Suppression sours sacrifice: emotional and relational costs of suppressing emotions in romantic relationships

What happens when people suppress their emotions when they sacrifice for a romantic partner? This multimethod study investigates how suppressing emotions during sacrifice shapes affective and relationship outcomes. In Part 1, dating couples came into the laboratory to discuss important romantic relationship sacrifices. Suppressing emotions was associated with emotional costs for the partner discussing his or her sacrifice. In Part 2, couples participated in a 14-day daily experience study. Within-person increases in emotional suppression during daily sacrifice were associated with decreases in emotional well-being and relationship quality as reported by both members of romantic dyads. In Part 3, suppression predicted decreases in relationship satisfaction and increases in thoughts about breaking up with a romantic partner 3 months later. In the first two parts of the study, authenticity mediated the costly effects of suppression. Implications for research on close relationships and emotion regulation are discussed.     

Insidious dangers of benevolent sexism: consequences for women's performance

Four experiments found benevolent sexism to be worse than hostile sexism for women's cognitive performance. Experiments 1-2 showed effects of paternalist benevolent sexism and ruled out explanations of perceived sexism, context pleasantness, and performance motivation. Experiment 3 showed effects of both paternalist and complementary gender differentiation components of benevolent sexism. Benevolent sexism per se (rather than the provision of unsolicited help involved in paternalism) worsened performance. Experiment 4 showed that impaired performance due to benevolent sexism was fully mediated by the mental intrusions women experienced about their sense of competence. Additionally, Experiment 4 showed that gender identification protected against hostile but not benevolent sexism. Despite the apparently positive and inoffensive tone of benevolent sexism, our research emphasizes its insidious dangers.     

Doing emotions: The role of culture in everyday emotions

Emotional experience is culturally constructed. In this review, we discuss evidence that cultural differences in emotions are purposeful, helping an individual to meet the mandate of being a good person in their culture. We also discuss research showing that individual’s fit to the cultural emotion norm is associated with well-being, and suggest that this link may be explained by the fact that normative emotions meet the cultural mandate. Finally, we discuss research that sheds light on some of the collective processes of emotion construction: social interactions and emotion representations are geared towards promoting emotions that are conducive to the cultural mandate. In conclusion, we suggest that individuals become part of their culture by “doing emotions” in a way that is consistent with the cultural mandate, and that in intercultural interactions, emotions can be literally “at cross purposes”: each person’s emotions are constructed to fit the purposes of their own culture.     

Suppression of negative and expression of positive emotions: Divergent effects of emotional display rules in a hostile service interaction

Cross-sectional studies have found that demands to express positive emotions have more desirable associations with service providers' well-being and service quality than demands to suppress negative emotions. Despite their potential importance, emotional labour research has not clarified the nature of these differences yet. The present experimental study aimed to investigate the causal effects of demands to suppress negative emotions, demands to express positive emotions, and their interaction in a simulated service interaction. In total, 101 participants were instructed to play the role of a service employee, who had to interact with a dissatisfied and uncivil customer. Participants were randomly given information that the organization expected them to (1) express genuinely felt emotions, (2) suppress negative emotions, (3) express positive emotions, or (4) suppress negative emotions and express positive emotions. Results confirmed that demands to suppress negative emotions decreased well-being, whereas demands to express positive emotions led to a better service quality. Moreover, service quality was only increased if demands to express positive emotions were not supplemented by demands to suppress negative emotions. These findings suggest that not only demands to express positive emotions can reduce the cost/benefit ratio of emotional labour, but also organizations should avoid imposing demands to suppress negative emotions.     

A benevolent conceptualization of marital power: The case of depression

Treatment of the depressed client with low self-esteem, external locus of control, and an absent spouse often is frustrating due to the limitations of modifying the social context. An approach to the problem using a systemic view which is based on examining the notion of power and examining the problems in their context is presented. Interventions which sidestep the temptation of emphasizing self-esteem of the client and, instead, utilize client strengths and interactional dynamics within the marriage are presented.     

Intended emotions influence intentional binding with emotional faces: Larger binding for intended negative emotions

The effect of emotions on Intentional binding (IB) is equivocal. In addition, most studies on IB have not manipulated emotional content of intentions. This study investigates the effect of intended and outcome emotions using emotional faces (happy or disgust face in experiment 1 and a happy or angry face in experiment 3). To see whether the effects are due to priming, we used instructions with a happy-disgust pair in experiment 2 and happy-angry pair in experiment 4. Outcome emotional faces were not predictable. Results showed that intending a negative emotional face resulted in shorter action-outcome interval judgments compared to a happy face irrespective of the emotional content of the outcome face. This effect was absent in experiments 2 and 4 with instructed emotions. In addition to showing the importance of having explicit intentions, the results show that emotional content of our intentions does influence IB possibly due to prospective mechanisms.     

