplancke et al., 2022; King & Dela Rosa, 2019; Schroder et al., 2015). However, few studies investigated the relationship between beliefs about emotional goodness, emotion regulation and anxiety symptoms. These two beliefs about emotion have rarely been assessed within the same study. According to Ford and Gross (2019), although the two beliefs are conceptually orthogonal, they can co-exist and interact, predicting downstream outcomes. Therefore, the joint influence of emotion controllability and goodness beliefs should be examined, or at least another belief about emotion should be controlled when the role of one emotion belief is explored.

In addition, although several studies have analyzed that the relationships between emotion controllability beliefs, emotion regulation, and psychological health in adolescents (Ford et al., 2018b; Romero et al., 2014; Schleider & Weisz, 2016a, 2016b), the impact of the two beliefs about emotion on anxiety symptoms and the significance of emotion regulation strategies among Chinese adolescents have yet to be reported. Thus, the present study measured both emotion controllability and goodness beliefs to analyze the links between emotion beliefs, emotion regulation, and anxiety in daily life among early adolescents in China.

Emotion Controllability Beliefs, Anxiety, and Emotion Regulation

Entity beliefs of emotion correlate with greater anxiety symptoms (Deplancke et al., 2022; King & Dela Rosa, 2019; Schroder et al., 2015). Studies also suggest that emotion controllability beliefs are related to emotion regulation, which represents an important mechanism linking emotion controllability beliefs and emotional outcomes (De Castella et al., 2013; Deplancke et al., 2022; Ford & Gross,2019; Ford et al., 2018b; Kneeland et al., 2016a; Schroder et al., 2015; Tamir et al., 2007).

Several common regulatory strategies were analyzed in relation to emotion controllability beliefs. For instance, cognitive reappraisal (simply “reappraisal”) involves reinterpreting an emotional situation to change its meaning and emotional impact (Debora, 2014; Gross & John, 2003). Expressive suppression (simply “suppression”) is defined as the attempt to hide or inhibit emotionally expressive behavior while emotionally aroused (Gross & Levenson, 1993; Gross & John, 2003). Rumination involves repetitively focusing on thoughts and feelings around a theme, which may amplified the emotional experience (Aldao et al., 2010; Ray et al., 2008). Studies correlating emotion controllability beliefs and reappraisal reported that individuals who held incremental beliefs about emotion made more use of reappraisal (King & Dela Rosa, 2019; Kneeland et al., 2020; Tamir et al., 2007). Manipulating individual beliefs about emotion controllability, Kneeland et al. (2016c) also found that individuals with stronger incremental beliefs reported engaging in increased reappraisal during stressful speech. Studies further confirmed that the effects of emotion controllability beliefs on anxiety were partially mediated by reappraisal (e.g., Deplancke et al., 2022).

However, studies on the relationships between emotion controllability beliefs and other regulatory strategies, such as suppression and rumination, yielded mixed results. For example, the effect of emotion controllability beliefs on suppression was not found in some studies (Kneeland et al., 2016c; Tamir et al., 2007). However, Deplancke et al. (2022) showed that beliefs about relatively uncontrollable emotions were linked to increased suppression, which in turn contributed to an increase in anxiety symptoms. Schroder et al. (2015) reported that the entity beliefs about anxiety were associated with more frequent suppression; however, in one of their two studies, the entity beliefs about emotion were associated with decreased suppression. While college students who held more controllable views of emotion reported decreased reliance on rumination (Kneeland & Dovidio, 2020), other studies found no influence of controllability beliefs on rumination (Kneeland et al., 2016b, 2016c; Kneeland et al., 2020). Obviously, further research is needed to clarify the relationships between emotion controllability beliefs and the use of strategies to regulate emotion.

Emotion Goodness Beliefs, Emotional Outcomes, and Emotion Regulation

Compared with studies that focused on emotion controllability beliefs, relatively few studies investigated the role of emotion goodness beliefs. However, some meaningful results were still found. First, studies have linked beliefs about goodness of general or specific emotions with emotional outcomes (Ford et al., 2018a; Harmon-Jones et al., 2011; Karnaze & Levine, 2018; Luong et al., 2016). For example, Luong et al. (2016) assessed the value of negative emotions (anger, nervousness, downcast) in four ways (pleasantness, helpfulness, appropriateness, meaningfulness) and found that appreciating negative affective states made the associations between daily experiences of negative affect and poor mental health less pronounced. The authors explained that seeing the value of negative emotions may help individuals cope with negative emotions and protect them from their harmful effects. Similarly, Karnaze and Levine (2018) found that believing that emotions were helpful in general predicted greater happiness in a sample of undergraduates, whereas belief in harmful emotions decreased the level of happiness. Further, judging emotions as unacceptable or bad was linked to increased negative emotional responses to stressors and predicted greater depressive and anxiety symptoms in adults (Ford et al., 2018a).

