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.