Suppress for Success? Exploring the Contexts in Which Expressing Positive Emotion Can Have Social Costs
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European Review of Social Psychology ISSN: 1046-3283 (Print) 1479-277X (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/pers20 Suppress for success? Exploring the contexts in which expressing positive emotion can have social costs Katharine H. Greenaway & Elise K. Kalokerinos To cite this article: Katharine H. Greenaway & Elise K. Kalokerinos (2017) Suppress for success? Exploring the contexts in which expressing positive emotion can have social costs, European Review of Social Psychology, 28:1, 134-174, DOI: 10.1080/10463283.2017.1331874 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10463283.2017.1331874 Published online: 12 Jun 2017. Submit your article to this journal View related articles View Crossmark data Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=pers20 Download by: [KU Leuven University Library] Date: 13 June 2017, At: 00:56 EUROPEAN REVIEW OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY, 2017 VOL. 28, NO. 1, 134–174 https://doi.org/10.1080/10463283.2017.1331874 ARTICLE Suppress for success? Exploring the contexts in which expressing positive emotion can have social costs Katharine H. Greenaway a* and Elise K. Kalokerinos b* aSchool of Psychology, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia; bFaculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium ABSTRACT Researchers and lay people alike have tended to focus on social benefits of expressing positive emotion and, as a result, tend to overlook potential social costs. In this paper, we consider limits to the idea that expressing positive emotion is universally beneficial and review literature demonstrating that, in some contexts, expressing positive emotion can have social costs. Building on our own and others’ work in this space, we outline three sociocontextual factors that influence the social success of positive emotion expression: To avoid potential costs, we suggest that positive emotion should generally be expressed in the right situation, by (and to) the right person, and in the right way. Where positive emotion expression may incur social costs, we propose ff people can e ectively down-regulate positive emotion through use of expres- sive suppression, and review literature demonstrating that there can be social benefits to down-regulating positive emotion. This review advances theorising on the importance of considering context when seeking to understand socially successful emotion expression and regulation. ARTICLE HISTORY Received 10 December 2016; Accepted 16 May 2017 KEYWORDS Emotion expression; emotion regulation; positive emotion; expressive suppression; social relations A tennis champion celebrates conspicuously after winning against a weaker competitor. A funeral attendee laughs out loud during a solemn ceremony. A murder suspect smiles while giving testimony. These expressions of positive emotion are all intuitively recognised as inappropriate, but the contexts in which it might be socially problematic to express positive emotion remain unarticulated in the broader literature. In this paper, we provide a theoretical rubric for understanding which contextual factors are likely to influence whether positive emotion expressions are considered CONTACT Katharine H. Greenaway [email protected] School of Psychology, University of Queensland, Brisbane 4072, Australia *These authors contributed equally to this work. © 2017 European Association of Social Psychology EUROPEAN REVIEW OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 135 socially problematic or beneficial. Because expressing positive emotion is generally considered to be a socially affiliative signal, in this paper, we focus on exploring the ways in which these expressions may sometimes unex- pectedly undermine social closeness and cooperation. Increasingly, research is demonstrating that positive emotions have wide-ranging consequences (e.g., Lyubomirsky, King, & Diener, 2005), but both the broader psychological literature and the emotion literature more specifically have historically focused on negative emotions (Fredrickson, 2001; Sheldon & King, 2001). Although the positive psychol- ogy movement has made important inroads in investigating positive emo- tion, a large body of existing emotion research focuses on the antecedents and consequences of negative emotion, meaning that, as a whole, negative emotion is better understood than its positive counterpart (Fredrickson, 1998, 2001). Consequently, there is a positive–negative asymmetry in emo- tion research; as with many domains in life, it appears that bad is stronger than good (Baumeister, Bratslavsky, Finkenauer, & Vohs, 2001). The rela- tive de-emphasis on positive emotion in the literature means that scientific understanding