Second, beliefs about emotion goodness have also been linked to emotion regulation. Ford and Gross (2018, 2019) proposed that beliefs about emotion goodness may have an influence on each stage of emotion regulation. Individuals who believe an emotion is bad are more likely to evaluate the emotion as needing regulation, and are more likely to select and implement strategies that can help them avoid or decrease this emotion. Conversely, individuals who believe an emotion is good are less likely to identify the emotion as needing regulation, and are more likely to maintain or enhance this emotion. The research evidence partially supports the above view. For example, individuals who believed that anger would be useful to them were more likely to try to increase their anger (Tamir & Ford, 2012). Individuals with the belief that negative emotions were dangerous or undesirable were more likely to make avoidant coping response when faced with negative stimuli (Dennis & Halberstadt, 2013). However, following a similar rationale, individuals believing an emotion is bad require a more frequent use of strategies such as reappraisal that can effectively reduce the emotion, which is not in line with the results of Karnaze and Levine (2018). Karnaze and Levine demonstrated that the more undergraduates endorsed the view that emotion was helpful, the more they used reappraisal which, in turn, predicted greater happiness. However, when they endorsed the view that emotion was harmful, they used suppression increasingly in daily life. Karnaze and Levine explained that people who viewed emotions as helpful were likely to attend to and learn from their emotions and have more opportunities to observe that their interpretations of situations impacted their emotional responses. Thus, they were more likely to alter their emotional experiences by reappraisal. Conversely, people who viewed emotions as harmful were not likely to have acquired the knowledge and skills required to successfully use reappraisal. Instead, they may be motivated not to feel or express their emotions (i.e., using suppression strategy). Clearly, the relationships between emotion goodness beliefs and emotion regulation strategies require further exploration.

Emotion Beliefs, Mental Health, and Emotion Regulation in Adolescents

Several studies have provided a basis for understanding adolescents’ emotional beliefs and their role. Romero et al. (2014) first showed that middle-school students with emotion controllable beliefs reported fewer depressive symptoms. Schleider and Weisz (2016a, 2016b) also demonstrated the association between entity beliefs about emotion and deteriorating psychological health in early adolescents aged 11 to 14 years. Ford et al. (2018b) further investigated the relationship between youths’ beliefs about controllability of emotion, emotion regulation, and psychological health in a cross-sectional study (14- to 18-year-olds) and a longitudinal study (10- to 18-year-olds). The results showed differences in beliefs regarding emotion controllability across different age groups. Entity beliefs were relatively low in 4th graders and rising across adolescence. They also revealed that adolescents with stronger entity beliefs experienced greater depressive symptoms, and this link was mediated by lower reappraisal. However, to our knowledge, no studies analyzed the relationships between the two beliefs about emotion, anxiety symptoms, and emotion regulation strategies in adolescent subjects.

The Current Study

The current study investigated the relationships among the two emotional beliefs of early adolescents, their emotion regulation strategies, and anxiety symptoms, and tested the mediatory effects of emotion regulation on the relationship between emotion beliefs and anxiety. We sampled grade-7 and -8 adolescents in China, following a challenging transition period from primary to middle school. Their learning tasks were harder than in elementary school and were preparing for the high school entrance exam, mainly in ninth grade. It is widely believed in Chinese culture that education is crucial in getting a good job and pursuing a better life. As a result, grade 7–8 adolescents in China face intense pressures of academic competition. Also, teenagers around the age of 13 years start to experience great physical and psychological changes and are therefore prone to anxiety, which is supported by findings of peak anxiety in mid-teens (Abe & Suzuki, 1986). More than 30% of the participants had anxiety disorders based on DMS-IV symptom criteria in a sample of grade 7–9 students in Hong Kong (Leung et al., 2008).

In the present study, we adopted self-report questionnaires to assess participants’ controllability beliefs about emotion and goodness beliefs about anxiety. We measured the usage of four strategies using a self-report questionnaire. They included reappraisal, suppression, rumination, and expressive enhancement (simply “expression”) that involved disclosure of your feelings.

