Social Consequences of Breaking Online Emotional Display
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SOCIAL CONSEQUENCES OF BREAKING ONLINE EMOTIONAL DISPLAY RULES: A MIXED-METHODS STUDY IN PARTNERSHIP WITH AFRICAN AMERICAN ADOLESCENT MALES by Christy Galletta Horner B.S., University of Pittsburgh, 2005 M.S., University of Pittsburgh, 2013 Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Education in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Pittsburgh 2017i UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH School of Education This dissertation was presented by Christy Galletta Horner It was defended on April 3, 2017 and approved by Jennifer Lin Russell, PhD, Associate Professor Matthew Bundick, PhD, Assistant Professor Brian Galla, PhD, Assistant Professor Dissertation Advisor: Thomas Akiva, PhD, Assistant Professor ii Copyright © by Christy Galletta Horner 2017 iii SOCIAL CONSEQUENCES OF BREAKING ONLINE EMOTIONAL DISPLAY RULES: A MIXED-METHODS STUDY IN PARTNERSHIP WITH AFRICAN AMERICAN ADOLESCENT MALES Christy Galletta Horner, PhD University of Pittsburgh, 2017 The advent of social media has introduced a powerful new context for emotional development, which is particularly important for adolescents. Emotional development is especially active and susceptible to peer influences during adolescence, and by 2014, almost all U.S. teens reported using social media. Building a knowledge base about adolescents’ emotional lives online could inform practice in ways that improve outcomes for youth, but research on emotional interactions via social media is in its infancy. This mixed-methods, exploratory taxonomy development study first qualitatively explored how African American adolescent boys defined emotional display rules online, and then used experimental methods to investigate the perceived social consequences of breaking these display rules. A total of 50 adolescents (mean age = 15.8) participated; of these, 10 acted as youth research partners who engaged in focus groups to help design research materials and interpret results, and 40 others engaged in experimental procedures and individual interviews. Through inductive qualitative analysis, we developed a taxonomy of emotional display rules around anger, sadness, embarrassment, and excitement. Some particularly salient display rules centered on anger. For example, one emergent display rule was: expressions iv of anger that are violent in nature are not socially acceptable. Results from the within-subjects experiment using simulated social media interactions suggest that youth perceive social consequences for fictional characters who broke display rules. Ratings of likeability were significantly different among four characters; the emotionally neutral was the most liked character, whereas youth rated the three characters who violated specific display rules significantly lower. The character who violated the anger display rule received the lowest ratings. Characters who violated display rules also garnered less sympathy when they posted about the death of a friend, and participants’ response intentions to these posts differed among characters. Findings suggest that breaking certain online emotional display rules can harm peer relationships. With knowledge about the nature and consequences of African American adolescent boys’ emotional interactions via social networking sites, adults across developmental settings (e.g., school and after school programs) will be positioned to help youth become more intentional about online expressions and responses. v TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .................................................................................................... XIII 1.0 EMOTION AND MASCULINITY IN THE AGE OF SOCIAL MEDIA: THE CHALLENGE FOR AFRICAN AMERICAN BOYS ............................................................... 1 1.1 MASCULINITY AND EMOTIONAL EXPRESSION ..................................... 4 1.1.1 Toxic masculinity in black culture ................................................................. 4 1.2 THE DEVELOPMENT OF EMOTIONAL COMPETENCE IN SOCIAL CONTEXT ............................................................................................................................ 5 1.2.1 Emotional development in adolescence ......................................................... 7 1.2.2 Social and emotional competencies and emotion expression ....................... 8 1.3 SOCIAL MEDIA AS A DEVELOPMENTAL SETTING .............................. 11 1.3.1 Social media use and social-emotional functioning .................................... 13 1.3.2 Expressing and responding to emotions online ........................................... 13 1.4 THE CURRENT RESEARCH .......................................................................... 16 1.4.1 Research aims, questions, and hypotheses .................................................. 17 1.4.2 Methods .......................................................................................................... 18 2.0 STUDY 1: AFRICAN AMERICAN MALES’ PERCEPTIONS OF EMOTIONAL DISPLAY RULES ON SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES ........................... 23 2.1 THE SOCIAL PROCESS OF LEARNING ABOUT EMOTIONS ............... 25 vi 2.1.1 Emotion socialization of African American males ..................................... 26 2.1.2 Operationalizing emotional display rules: past research ........................... 28 2.1.3 Operationalizing emotional display rules: the current study .................... 30 2.2 RESEARCH QUESTIONS ................................................................................ 31 2.3 METHODS .......................................................................................................... 32 2.3.1 Participants .................................................................................................... 32 2.3.2 Procedures ...................................................................................................... 34 2.3.3 Data analysis .................................................................................................. 38 2.4 FINDINGS ........................................................................................................... 40 2.4.1 Anger............................................................................................................... 43 2.4.2 Embarrassment .............................................................................................. 51 2.4.3 Sadness ............................................................................................................ 55 2.4.4 Excitement ...................................................................................................... 59 2.4.5 Thinking about context ................................................................................. 63 2.5 DISCUSSION ...................................................................................................... 65 2.5.1 Social consequences versus benefits of expression ..................................... 65 2.5.2 Complexities of anger and violence .............................................................. 66 3.0 STUDY 2: SOCIAL CONSEQUENCES OF BREAKING EMOTIONAL DISPLAY RULES ....................................................................................................................... 68 3.1 U.S. TEENS EMOTIONAL LIVES ONLINE: WHAT IT MEANS TO GO MASSPERSONAL ............................................................................................................. 70 3.1.1 Emotional display rules ................................................................................. 71 3.1.2 Emotional expressions and social support................................................... 74 vii 3.1.3 Closeness of social ties ................................................................................... 75 3.2 RESEARCH QUESTIONS AND HYPOTHESES .......................................... 76 3.3 METHODS .......................................................................................................... 77 3.3.1 Participants .................................................................................................... 77 3.3.2 Procedures ...................................................................................................... 78 3.4 RESULTS ............................................................................................................ 84 3.4.1 Research question 1 ....................................................................................... 84 3.4.2 Research question 2 ....................................................................................... 86 3.4.3 Research Question 3 ...................................................................................... 88 3.5 DISCUSSION ...................................................................................................... 89 3.5.1 Research Question 1: The Effect of Display Rule Violation on Likeability and Sympathy ............................................................................................................. 89 3.5.2 Research Question 2: The Effects of Display Rule Violation and Closeness of Ties on Response Intentions .................................................................................. 91 3.5.3 Research question 3: age and social media use ........................................... 93 4.0 THINKING BACK AND LOOKING FORWARD ................................................ 95 4.1 SHAPING THE RESEARCH: THREE BIG DECISIONS ............................ 96 4.1.1 Why African American males? ...................................................................