A Multistudy Examination of Links Between Receiving
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
SHAME AND INTERPERSONAL EMOTION REGULATION Page 1 Shame on me for needing you: A multistudy examination of links between receiving interpersonal emotion regulation and experiencing shame Benjamin A. Swerdlow, Devon Sandel, Sheri L. Johnson University of California, Berkeley Author Note Benjamin A. Swerdlow, Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley. Devon Sandel, Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley. Sheri L. Johnson, Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley. Support for the lead author’s time was provided by NIMH T32 MH020006-16A1 (PIs: Sheri Johnson & James Gross). We would like to express our gratitude to Drs. Iris Mauss and Dacher Keltner for their valuable feedback on earlier drafts of this manuscript. Portions of these data were presented at the 2018 annual meeting of the Society for Affective Science. Correspondence concerning this article should be sent to Benjamin A. Swerdlow, Department of Psychology, 2121 Berkeley Way West #1650, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720. Email can be sent to: [email protected]. This is a preprint of a manuscript that is currently undergoing peer review. Do not cite without the authors’ permission. SHAME AND INTERPERSONAL EMOTION REGULATION Page 2 Abstract Recent theory and research have drawn attention to interpersonal dimensions of emotion regulation. Yet, few empirical investigations of the outcomes of interpersonal emotion regulation have been conducted. We propose that one negative affective outcome of received interpersonal emotion regulation of conceptual and practical interest is shame. In the present series of studies, participants from six, disparate samples were asked to report on experiences of receiving interpersonal emotion regulation using autobiographical recall and ecological sampling paradigms (total analyzed n = 1868; total analyzed k = 2515 instances of receiving interpersonal emotion regulation). We sought to quantify the frequency and distinctiveness of shame as an outcome of receiving interpersonal emotion regulation. We used an exploratory-confirmatory approach to identify robust and generalizable correlates of shame. We considered individual (e.g., trait external shame-proneness), situational (e.g., desire for regulation), relational (e.g., perceived closeness with the provider) and interaction-specific (e.g., perceptions of provider hostility) variables. Our results indicate that it is not uncommon for people to experience receiving interpersonal emotion regulation as shame-inducing, and these perceptions are distinct from their evaluations of the overall effectiveness of the interaction. The most robust correlates of shame across studies and samples were interaction-specific ratings of responsiveness and hostility, which were negatively and positively correlated with shame, respectively. We discuss the conceptual, methodological, and practical implications of these findings for studying interpersonal emotion regulation and shame. Keywords: interpersonal emotion regulation; shame; shame-proneness SHAME AND INTERPERSONAL EMOTION REGULATION Page 3 Shame on me for needing you: A multistudy examination of the association between receiving interpersonal emotion regulation and experiences of shame Imagine the following three scenarios. (1) You ask a close friend for support before a nerve-wracking exam and are bolstered by their expressions of confidence in your abilities. (2) You consider venting your frustrations to a coworker after a challenging day at work, but you worry that expressing your negative emotions could reflect poorly on you. (3) You approach a loved one for comfort after a loss but are confounded by their dismissiveness. These three scenarios reflect the diversity of experiences of seeking interpersonal emotion regulation, emphasizing not only the potential of interpersonal emotion regulation to convey emotional benefits, but also ways in which it may go awry, yielding negative personal or social outcomes for the provider, the receiver, or both. Whereas emotion regulation research traditionally has focused on intrapersonal processes (Campos, Walle, Dahl, & Main, 2011), there is now considerable interest in interpersonal processes involved in emotion regulation (e.g., Dixon-Gordon, Bernecker, & Christensen, 2015; Netzer, Van Kleef, and Tamir, 2015; Niven, 2017; Zaki & Williams, 2013), consistent with compelling evidence that social and emotional functioning are fundamentally reciprocal (Beckes & Coan, 2012). One result is the emerging field of interpersonal emotion regulation research, which focuses on the “slice of interpersonal interactions deliberately devoted to influencing one's own (intrinsic) or others’ (extrinsic) emotions” (Dixon-Gordon, Bernecker, & Christensen, 2015, p. 37). In the present study of interpersonal emotion regulation, we focused on experiences of receiving interpersonal emotion regulation of negative emotions. SHAME AND INTERPERSONAL EMOTION REGULATION Page 4 Research indicates that interpersonal emotion regulation is used regularly in everyday life and can effectively downregulate momentary negative affect (e.g., Heiy and Cheavens, 2014; Levy-Gigi and Shamay-Tsoory, 2017). Interpersonal emotion regulation tendencies also have been linked cross-sectionally to wellbeing and adjustment to stress (e.g., Cheung, Gardner, & Anderson, 2015; Horn & Maercker, 2016) and cross-sectionally and longitudinally to social connectedness (e.g., Debrot, Schoebi, Perrez, & Horn, 2013; Rose, Carlson, & Waller, 2007; Williams, Morelli, Ong, & Zaki, 2018). Potential positive outcomes of receiving interpersonal emotion regulation notwithstanding, interpersonal emotion regulation also entails a host of social and communication challenges compared to intrapersonal emotion regulation efforts. For example, effective interpersonal emotion regulation may depend on communicating one’s emotion regulation goals to another person and the other apprehending those emotion goals and responding accordingly. Katherine Dixon-Gordon and colleagues (2015) discuss such challenges in terms of a transactional process of encoding and decoding. Problems arising during either encoding or decoding could yield negative outcomes. Prior research has suggested that some manifestations of interpersonal emotion regulation do produce undesirable outcomes. For example, tendencies to engage in co-rumination and co- brooding, which involve dwelling on negative emotions and problems with another person, have been found to be associated with and to predict symptoms and episodes of depression in adolescents (e.g., Rose, Carlson, & Waller, 2007; Spendelow, Simonds, & Avery, 2017; Stone, Hankin, Gibb, & Abela, 2011) and poorer adjustment to a recent major life stressor in adult romantic couples (Horn & Maercker, 2016). Self-reported tendencies to engage in reassurance- seeking in hypothetical interpersonal emotion scenarios predicted greater self-injury over the SHAME AND INTERPERSONAL EMOTION REGULATION Page 5 course of a two-week daily diary study (Dixon-Gordon, Haliczer, Conkey, & Whalen, 2018). Among mother-daughter dyads, the combination of high maternal problem-solving and low maternal validation during conflict conversations significantly moderated the relationship between daughters’ negative affect and daughters’ borderline symptoms, such that daughters’ negative affect was only associated with borderline symptoms when maternal problem-solving was high and maternal validation was low (Dixon-Gordon et al., 2017). These findings suggest that some patterns of interpersonal emotion regulation may be associated with greater distress. One potential specific negative outcome of receiving interpersonal emotion regulation is that of shame. Shame has been conceptualized as a self-conscious, aversive emotion associated with negative attributions about the whole self (e.g., I am a terrible person; Izard, 1971; Tangney, 1991; Tracy & Robins, 2007). Shame is thought to be triggered by failures to attain standards or ideals, particularly when we simultaneously perceive ourselves as negatively evaluated by others and our role in the social hierarchy as threatened (Gilbert, 2003; Gruenewald, Kemeny, Aziz, & Fahey, 2004; Tracy & Robins, 2007). For example, shame has been theorized to be elicited by situations in which social rank and power are threatened, potentially motivating submission displays and social withdrawal as a means of appeasement (Gilbert, 2003; Gruenewald, Kemeny, Aziz, & Fahey, 2004; Martens, Tracy, & Shariff, 2012; but see also de Hooge, Zeelenberg, & Breugelmans, 2010 for an account of how and when shame can motivate approach behavior). There are compelling conceptual reasons to think that interpersonal emotion regulation could induce shame on the part of the receiver. Seeking interpersonal emotion regulation effectively places the seeker in the role of supplicant, conversely placing the provider in a position of authority to either grant or deny the seeker’s request and thereby producing power SHAME AND INTERPERSONAL EMOTION REGULATION Page 6 asymmetry (Anderson & Berdahl, 2002). At the same time, even the most genuine proffer of interpersonal emotion regulation may convey an implicit message of deficiency or inadequacy. Consistent with this notion, visible acts of social support can undermine receivers’ self-esteem and self-efficacy precisely because such acts can convey and evoke negative evaluations regarding receivers’ ability to cope and foster concerns about indebtedness (Bolger, Zuckermann,