Based on previous findings involving adult samples (Deplancke et al., 2022; King & Dela Rosa, 2019; Schroder et al., 2015), it was hypothesized that adolescents who held more controllable beliefs would report less anxiety symptoms (Hypothesis 1) and were more likely to use reappraisal (Hypothesis 2). We also expected to confirm the mediatory effect of reappraisal (Hypothesis 3). Based on the view that uncontrollable beliefs about emotion may induce individuals to engage in more passive strategies (Kneeland & Dovidio, 2020), we predicted that adolescents with highly uncontrollable beliefs would engage in greater passive and maladaptive strategy of rumination (Hypothesis 4), which in turn mediated an increase in anxiety symptoms (Hypothesis 5). Suppression and expression were not expected to be associated with emotion controllability beliefs based on the idea that such beliefs appear to be centered on emotional experiences. Controllability beliefs should shape the use of strategies that target emotional experiences rather than control external emotional expressions (Ford et al., 2018b).

With reference to a past study in an undergraduate sample (Karnaze & Levine, 2018), we expected that participants who viewed anxiety as relatively good would report fewer anxiety symptoms (Hypothesis 6). Further, we predicted that participants believing that anxiety was relatively good would be more likely to use reappraisal (Hypothesis 7), which in turn mediated a decrease in anxiety symptoms (Hypothesis 8). However, participants believing that anxiety was relatively bad would be more likely to use suppression (Hypothesis 9), which in turn mediated an increase in anxiety symptoms (Hypothesis 10). Figure 1 shows our predictions involving the mediatory effects of emotion regulation strategies in the relationship between emotion beliefs and anxiety.

Figure 1.

Theoretical model depicting the mediatory effects of emotion regulation strategies in relationships between emotion beliefs (ECB and AGB) and anxiety symptoms.

Methods

Participants

The study used convenient whole-group sampling. 672 grade 7–8 students from an ordinary middle school in Beijing completed all questionnaires. The study excluded 74 participants due to short completion time (less than or equal to 5 min). The final sample size was 598 (316 boys and 282 girls; 298 7th graders and 300 8th graders; M_age = 13.13, SD_age = 0.74).

Measures and Procedures

Demographic Information

Participants reported their gender, age, grade, and student ID.

Beliefs About Controllability of Emotion

Emotion controllability beliefs (ECB) were assessed using the Implicit Theories of Emotion Scale (ITES; Tamir et al., 2007) which was composed of two controllable and two uncontrollable statements. Participants indicated the extent to which they agreed with each statement on a 7-point scale (with 1 indicating strong disagreement and 7 strong agreement). The two uncontrollable items were reverse-scored and averaged across all four items, with higher scores indicating stronger incremental beliefs and lower scores indicating stronger entity beliefs. The Cronbach’s α coefficient was .64 in the current study.

Beliefs About Goodness of Anxiety

Based on the interpretation of emotion goodness beliefs by Ford and Gross (2019), we imitated ITES to develop the Good Nature of Anxiety Scale to assess participants’ anxiety goodness beliefs (AGB). The scale includes three good items, “Nervousness and anxiety are helpful for me to complete my learning tasks,”“I would like to experience a certain amount of nervousness and anxiety,” and “Nervousness, anxiety, worry, and fear are useful in some cases,” and three bad items, “My performance tends to be poor if I feel nervous and anxious during the exam or doing my homework,”“I don’t want to be nervous and anxious,” and “Nervousness, anxiety, worry, and fear are harmful.” Participants indicated their agreement with each item on a scale of 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). The three bad items were reverse-scored and averaged across all items to obtain overall scores, with higher scores indicating stronger good beliefs and lower scores indicating stronger negative beliefs of anxiety. In the current study, the Cronbach’s α coefficient was .65.

Anxiety

We measured participants’ level of anxiety using the Self-Rating Anxiety Scale (SAS; Zung, 1971). The SAS consists of 20 items, including 5 reverse-scored items. Participants rated symptom frequency for each item in the last week on a 4-point scale, ranging from 1 (rarely or none of the time) to 4 (most or all of the time). The total score was calculated by summing the score of the 20 items. The standard score was obtained by multiplying 1.25 by the total score. The split-half reliability of the Chinese version of the SAS is .70 for adolescents in China, the criterion validity is 0.70 (the scores of the Self-Rating Depression Scale were used as the criterion) (Wang, 1994). The Cronbach’s α coefficient was .88 in the present study.

