7.3: Influences on Emotional Expression

Emotions and Experience

There are many influences on our emotional expression. These influences help shape the way we perceive and interact with our emotions. We may think that our emotions are singular and not attached to other emotions and experiences. In this section we clarify how our emotions affect other emotions and experiences. We focus on how we interpret and react differently based on our own personality traits, our cultural background, and how our culture and society itself shape not only the emotions we experience, but how we react in communication events.

Personality

Emotions are an important aspect in how we build our social interactions with people around us. Whether strangers or people who have a significant impact on our lives, people tend to consciously or unconsciously work at monitoring, observing, and regulating emotions around others. Our interactions with others help to shape our own emotions as well as aspects of our personalities and moods. But what is the difference between these terms? We’ve defined emotion earlier in this chapter, but how do we know the distinction between what is an emotion, what is a mood, and what is part of our personality?

The biggest difference is the longevity of the feeling. Where emotions may last seconds to minutes, moods can last hours to days. A mood is built from the collection of emotions and feelings, whereas personality is built from stable sets of moods and traits such as social interactions, behaviors, and values, as well as cultural and environmental factors.

One of our authors shares her example:

I can confidently say that I have a “grumpy” personality. Even photos of me as a young child showcase that I tend to have a pout on my face, and I pride myself in being able to think of the “glass as half empty” more often than not. This is part of my personality that I own and accept. Although I may have what I consider a “grumpy” personality, that does not mean every day of my life is lived in a bad mood. I, like all of us, have days, weeks and months filled with good moods, but I also experience bad moods from time to time. I share laughter and joyful emotions with friends and loved ones regularly, as well as feeling emotions of love and grief equally. While I may say my personality is “grumpy” I would say my mood tends to be positive, and my emotions tend to be neutral.

Consider This: The Big Five Personality Traits

Personality can be seen as a dimension of an individual, where the aspects of what we think, feel, and the ways in which we behave based on our emotions are constructed to make up our unique personality in specific ways (Filipiak & Łubianka, 2021). When looking at personality, research has consistently found that there tends to be five major dimensions called Big Five personality traits.

The Big Five personality traits are an important aspect when understanding emotion and interpersonal communication. The outcomes of this model are used to help make important predictions on individual behaviors and outcomes. The Big Five personality traits shown in Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\) (and listed following the figure), help us not only to understand our individual experiences and allow us to put into words and categorizations how our emotions interact with our behaviors, but it has also given researchers reliable associations and predictions in life outcomes such as “health, political participation, personal and romantic relationships, purchasing behaviors, and academic and job performances” (Sachl et. al, 2020).

Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\): Big 5 Personality Traits by Elizabeth Encarnacion is licensed under CC BY 4.0

The Big Five Personality Traits

1. Neuroticism: Neuroticism refers to a person's vulnerability to debilitative emotions such as anger, anxiety, or depression. It is characterized by emotional instability, and being anxiety prone and impulsive. The ability to maintain balance and maintain internal support through these notable emotional charges is the skill of emotional stability.
2. Conscientiousness: Conscientiousness includes aspects of personality such as organization, planning, and dependability. It includes characteristics of being diligent, careful and mindful of the work one is doing, and having self-discipline. The key characteristic of this personality is the aspect of working towards these characteristics and having them as a goal to achieve, even if that may not always be the outcome. For example, wemay not always be the best at organizing and keeping our room clean, but it’s something that we strive to be diligent and hold value towards.
3. Openness: Openness to experiences and open-mindedness are terms that are used to describe the ability to welcome new ideas, information, and even arguments that may differ from our own. Being open to experiences includes curiosity and creativity. It allows for critical and rational thinking to make judgments and come to conclusions from these new ideas.
4. Agreeableness: Agreeableness is the habit of being kind, compassionate, warm, and cooperative. This is in contrast to traits such as suspicion, mistrust, combative, and unfriendly.
5. Extraversion: Extraversion refers to how outgoing or sociable a person is. Extroverted personality traits include high energy, talkative, assertiveness, and being action-oriented. This is in contrast to introversion, where the personality is focused on internal thoughts and feelings as opposed to external social interactions.

These personality traits are meant to be broad and open categorizations that are relatively stable throughout a person’s life and universally applicable (Stachl et. al, 2020; Filipiak & Łubianka, 2021). When looking at these five personality traits in relation to how we interact with others, they can help us see patterns and help us to interpret behaviors influenced by social expectations and societal norms. For example, research has shown that nurses and other members of the medical field who score low in neuroticism are less likely to experience burn-out and report job-related stress. Traits such as openness, agreeableness, and extraversion are strong indicators of engagement and empathy in the nursing profession (Martinez et. al, 2021). Individuals are more drawn to certain professions over others given their personality trait characteristics, and a variety of different combinations of personality traits are found in the wide variety of professional careers.

