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Emotion and intercultural adjustment 85

3.2. Identifying the psychological skills underlying the ICAPS:
the importance of emotion regulation

Initial factor analyses using normative data (n approximately 2,300, half of
whom were non-U.S. born and raised) suggested that four factors underlie the
ICAPS – Emotion Regulation (ER), Openness (OP), Flexibility (FL) and Critical
Thinking (CT) (Matsumoto et al. 2001). These findings provided support for our
theoretical formulation in which the importance of ER, OP, CT and FL are the key
psychological ingredients to intercultural adaptation. These skills were hypo-
thesized as necessary in allowing immigrants and sojourners to cope with stress
and conflict that are inevitable in intercultural sojourns, while at the same time
allowing for personal growth in understanding, tolerance and acceptance of cul-
tural differences.
To obtain further support for the validity of these four psychological skills
to predict adjustment, we created scores for each of these scales and computed
correlations between them and various adjustment variables across the studies
conducted to determine which psychological constructs predicted adjustment.
Individuals who scored high on the ICAPS scales, and especially ER, had less
adjustment problems at work, home, during spare time, and in family domains;
less somatic, cognitive, and behavioural anxiety; less depression; greater subjec-
tive well-being in their adjustment to the US or another country; greater subjec-
tive adjustment; higher dyadic adjustments in international marriages; higher
life satisfaction; less psychopathology; less culture shock and homesickness;
higher language scores; better grades; more tendency to work; higher income;
and managerial skills useful in solving the complex problems of running a busi-
ness. These correlations provided strong support for this conglomeration of
skills to predict adjustment.
Conceptually we suggested that ER was a gatekeeper skill because it is
necessary for people to manage inevitable intercultural conflict and that once
emotions were regulated individuals could engage in critical thinking and as-
similation of new cognitive schemas that aid in adjustment. Various outcomes
across all studies supported this contention. Across studies, ER predicted most
of the adjustment measures relative to the other ICAPS scales. In addition, hier-
archical multiple regressions indicated that ER accounted for most of the vari-
ance in adjustment outcomes when entered first in the regression; the additional
variance accounted for by OP, FL, and CT was always negligible (Matsumoto et
al. 2003b). People who score high on ER have high positive social skills and
abilities, more success in life, successful coping, achievement, ability, and psy-
chological mindedness. They also have less Neuroticism, and less tendency to
withdraw from active involvement with the social world.
Our most recent studies continue to highlight the importance of ER to inter-
cultural adjustment. In one study (Yoo, Matsumoto and LeRoux 2006), inter-
national students attending San Francisco State University completed the ICAPS