Emotion Regulation Strategies

We used the Chinese version of Adolescents Daily Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (ADERQ; Deng & Sang, 2011) to measure the usage of four emotion regulation strategies (i.e., reappraisal, rumination, suppression, and expression). ADERQ included negative and positive emotion regulation subscales. Since this study focused on the mediatory role of emotion regulation in the relationship between emotional beliefs and anxiety, which is commonly viewed as a negative emotion, this study only used negative emotion regulation subscale to measure the four strategies. The negative subscale consists of 20 items (six for reappraisal, six for rumination, four for suppression, and four for expression). Participants rated how often in daily life they deal with an emotional situation in a certain way on a 5-point scale (1 = least frequently, 5 = most frequently). In the ADERQ, reappraisal and suppression are down-regulation strategies which reduce emotional experiences or weaken behavioral and facial responses, whereas rumination and expression are up-regulation strategies which enhance emotional experiences or amplify behavioral and facial responses. The higher the mean score, the more frequent was the individual use of daily strategy. In the present study, the Cronbach’s α coefficient was .88 for this subscale and ranged from .79 to .88 for different regulatory strategies.

Participants completed the self-report surveys online in the computer classroom at the middle school. This study lasted 2 weeks. During this 2-week period, the participants did not encounter any major exams. All participants and their parents gave informed consent. The research was approved by the Psychological Ethics Committee of the authors’ University.

Data Analyses

The data analyses proceeded in four stages. First, descriptive statistics were calculated, and gender and grade differences were examined for all variables based on independent samples t-tests using SPSS 23.0. Second, Pearson correlations were calculated using SPSS 23.0. We tested the correlations between ECB, AGB, anxiety, and the four emotion regulation strategies. A structural equation was then developed using Mplus 7.0 to test the mediating effects of emotion regulation on the association between ECB, AGB, and anxiety. We conducted 5,000 bootstraps using maximum likelihood estimation to test the indirect effects. Finally, we conducted pairwise comparisons between indirect mediators to determine whether the indirect effect of a single mediator was stronger in magnitude than the other.

Results

Descriptive Statistics and Tests of Gender and Grade Differences

Table 1 presents descriptive statistics (means and standard deviations) of all variables as well as the results of tests evaluating gender and grade differences in all variables. The independent samples t-tests showed that the ECB, AGB, and expression scores of boys were higher than those of girls, and the anxiety level of boys was lower than that of girls. Additionally, the AGB and suppression scores of seventh graders were higher than those of eighth graders.

Table 1.

Descriptive Statistics for All Study Variables and Tests of Gender and Grade Differences in All Study Variables.

Variable	Descriptives
Emotion beliefs: ECB
Mean (SD)	4.53 (1.16)
Gender	t = 4.04***
Boys M (SD)	4.71 (1.11)
Girls M (SD)	4.33 (1.18)
School grade	t = 1.01, n.s.
7th M (SD)	4.58 (1.12)
8th M (SD)	4.48 (1.20)
Emotion beliefs: AGB
Mean (SD)	3.77 (0.96)
Gender	t = 2.99***
Boys M (SD)	3.88 (0.93)
Girls M (SD)	3.65 (0.99)
School grade	t = 2.87**
7th M (SD)	3.88 (0.96)
8th M (SD)	3.66 (0.95)
Emotion regulation: reappraisal
Mean (SD)	3.10 (0.97)
Gender	t = 1.68, n.s.
Boys M (SD)	3.17 (0.97)
Girls M (SD)	3.03 (0.96)
School grade	t = 0.85, n.s.
7th M (SD)	3.14 (0.94)
8th M (SD)	3.07 (0.99)
Emotion regulation: rumination
Mean (SD)	2.61 (0.94)
Gender	t = −0.72, n.s.
Boys M (SD)	2.58 (0.92)
Girls M (SD)	2.64 (0.97)
School grade	t = −0.27, n.s.
7th M (SD)	2.60 (0.95)
8th M (SD)	2.62 (0.94)
Emotion regulation: suppression
Mean (SD)	3.22 (1.02)
Gender	t = −0.69, n.s.
Boys M (SD)	3.19 (1.02)
Girls M (SD)	3.25 (1.02)
School grade	t = 2.16*
7th M (SD)	3.31 (1.00)
8th M (SD)	3.13 (1.03)
Emotion regulation: expression
Mean (SD)	2.23 (0.91)
Gender	t = 2.00*
Boys M (SD)	2.30 (0.94)
Girls M (SD)	2.15 (0.87)
School grade	t = −0.99, n.s.
7th M (SD)	2.19 (0.92)
8th M (SD)	2.27 (0.90)
Anxiety symptoms
Mean (SD)	45.87 (12.51)
Gender	t = −3.28**
Boys M (SD)	44.29 (11.44)
Girls M (SD) School grade	47.63 (13.41) t = −0.22, n.s.
7th M (SD)	45.76 (12.05)
8th M (SD)	45.98 (12.96)

