Current academic research on Americans who consistently suppress or regulate their emotions tends to provide empirical proof for the vices of emotional suppression. In particular, some researchers believe emotional suppression leads to a decrease in well-being and proves to be less adaptive (i.e., for interpersonal relations and long-term health) overtime (Gross, 2003; Butler 2003 offers two examples). James Gross (2003), a leader in this field, argues suppression leads to a decrease in well-being because the suppression of emotion damages one's sense of authenticity, resulting in an increase of incongruence between self and behavior. Yet this is a decidedly western view of the self-a self that appears fundamentally separate from roles and relationships and immutable amidst varying cultural contexts. Present research unfortunately fails to consider one possibility in full: emotion regulation may be socially functional and beneficial under certain circumstances. This project will use ethnographic observations, open-ended interviews and questionnaires within a psychiatric hospital in Merida, Yucatan and a rural community in Yucatan, Mexico. This project will explore two areas: 1) how culturally appropriate emotion regulation (e.g., adherence to local emotion display rules) influences well-being; and 2) how culturally inappropriate emotion dysregulation comes to be used as a proxy for identifying those who are in psychological distress. This research is primarily phenomenological in design; that is, it aims to understand the defining features of emotion regulation in rural Yucatan-an area known to value expressive emotion regulation and the subsequent role those features play on individuals' mental health. This study can be used as a model for future research on cultural context, emotion regulation, well-being, and psychological distress. The qualitative focus in this study will help to improve the diagnosis and treatment of psychological distress in groups that value the regulation of certain emotions.
