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Symposia

Culture / Ethnicity / Race

Emotion Regulation Processes in Marginalized Young People: Implications for The Treatment and Assessment of Internalizing Disorders

3 - (SYM 56) Exploring the Role of Emotion Regulation Flexibility in Ethnoracial Minority Young Adults Receiving Depression and Anxiety Treatment

Sunday, November 23, 2025

1:03 PM - 1:24 PM CST

Location: Celestin H, Level 3

Keywords: Emotion Regulation, Stress, Risk / Vulnerability Factors
Recommended Readings: Lincoln, T. M., Schulze, L., & Renneberg, B. (2022). The role of emotion regulation in the characterization, development and treatment of psychopathology. Nature Reviews Psychology, 1(5), 272-286.https://doi.org/10.1038/s44159-022-00040-4, Wen, A., Metts, A. V., Zinbarg, R. E., Mineka, S., & Craske, M. G. (2025). Tri-level anxiety and depression symptom trajectory in adolescents: The role of emotion regulation diversity. Journal of Anxiety Disorders, 109, 102941., Soto, J. A., Albrecht Soto, S. L., Perez, C. R., Posada Rodríguez, C., & Newman, M. G. (2025). Examining the effectiveness of positive reappraisal in the context of discrimination. Emotion, 25(1), 247–258. https://doi.org/10.1037/emo0001422, Emotion regulation and mental health across cultures: A meta-analysis examining the roles of national cultures, EIRDness, and demographics (preprint available: https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/47tue),

Speaker(s)

Alainna Wen, Ph.D. (she/her/hers)

Postdoctoral Fellow
University of California, Los Angeles
Los Angeles, CA, United States

Co-author(s)

Alainna Wen, Ph.D. (she/her/hers)

Postdoctoral Fellow
University of California, Los Angeles
Los Angeles, CA, United States
Kristen A. Chu, M.A. (she/her/hers)

PhD Student
University of California Los Angeles
Los Angeles, CA, United States
RZ

Richard Zinbarg, Ph.D. (he/him/his)

Professor
Northwestern University
Evanston, IL, United States
RN

Robin Nusslock, Ph.D. (he/him/his)

Associate Professor
Northwestern University
Evanston, IL, United States
Michelle Craske, Ph.D.

Professor of Psychology, Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences
University of California Los Angeles
Los Angeles, CA, United States

Internalizing disorders like depression and anxiety are linked to emotion regulation (ER) deficits. While ER strategies are traditionally conceptualized as “adaptive” and “maladaptive”, the adaptiveness of individual ER strategies has been found to differ across ethnoracial backgrounds. Low flexibility in ER strategy use, in contrast, has been found to be more consistently associated with depression and anxiety across ethnoracial groups, and therefore may be a more culturally relevant predictor of disorder risk and treatment prognosis. However, it remains unclear how ER flexibility improves with psychotherapeutic treatment, particularly in underrepresented populations. In this study, we examined the association between ER flexibility assessed using a novel ER diversity index in young adults from minority ethnoracial backgrounds who are receiving treatment for depression and anxiety. A total of 1215 of participants at baseline were included in a randomized controlled trial. Emotion regulation was assessed using a brief version of the Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire; symptoms of depression and anxiety were assessed using the Computerized Adaptive Test for Mental Health. Results revealed that depressive symptoms, anxiety symptoms, and ER flexibility improved significantly over the course of psychotherapeutic treatment. Importantly, higher ER flexibility as assessed by the ER diversity index predicted lower depressive symptom levels in this sample of ethnoracial minority young adults. Thus, flexibility in ER strategy use may be a mechanism by which depressive symptoms improve with treatment for young adults from minority ethnoracial backgrounds.