Note. Emotion beliefs were rated on a scale of 1–7 and emotion regulation strategies were rated on a scale of 1–5.

p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

Correlational Analysis

Correlations between ECB, AGB, four regulatory strategies, and anxiety are presented in Table 2. ECB was positively correlated with reappraisal and suppression, and negatively correlated with rumination, expression, and anxiety. AGB was correlated positively with reappraisal and negatively with anxiety. The four emotion regulation strategies were positively correlated with each other except that expression was not correlated with suppression. Rumination, suppression, and expression were positively correlated with anxiety, while reappraisal was negatively correlated with anxiety. However, other correlations were not significant.

Table 2.

Pearson’s r Correlations Between ECB, AGB, Emotion Regulation Strategies, and Anxiety Symptoms.

Variable	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
1. ECB	—
2. AGB	.08	—
3. Reappraisal	.29***	.16***	—
4. Rumination	−.27***	−.05	.14***	—
5. Suppression	.08*	.04	.64***	.33***	—
6. Expression	−.20***	−.07	.09*	.61***	.08	—
7. Anxiety	−.49***	−.08*	−.16***	.53***	.08*	.31***	—

p < .05. ***p < .001.

Mediating Analyses

A path model was constructed using the participants’ gender and grade as covariates (Figure 2). Meanwhile, all emotion regulation strategies were allowed to correlate with each other. The model indicated the following fit indices: $χ^{2} / df = = 1.861$ , CFI = 0.999, TLI = 0.975, RMSEA = 0.038, SRMR = 0.009, which suggest an excellent model fit (Hu & Bentler, 1999; Sahoo, 2019).

Figure 2.

The model regarding the mediating effects of four emotion regulation strategies on the association between emotion beliefs (ECB and AGB) and anxiety.

ECB had a significant direct effect on anxiety (standardized direct effect = −.32, 95% CI [−0.39, −0.25]), while AGB did not (standardized direct effect = −.01, 95% CI [−0.08, 0.06]). ECB had specific indirect effects on anxiety via reappraisal (standardized indirect effect = −.04, 95% CI [−0.08, −0.02]) and rumination (standardized indirect effect = −.12, 95% CI [−0.17, −0.08]). Pairwise comparison with the indirect effects showed that rumination had a significantly greater indirect effect than reappraisal (p < .05). AGB had a specific and significant indirect effect on anxiety via reappraisal (standardized indirect effect = −.02, 95% CI [−0.05, −0.01]).

Discussion

The present study indicated different effects of controllability beliefs and goodness beliefs on emotion regulation strategies and anxiety symptoms. Controllability beliefs about emotion influenced anxiety symptoms directly or through reappraisal and rumination while goodness beliefs about anxiety affected anxiety via reappraisal. The findings contribute to our understanding of the links between two fundamental emotional beliefs of early adolescents in China and psychological well-being.

Early Adolescents’ Beliefs About Emotional Controllability and Goodness of Anxiety

The present study assessed the beliefs of early adolescents regarding controllability of emotion and goodness of anxiety, with average scores of about 4.5 and 3.8 on the two 7-point scales, reflecting two moderate degrees of emotion beliefs on average. We did not find a significant correlation between these two beliefs about emotion, suggesting that they might be independent at least in the current sample. Karnaze and Levine (2018) assessed the extent to which undergraduates can change their emotions while they investigated the influences of undergraduates’ views of emotion as helpful or harmful on their emotional experiences. Our findings were consistent with those of Karnaze and Levine, who showed that personal controllability beliefs about emotion were not related to endorsement of emotion helpful or harmful views.

