The Moderating Effect of Gender in the Relationship between Emotional Suppression and Blood Pressure

The present study aimed to investigate the moderating effect of gender difference in the relationship between emotional suppression used under emotion regulation strategy and blood pressure. Among 1071 high school students who participated in Jang Sung cohort study, the study randomly recruited 200 university students and asked to complete self-reported questionnaires about their psychological and physiological states. Participants reported their emotion regulation strategy and the level of blood pressure with self-reported questionnaires. The results indicated that gender has a significant moderating role on the relationship between emotional suppression and blood pressure. However, there was no significant moderating effect on the relationship between cognitive reappraisal and blood pressure. Males who reported higher emotional suppression score have significantly higher blood pressure, but this effect was only observed among males. These results suggest that males using emotional suppression are more vulnerable to hypertension and it is important to learn more adaptive emotion regulation to prevent hypertension of male.