Angels in the nursery: The intergenerational transmission of benevolent parental influences

Fraiberg and her colleagues (1975) introduced the metaphor “ghosts in the nursery” to describe the ways in which parents, by reenacting with their small children scenes from the parents' own unremembered early relational experiences of helplessness and fear, transmit child maltreatment from one generation to the next. In this article we propose that angels in the nursery—care‐receiving experiences characterized by intense shared affect between parent and child in which the child feels nearly perfectly understood, accepted, and loved—provide the child with a core sense of security and self‐worth that can be drawn upon when the child becomes a parent to interrupt the cycle of maltreatment. We argue that uncovering angels as growth‐promoting forces in the lives of traumatized parents is as vital to the work of psychotherapy as is the interpretation and exorcizing of ghosts. Using clinical case material, we demonstrate the ways in which early benevolent experiences with caregivers can protect against even overwhelming trauma, and examine the reemergence of these benevolent figures in consciousness as an instrument of therapeutic change. Finally, we examine implications of the concept of “angels in the nursery” for research and clinical intervention.     

Felt emotions,and verbally communicated emotions: the case of pride

Potential discrepancies between felt and verbally communicated emotions elicited by two Pride events (‘selected for a job among a large group’ and ‘being congratulated for one's own new partner’) were studied by means of a structured questionnaire. Italian male (n = 88) and female (n = 107) university students attributed felt and communicated emotions to the event protagonist P, choosing from a list of 14 emotions; the communication occurred with P‘s partner or friend, or with an acquaintance. Statistical analyses of subjects’ attributions confirmed the hypothesis that felt emotions are regulated in verbal communication to others: pride, triumph, self-satisfaction and excitement were de-emphasized in communication; joy, satisfaction, happiness and surprise were intensified; other emotions were communicated as felt. Event type, and to a lesser extent sex of subject, significantly influenced the direction and extent of regulation. The results are interpreted as showing that the verbal communication of emotion is influenced by emotion-related social norms and beliefs.     

It's for your own good: benevolent sexism and women's reactions to protectively justified restrictions

Three studies examined women's reactions to ostensibly protective restrictions. In Study 1, only benevolently sexist women accepted a protectively justified (hypothetical) prohibition against driving on a long trip, but only when imposed by a husband (not a coworker). In Study 2, when women's actual romantic partners opposed their participation in a practicum counseling dangerous men, most reacted positively to a personalized protective justification ("I am concerned for your safety"), but only benevolently sexist women reacted positively when no justification was given. In Study 3, only benevolently sexist women accepted an explicitly group-based protective justification ("It is not safe for any woman") for a partner's imagined opposition to an internship that involved interviewing criminals. By fusing benevolence with dominance, protective paternalism can lead women (especially those who are high on benevolent sexism) to accept restrictions.     

The kindness of strangers: organ transplantation in a capitalist age.

The topic of organ transplantation is examined from the perspective of three authors: Robert Bellah, Jeremy Rifkin, and Margaret Jane Radin. Introduced by reflections on the development of the justification of organ transplantation within the Roman Catholic community and the various themes raised by the historical study in Richard Titmuss's The Gift Relationship, the paper examines how and in what ways the possible commodification of organs will affect our society and the impacts this may have on the supply of organs.     

Family therapy and anthropology: a case for emotions

The idea that emotions are socially constructed challenges traditional views in both family therapy and anthropology and also opens the possibility for further collaboration. This paper reviews the traditional position of orthodox family therapy theory with respect to motivation and emotions. It argues that a social constructionist position can build on original family therapy insights about the connectedness of family members and offer a view which transcends mind-body dualism. Bateson's concept of ethos is seen as a forerunner of this view and, with the increasing interest in meaning and cross-cultural issues, Bateson's ideas deserve renewed attention. Implications of a social constructionist view of emotions for family therapists are outlined.     