Gender and School Grade Differences in Two Emotion Beliefs

Although the current study did not address the question of gender- and grade-dependent variation in emotional beliefs, such differences were still evaluated. Significant gender differences were found in the two emotional beliefs among grade 7–8 adolescents in China. First, boys viewed emotion as controllable more than girls. Given that the level of anxiety of boys was lower than that of girls in the present study, the gender differences in emotion controllability beliefs may contribute to gender differences in anxiety levels. A similar gender difference was also reported by other studies. For example, Schleider and Weisz (2016b) reported that girls in a sample of early adolescents (ages 11–14) held stronger entity views of thoughts, feelings, and behavior than boys, and entity beliefs were more strongly related to psychological health problems in girls than in boys. Ford et al. (2018b) reported that girls held stronger entity beliefs about emotion than boys and argued that the gender difference may be attributed to early socialization. Girls may be taught that emotions are natural and essential for females, which might lead to beliefs of poor emotional control. Conversely, boys usually are encouraged to control their emotions and thus likely to lead to controllable beliefs about emotion. However, Romero et al. (2014) did not observe such gender differences in a sample of middle-school students. Additionally, no significant gender difference was found in two studies using adult samples (Kneeland et al., 2016c; Tamir et al., 2007). Further studies are needed to determine whether girls reliably endorse stronger entity beliefs about emotion. Second, the present study showed that girls viewed anxiety as harmful more than boys. We suggest that this difference may be related to the fact that girls mature earlier than boys. Accordingly, girls might experience external pressure earlier, leading to higher levels of anxiety and their negative impact. However, this gender difference was contrary to observations involving an undergraduate sample (Karnaze & Levine, 2018), supporting the view that beliefs associated with emotional goodness change with age.

In addition, our results showed differences in goodness beliefs based on grade. Seventh-grade students viewed anxiety as good more than eighth-grade students. Accordingly, a higher grade can increase the pressure faced by adolescents, especially academic pressure. Therefore, students of higher grades are more likely to experience anxiety and its negative effects. However, no obvious grade difference in the level of anxiety was found in the present study. Studies in the future should provide additional information to facilitate our understanding of differences based on grade.

Emotion Controllability Beliefs, Anxiety, and Emotion Regulation Strategies

As predicted by Hypothesis 1, the link between emotion controllability beliefs and anxiety was established in the sample of early adolescents in China, with stronger entity beliefs associated with higher levels of anxiety. This result is consistent with previous studies involving undergraduates, suggesting that greater incremental beliefs about anxiety or general emotion were associated with fewer anxiety symptoms (Schroder et al., 2015). This relationship might be attributed to the adolescent belief in relatively uncontrollable emotions, which reduce their attempts to control emotion (Ford et al., 2018b).

Individual beliefs guide their actions. The study findings suggest that individual beliefs about emotion may influence the extent to which they use emotion regulation strategies. Our results showed that stronger incremental beliefs were associated with greater use of reappraisal to decrease negative emotion, thus supporting hypothesis 2 and replicating past findings (Ford et al., 2018b; King & Dela Rosa, 2019). Reappraisal entails actively changing one’s perspective on a situation in order to modify the emotional response. Studies revealed that reappraisal can effectively reduce negative emotion (Gross & John, 2003). Children and adolescents with anxiety disorders reported using reappraisal less frequently in everyday life (Carthy et al., 2010). The current study also showed that the use of reappraisal was negatively correlated with anxiety. However, reappraisal is a complex strategy that might need additional mental resources. Further practice is also needed for successful reappraisal. Therefore, it is no surprise that individuals believing in mastering their emotional experience are more likely to practice and use it.

The current study also showed the influence of controllability beliefs on rumination. Consistent with Hypothesis 4, stronger incremental beliefs were associated with less frequent use of rumination by grade 7–8 adolescents in China, similar to the results of Kneeland and Dovidio (2020) involving a sample of college students. Rumination is a passive emotion regulation strategy (Kneeland et al., 2020). It generally amplifies unwanted negative emotion and in the long run may be linked to poor mental health outcomes (Aldao et al., 2010; Bushman, 2002; Ray et al., 2008; Vickers & Vogeltanz-Holm, 2003). Our results also showed that rumination was positively correlated with anxiety.