has lagged behind understanding of negative emotions. Where research does consider positive emotion, it is typically with a view to uncovering the benefits of experiencing and expressing positive emotion (cf. Gruber, Mauss, & Tamir, 2011; Johnson, 2005; Mauss, Tamir, Anderson, & Savino, 2011). In this article, we address the positive–negative asymmetry in research on emotion expression. In Part 1, we begin by taking a new perspective on positive emotion expression, reviewing an emerging body of literature that suggests expressing positive emotion can have negative social consequences. In Part 2, we introduce a theoretical rubric for understanding why expres- sing positive sometimes has social costs when expressed in certain situa- tions, by (and to) certain people, and in certain ways. In Part 3, we discuss how positive emotion can be successfully regulated to avoid social costs in these contexts. In doing so, we highlight our recent work suggesting that expressive suppression, traditionally viewed as a maladaptive emotion reg- ulation strategy, could be useful in these situations. Part 1: the costs (and benefits) of expressing positive emotion In general, research suggests that there are personal and social benefits to experiencing positive emotion (Aknin, Dunn, & Norton, 2012; Berry & Willingham, 1997; Fredrickson, 1998, 2009; Pressman & Cohen, 2005; Shiota, Keltner, & John, 2006). Lay intuition holds that the benefits of experiencing positive emotion also hold for expressed positive emotion. A wealth of popular self-help books promotes the benefits of indiscriminate positive emotion expression, starting with Dale Carnegie’s(1936) bestseller 136 K. H. GREENAWAY AND E. K. KALOKERINOS How to Win Friends and Influence People. Of a range of emotions (e.g., surprise, anger, disgust), people reliably rate happiness as the emotion that should be expressed most and suppressed least across a wide range of social situations (Matsumoto, Yoo, Hirayama, & Petrova, 2005). Benefits of expressing positive emotion In line with this lay intuition, there is a large body of research suggesting that positive emotion expression can have both personal and social benefits. For example, on the personal level, individuals who spontaneously smile while viewing a sad film show quicker recovery from the detrimental cardiovascular effects of experiencing sadness (Fredrickson & Levenson, 1998). Indeed, it is generally personally costly not to express positive emotions when they are felt: Correlational work has found that individuals with a greater positive emotion experience–behaviour dissociation show higher levels of depressive symptoms and lower levels of well-being (Mauss, Shallcross et al., 2011). Positive emotion expression also has social benefits. Early in life, positive emotion expression facilitates bonding and eventually love between infants and caregivers (Shiota, Campos, Keltner, & Hertenstien, 2004). Later in life, the expression of positive emotion is associated with the development and maintenance of romantic relationships (Shiota et al., 2004). For example, discussing positive events with others (a regulation strategy termed “capita- lisation”) is associated with greater relationship well-being (Gable, Reis, Impett, & Asher, 2004). Positive emotion expression is also important when making initial judgments of other people: Harker and Keltner (2001) found that women who expressed more positive emotion in their college yearbook pictures experienced better outcomes in life, including improved well-being, but were also rated as more affiliative (e.g., generous, considerate, pleasant, affectionate) and lower on negative emotionality (e.g., fearful, irritable, hostile). These positive judgements were made by raters who had never met the targets and by raters who had the opportunity to interact with the targets. The raters who never met the targets believed that they would find future interactions with the targets more rewarding, indicating the powerful role positive emotion may play in initial relationship formation. More generally, those who express positive emotions tend to have smoother social interactions. For example, research has found that majority group members who express happiness in cooperative (vs. competitive) contexts tend to put dissenting group members at ease and reduce pressure to conform (Heerdink, van Kleef, Homan, & Fischer, 2013). In the relation- ship domain, expressing gratitude to a partner is associated with positive outcomes, including increased perceptions of closeness, comfort, and rela- tionship strength and quality (Algoe, Fredrickson, & Gable, 2013; Lambert, EUROPEAN REVIEW OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 137 Clark, Durtschi, Fincham, & Graham, 2010; Lambert & Fincham, 2011). When asking for assistance, expressing positive emotion elicits greater sup- port than expressing