The positives of negative emotions: willingness to express negative emotions promotes relationships

Four studies support the hypothesis that expressing negative emotion is associated with positive relationship outcomes, including elicitation of support, building of new close relationships, and heightening of intimacy in the closest of those relationships. In Study 1, participants read vignettes in which another person was experiencing a negative emotion. Participants reported they would provide more help when the person chose to express the negative emotion. In Study 2, participants watched a confederate preparing for a speech. Participants provided more help to her when she expressed nervousness. In Study 3, self-reports of willingness to express negative emotions predicted having more friends, controlling for demographic variables and extraversion. In Study 4, self-reports of willingness to express negative emotion measured prior to arrival at college predicted formation of more relationships, greater intimacy in the closest of those relationships, and greater received support from roommates across participants' first semester of college.     

Intergroup relations and the attribution of emotions: control over memory for secondary emotions associated with the ingroup and outgroup

This study tested the hypothesis that people perceive their ingroup as experiencing more uniquely human secondary emotions than the outgroup. Jacoby's process-dissociation procedure was used to measure participants' controlled recognition memory for materials that associated the ingroup or outgroup with secondary or primary emotions. Conscious memory was better for associations between the outgroup and secondary emotions than for associations between the ingroup and secondary emotions. No such difference was found for primary emotions. These results suggest that people attribute more humanity to the ingroup than to the outgroup.     

Exposure to benevolent sexism and complementary gender stereotypes: consequences for specific and diffuse forms of system justification

Many have suggested that complementary gender stereotypes of men as agentic (but not communal) and women as communal (but not agentic) serve to increase system justification, but direct experimental support has been lacking. The authors exposed people to specific types of gender-related beliefs and subsequently asked them to complete measures of gender-specific or diffuse system justification. In Studies 1 and 2, activating (a) communal or complementary (communal + agentic) gender stereotypes or (b) benevolent or complementary (benevolent + hostile) sexist items increased support for the status quo among women. In Study 3, activating stereotypes of men as agentic also increased system justification among men and women, but only when women's characteristics were associated with higher status. Results suggest that complementary stereotypes psychologically offset the one-sided advantage of any single group and contribute to an image of society in which everyone benefits through a balanced dispersion of benefits.     

EMuJoy: Software for continuous measurement of perceived emotions in music

An adequate study of emotions in music and film should be based on the real-time measurement of selfreported data using a continuous-response method. The recording system discussed in this article reflects two important aspects of such research: First, for a better comparison of results, experimental and technical standards for continuous measurement should be taken into account, and second, the recording system should be open to the inclusion of multimodal stimuli. In light of these two considerations, our article addresses four basic principles of the continuous measurement of emotions: (1) the dimensionality of the emotion space, (2) data acquisition (e.g., the synchronization of media and the self-reported data), (3) interface construction for emotional responses, and (4) the use of multiple stimulus modalities. Researcher-developed software (EMuJoy) is presented as a freeware solution for the continuous measurement of responses to different media, along with empirical data from the self-reports of 38 subjects listening to emotional music and viewing affective pictures. Behavior Research Methods     

Functional neuroanatomy of emotions: A meta-analysis

The application of functional neuroimaging to the study of human emotion has yielded valuable data; however, the conclusions that may be drawn from any one study are limited. We applied novel statistical techniques to the meta-analysis of 106 PET and fMRI studies of human emotion and tested predictions made by key neuroscientific models. The results demonstrated partial support for asymmetry accounts. Greater left-sided activity was observed for approach emotions, whereas neural activity associated with negative/withdrawal emotions was symmetrical. Support was also found for affect program emotion accounts. The activation distributions associated with fear, disgust, and anger differed significantly. These emotions were most consistently associated in activity in regions associated with selective processing deficits when damaged: the amygdala, the insula and globus pallidus, and the lateral orbitofrontal cortex, respectively. In contrast, the distributions for happiness and sadness did not differ. These findings are considered in the context of conceptualizations of the neural correlates of human emotion.     

Motives for secondary social sharing of emotions

This study provides new evidence of motives of secondary social sharing of emotions. In a retrospective study, 140 female (Mage = 29.4 yr., SD=12.8) and 116 male (M = 29.5 yr., SD = 13.1) participants were asked to recall a recent situation in which they had talked to a third person about a positive or negative, low or high intensity emotional narrative they had heard. 70% of the respondents reported having secondarily shared the reported event rapidly after the narration with several persons and at several times. Moreover, they not only described the event, the speaker's reaction and their own reactions, but also revealed the identity of their first confidant. Participants reported having spread the emotional narrative more widely in the high negative condition in order to seek emotional support and social comparison.