Further, after controlling for goodness beliefs, our analyses of regulatory strategies as mediators showed significant indirect effects of controllability beliefs on anxiety based on reappraisal and rumination, supporting Hypotheses 3 and 5. Rumination had a significantly greater indirect effect than reappraisal. The results suggest that believing emotions are relatively controllable reduce anxiety not only via further reappraisal, but also through less rumination, especially in our early adolescent sample. Additionally, the direct effect of controllability beliefs on anxiety was significant, suggesting that the associations between controllability beliefs and anxiety cannot be fully explained by reappraisal and rumination. Other mechanisms may also play a role. For example, individuals with entity beliefs about emotion may also avoid anxiety-eliciting situations (Rovenpor & Isbell, 2018). Further studies are needed to explore the mechanism underlying the influence of controllability beliefs on anxiety symptoms.

Surprisingly, our results showed that stronger incremental beliefs were associated with the increased use of suppression and less frequent use of expression although our mediating analyses did not identify the mediating effects of suppression and expression. Suppression and expression do not target emotional experiences and are generally ineffective in down-regulating unwanted negative experience (Aldao et al., 2010; Bonanno et al., 2004; Gross & John, 2003). Greater emotional suppression was even associated with higher symptoms of depression or anxiety (Dawel et al., 2021). Our results also confirmed that both suppression and expression were positively correlated with anxiety in the study sample. According to Ford et al. (2018b), controllability beliefs about emotion are centered on emotional experiences and thus shape the use of strategies that target emotional experiences, but not strategies that focus on controlling external emotional expressions (suppression and expression). However, our study found the link between emotion controllability beliefs, suppression and expression strategies. One possible explanation is that hiding individual feelings indicates strong self-control, which is often considered to be a prerequisite for success in many Chinese historical stories and literature (Deng et al., 2013). Thus, the association between stronger incremental beliefs and higher use of suppression (and thus reduced expression) is reasonable for Chinese adolescents. Individuals who believed that emotions were controllable were more likely to engage in suppression and less likely to engage in expression. Taken together, the current study suggests the complexity of relationships between emotion controllability beliefs and emotion regulation strategies involving more than one underlying factor.

Anxiety Goodness Beliefs, Anxiety, and Emotion Regulation Strategies

In support of our Hypothesis 6, the present investigation revealed that goodness beliefs about anxiety were negatively correlated with anxiety. Adolescents who believed that anxiety was relatively good experienced fewer symptoms of anxiety, which was consistent with the findings of Karnaze and Levine (2018) that undergraduates who believed that emotions were helpful generally experienced greater happiness. Moreover, the present study revealed that goodness beliefs about anxiety were positively correlated with reappraisal, supporting Hypothesis 7. Thus, adolescents believing that anxiety was relatively good were more likely to use reappraisal to regulate negative emotion, which was also consistent with the results and conclusions of Karnaze and Levine (2018). In the long run, individuals who perceived emotions favorably were more likely to attend to and learn from their emotions and gain additional opportunities to observe the impact of their appraisals on their emotional experiences. Thus, they were more likely to alter their emotional experience by changing their appraisals.

After adjusting for controllability beliefs, our mediating analyses of emotion regulation strategies revealed a significant indirect effect of anxiety goodness beliefs on anxiety based on reappraisal, supporting Hypothesis 8. Adolescents with stronger anxiety good beliefs were more likely to use reappraisal, which in turn decreased the levels of anxiety. In the absence of a significant direct effect, use of reappraisal is the critical mechanism by which goodness beliefs influence anxious experience.

In addition, Karnaze and Levine (2018) demonstrated that increased endorsement of the negative effects of emotion by undergraduates led to suppression in daily life because people with such negative perception may be motivated against feeling or expression of their emotions. Contrary to the results of Karnaze and Levine and our Hypotheses 9 and 10, the present study did not reveal any link between goodness beliefs about anxiety and suppression, or the mediatory effect of suppression on the association between goodness beliefs about anxiety and anxiety symptoms.