Discussion Questions

1. What role of the Big Five personality traits do you see in your communication with others? Do you have significant others with some of these traits?
2. Out of all five personality traits, is there one that stands out to you that is predominant in your own identity? How do you think this personality trait impacts your communication with others?

Culture

Our culture is based on the beliefs, values, and behaviors of a given group, and includes rules and norms that members of the culture follow. The way in which we display, recognize, and interpret emotions is heavily influenced by our social environments and cultural worldview because of their norms and rules (Course Hero, n.d.c). Different cultures have different structures of behavior and therefore different rules regarding how they display their emotions, which are connected to the cultural display rules discussed in Chapter 5. Research has shown that cultures that are more collectivistic, and where social harmony is emphasized, are less likely to showcase negative emotions such as disgust or anger in social settings. In contrast, individualistic cultures, where personal self concept is emphasized, are more likely to showcase emotions of anger or disgust no matter the social context (Dzokoto et. al, 2018). For example, research demonstrated that people from individualistic cultures, like the United States, used exaggerated facial expressions to showcase emotion as a way to influence others and gain attention from those around them, which is accepted within an individualistic culture (University of Minnesota, n.d.). This is opposed to people from collectivistic cultures, such as Japan, where the tendency is to suppress or not show their emotional expressions as a way to observe the social context and interaction between interpersonal relationships. Because collectivistic cultures put the primary concern on the interdependence of the cultural group, emotional displays are direct reflections of the family system and the primary driver is to maintain relationships (University of Minnesota, n.d.).

Understanding emotions in the context of culture is important to making sure we are aware of the ways that differences in communicating emotions may occur. The perception of emotional display rules differs between cultures, where different rules and norms are established and subconsciously understood amongst members. While these elements are rarely spoken about explicitly between cultural group members, they impact the way we interpret and communicate emotions in our relationships. In order to prevent miscommunication within our social relationships, knowing the ways in which a person may express or not express an emotion will allow us to better regulate our own emotional reaction as well.

Figure \(\PageIndex{7}\): Standing man wearing blue v-neck shirt by Elevate on Unsplash

Social Conventions and Roles

There are many unwritten rules of communication that discourage direct expressions of most emotions. As we said earlier, “being emotional” is largely seen as negative, and our roles in certain contexts are affected. For example, do you curse in the workplace? We attempt to be professional in workplace environments. This includes presenting ourselves as professionals, avoiding unacceptable language for that climate, and preserving face. Face concerns how we present ourselves to others and how we are seen by others. In the workplace, face is an important aspect of the climate. We want to preserve the face of others and avoid face-threatening behaviors (actions that would result in our communication partner losing face). Perhaps you have heard the phrase “saving face” used in this context before. Therefore, there are not only social expectations of us, but we also have processes of self-protection and protection of others.

We have many social and professional roles. How we interact within these roles relates to our environment and our relationships with our communication partners. Gender roles have a lot to do with how we interact with others as well as how we perceive ourselves internally. Keep in mind that biological sex, gender identity, and gender expression are different constructs. Gender identity refers to our internal perception of self, and how we see ourselves. Gender expression refers to how we showcase our gender identity through our appearance, clothing, and verbal and nonverbal expression. These traits relate to how we mask (when, why, and to preserve face) and our reluctance or openness to engage in conversations related to our emotions. Gender expression is also related to the cultural climate we were raised in and our lived experiences.

In a professional setting, we may mask more or avoid dialogue related to emotions, in an attempt to be seen as fulfilling a professional role. In a social setting or role, we may use masking or our decision to engage in discourse related to emotions to promote relational growth. For example, there are certain emotions that may be more often avoided by certain people in the workplace for a variety of reasons. Women, particularly women of color, are less likely to overtly showcase emotions of confidence, assuredness, or even sadness or anger in the workplace so as to not be deemed “too emotional,” because perceptions of assertiveness can turn into aggressiveness or confidence can be misconstrued as arrogance. When we deconstruct how different individuals are or are not “allowed” to experience emotions in different settings, we can start to draw out the stereotypes and biases within our social conventions and society roles.

With the many roles we take on, we utilize these tools to be communication competent. We should beware of emotional labor, the expectation to manage emotions in work environments. Some settings require a lot of masking, which can take a toll on us as individuals and within our interpersonal relationships. If we mask at work all day, we become exhausted. The more we mask or avoid engagement in our emotions, the more we experience emotional labor. Later in this chapter we will discuss identifying our emotions and using reappraisal as a strategy. The capacity to recognize and act on certain emotions decreases without practice.