(PS4-75) Methods, moderators, and innovations to improve clinical engagement and outcomes

Abstract Text: Background. Expressive suppression is defined as the inhibition of emotional display, and has been consistently linked with poorer psychological well-being. However, little research has explored individual differences in individual-centered factors that may mitigate these negative health effects. The social-cognitive processing (SCP) model (Lepore, 2001) suggests that restricting emotional expression leads to psychological maladjustment when individuals experience social constraints. Building on this theory, we contend that two individual-centered factors – low ambivalence over emotion expression (i.e., less internal conflict about expressing emotions) and high subjective authenticity (i.e., a strong sense of alignment with one’s true self) – may buffer against the harmful effects of expressive suppression. The present study examines whether high subjective authenticity and low ambivalence over emotion expression attenuates the longitudinal associations between expressive suppression and psychological well-being among young adults. Methods. 490 first-year college students (Mage = 17.89, SD = .58, 69.92% female) completed an online survey during the summer before they started their college education (T1) and a survey administered during the end of the Fall 2020 semester (T2). Participants reported their ambivalence over emotion expression, authenticity, and tendency to use expressive suppression at T1, as well as depressive and anxiety symptoms and life satisfaction at both T1 and T2. Results. As hypothesized, both ambivalence and authenticity moderated the effects of expressive suppression on psychological health over time. Specifically, T1 expressive suppression was associated with greater T2 depressive (B = 1.40 and 2.04, SE = .47 and .49, ps < .01) and T2 anxiety symptoms (B = 1.54 and 1.95, SE = .53 and .55, ps <.01) and lower life satisfaction (B = -1.34 and -1.06, SE = .32 and .34, ps <.001) among individuals with high ambivalence over emotion expression and lower authenticity respectively, whereas these relationships were not significant among individuals with low ambivalence over emotion expression and high authenticity. Discussion. Our findings highlight the importance of considering individual differences in understanding when expressive suppression is more or less maladaptive. Specifically, internal social-cognitive factors, such as feeling conflicted about emotion expression and authenticity, serve as important moderators of expressive suppression effects. This underscores the importance of moving away from broad generalizations that expressive suppression is universally harmful across contexts and individuals. These insights have important clinical implications.