Cognitive Reappraisal and Expressive Suppression among Queer Youth and Its Implications on Interpersonal Relationships

Abstract

Queer people go through a lot emotionally in today's society because the term "LGBT" has a stigma, which can have a big impact on their social well-being. Aim: The present study aims to find out emotion regulation among queer young adults and its implications on their social interactions. There was little research on LGBTQ young people that included these two study factors. The major goal of this study is to learn how queer young adults manage their emotions daily and how each strategy influences their social interactions as a whole. Method: A total of 131 participants from the age group 18 to 25 years have responded, which was drawn using the snowball sampling method from various parts of India. Two already developed and tested questionnaires on emotion regulation and social relationships were used in the study. Results: It was found that cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression had a significant impact on how queer young adults interacted with one another in social situations. Expressive Suppression had a very low negative influence on social interactions whereas Cognitive Reappraisal had a very low positive impact.