Neural activation patterns during self-compassion and cognitive reappraisal are culture-specific: An electroencephalography (EEG) study

Self-compassion is an emotion regulation strategy which has been shown to be helpful in the West. However, few studies compared self-compassion to another emotion regulation strategies from a cross-cultural perspective. This study aimed to compare the effectiveness of self-compassion and cognitive reappraisal on mitigating negative emotions and promoting positive emotions in Ireland and China. We also explored differences in the neural activation patterns during these two strategies between the two countries. Fifty-five healthy adults (30 in China; 25 in Ireland) recalled an upsetting personal memory, then they engaged in a self-compassion or cognitive reappraisal writing exercise, during which brain activity was recorded using EEG. The levels of negative and positive emotions were self-reported before and after intervention. Whole-brain analyses were conducted for theta-, alpha-, beta-, and gamma-bands.Both self-compassion and cognitive reappraisal effectively reduced self-reported negative emotions whilst also promoted self-reported positive emotions across Ireland and China. Additionally, there were differences in the associated patterns of neural activity between each country; with greater frontal power during self-compassion in the Chinese sample but greater posterior power during cognitive reappraisal in the Irish sample. This study suggests cross-cultural effectiveness of self-compassion and cognitive reappraisal on negative and positive emotions. Furthermore, this study revealed how culture shapes the neural activation patterns during emotion regulation, contributing to the growing field of cultural neuroscience.