Study Limitations

This study contributes to our understanding of two beliefs about emotion, their relationship with anxiety symptoms, and the mechanisms underlying the role of these beliefs in anxiety. However, the study has several limitations. First, all the measures were self-reported, and the Cronbach’s α coefficients of the Implicit Theories of Emotion Scale (Tamir et al., 2007) and the Good Nature of Anxiety Scale compiled by us were .64 and .65, respectively, which were relatively low. Therefore, our results require cautious interpretation and further improvement of the measurement methods in the future. Second, the current study only used a cross-sectional design and reported a few correlational findings, suggesting that the emotional beliefs of early adolescents in China may influence their anxiety symptoms and emotion regulation. Their anxieties and emotion regulation may also influence their emotional beliefs. In the future, additional longitudinal designs should be used to address questions about temporal precedence and causal mechanisms involved. Third, this study involved 7th and 8th grade adolescents in middle school only. It is unclear whether the present findings can be generalized to older or younger individuals. Studies investigating other age groups are needed to address this question. Fourth, we selected students from an average middle school in Beijing to obtain a more representative sample. However, we acknowledge that our findings may not necessarily apply to middle-school students in other parts of China. Finally, although this study showed that stronger incremental beliefs about emotion were linked to fewer anxiety symptoms, holding strong incremental beliefs may not be beneficial for everyone. If incremental beliefs about emotion drive individuals with generalized anxiety disorder to excessive attempts to control internal experience, it may exacerbate anxiety symptoms (Kneeland et al., 2016a). Therefore, caution must be exercised when intervening with emotional beliefs in individuals with generalized anxiety disorder to prevent excessive emotion regulation efforts from exacerbating their anxiety symptoms. As the evidence on the adverse effects of incremental beliefs about emotion is preliminary, future research should further investigate under what conditions adopting a more controllable view of emotions may be beneficial.

Conclusion and Practical Implications

The present study involving a sample of grade 7–8 adolescents in China demonstrated that students who believed that emotions were relatively controllable or that anxiety was relatively good used reappraisal more frequently, which led to lower anxiety. Also, adolescents who believed that emotions were relatively controllable were less likely to use rumination, which decreased anxiety.

Our results have potential practical implications for alleviation of adolescents’ anxiety symptoms. First, incremental beliefs about emotion predicted fewer anxiety symptoms, implying that enhancing incremental beliefs about emotion may be an effective intervention in anxious adolescents. In particular, enhancing incremental beliefs in adolescents who are less likely to actively regulate their emotions may be valuable in reducing their anxiety. Second, based on the study findings suggesting that adolescents who believed anxiety was relatively good experienced fewer anxiety symptoms, both parents and teachers should encourage adolescents to experience the benefits of anxiety, and thereby reduce its negative effects. Finally, adolescents should be encouraged to adapt and better regulate their emotions. Different strategies might be associated with different outcomes. Reappraisal appears to be a particularly healthy regulatory strategy, suggesting the need for appropriate guidance and training by parents and teachers. Nonetheless, it may be necessary to help adolescents understand the adverse effects of suppression and rumination.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

We thank all those who helped in the collection of data. We also thank all the participants for taking part in this study.

ORCID iDs

Qin Zhang

Lixia Cui

Ethical Considerations

The research was approved by the Psychological Ethics Committee of Capital Normal University in January 2021 (CNU-20210101). All participants and their parents gave informed consent.

Author Contributions

Qin Zhang: Conceptualization; Writing – original draft, review & editing; project administration; funding acquisition. Chenyang Shang: Writing – review & editing; data curation; software; formal analysis. Xiaohua Li: Investigation. Yajie Huang: Writing – review. Lixia Cui: Writing – review.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research was supported by the Beijing Philosophy and Social Science Planning Program (20JYB022) and Social Science Research Key Program (SZ202110028013) of Beijing Municipal Commission of Education to Qin Zhang.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Data Availability Statement

Data will be made available on reasonable request.

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Emotion Beliefs and Emotion Regulation Strategies Associated With Anxiety Symptoms Among Grade 7–8 Adolescent Students in China

Abstract

Plain Language Summary

Keywords

Introduction

Emotion Controllability Beliefs, Anxiety, and Emotion Regulation

Emotion Goodness Beliefs, Emotional Outcomes, and Emotion Regulation

Emotion Beliefs, Mental Health, and Emotion Regulation in Adolescents

The Current Study

Methods

Participants

Measures and Procedures

Demographic Information

Beliefs About Controllability of Emotion

Beliefs About Goodness of Anxiety

Anxiety

Emotion Regulation Strategies

Data Analyses

Results

Descriptive Statistics and Tests of Gender and Grade Differences

Correlational Analysis

Mediating Analyses

Discussion

Early Adolescents’ Beliefs About Emotional Controllability and Goodness of Anxiety

Gender and School Grade Differences in Two Emotion Beliefs

Emotion Controllability Beliefs, Anxiety, and Emotion Regulation Strategies

Anxiety Goodness Beliefs, Anxiety, and Emotion Regulation Strategies

Study Limitations

Conclusion and Practical Implications

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

ORCID iDs

Ethical Considerations

Author Contributions

Funding

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

Data Availability Statement

References