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Emotion suppression is often regarded as undesirable, if not maladaptive, strategy for emotion regulation and is associated with negative developmental outcomes. Cross-cultural studies have found that Chinese population has a tendency to suppress, regulate, or control their emotions more than other populations. However, emotion suppression is associated with less negative outcomes for Chinese. Early childhood is a critical time when children are socialized with cultural rules and values from adults. Learning how emotion suppression is socialized in kindergartens will help us understand the cultural tendency better. Our systematic review is expected to show that the existing definition of emotion suppression is too narrow to capture its regulatory aspect, which is highly culturally relevant among Chinese.

Past research has paid limited attention to the styles and motives of advice giving, which is a form of problem-focused social support. Our study aims at examining cultural influences on styles of advice and motives underlying them in three countries that differ in collectivism-individualism: India, China, and the U.S.

The purpose of this project is to lay the groundwork for introducing and infusing RULER into Kindergartens across China as well as studying SEL, RULER, and emotional intelligence.

Emotion-focused psychotherapy is less effective among East-Asians than Americans, which is explained as resulting from East-Asians suppressing their emotions. Our research is expected to show that Chinese are as in touch with their emotions as are European-Americans but are more active in initiating self-regulation of their emotions before practical social support is delivered.

Research in developmental psychology has yielded cross-cultural differences in social emotional learning (SEL) between Chinese and Americans. Our research aims at systematically analyze the conceptualization, the measurement and cross-cultural findings in SEL in China by reviewing articles published in both English and Chinese languages.

Studies on prevention-promotion motivation claim that because in Asian cultures people are more likely to feel concerned with failure, they are more prevention-oriented, whereas in Western cultures people are more likely to think about success, leading them to be more promotion-oriented. However, little attention has been given to ways prevention vs promotion motivation is reflected in tendencies to involve others in coping with failure.