8.2: Influences on Emotional Expression

Learning Objectives

• Differentiate between various influences on emotional expression.
• Identify whether people are more or less likely to express emotions in a hypothetical situation.

As you can see from the previous discussion, emotions are complex and can both enhance and hinder interpersonal relationships. What emotions have you experienced lately? No one knows better than you about what you are experiencing emotionally. I would urge you to trust yourself to know that what you perceive you are experiencing is important.

Perhaps you are in a conflict with a friend or partner. Perhaps you feel guilty for something that you did or said to a family member. Whatever the emotions, you get to choose how and if you will fully communicate those emotional experiences with others. This unit explores what impacts both how we experience emotions and several factors that might influence whether we choose to express these emotions.

Physiological

Our emotions are affected by how our bodies react to the release of hormones and how those hormones are processed by neurotransmitters. Our genetic code determines how we react to positive feedback (Forbes et al., 2009). When we are rewarded we feel good. A chemical called dopamine is released in the neural circuitry in our bodies. People vary in their processing and their reaction to the release of dopamine during a reward situation (Nikolova et al., 2016).

There are genetic differences in how our bodies experience threat and negative emotion (Haviland-Jones et al., 2016) but since there is not a single hormone that controls fear and negative emotion like in the case of dopamine for reward processing, researchers have focused on how we might vary in the functioning of the brain in the amygdala. It is this variability in how our amygdala functions, that influences our experience of emotionality (Haviland-Jones et al., 2016). In fact, genetic variations in how well we are able to absorb the transmitter of serotonin a hormone impacts our experience of anxiety and depression (Karg, et al., 2011). People who have less reuptake ability of the neurotransmitter pathway of serotonin are more vulnerable to major depressive disorders especially in reaction to major life stresses (Caspi et al., 2003). People who have higher levels of the hormone testosterone are more reactive toward angry and fearful faces (Manuck et al., 2010). Taken together, the differences in ability of our bodies to absorb and transmit hormones, and genetic differences in how reactive our amygdala is, impacts how we experience stress, anxiety, emotional experiences, anger, and fear.

Recently, researchers have also explored how our sense of taste and smell is strongly tied to our emotional experiences. Remember the aromas that wafted out of the kitchen of your childhood home? Was there homemade bread? Or perhaps spaghetti sauces simmering on the stove? Our sense of smell causes emotions. Your sense of taste can also bring back memories and cause emotions. If you have ever smelled a familiar cologne or perfume you might remember emotions that you used to experience when a close other wore that scent. Advertisers use this strong tie between emotional experiences and sense of taste or smell to encourage us to buy their products (Haviland-Jones et al., 2016). When you tour a home that you are looking to buy don’t be surprised if you encounter the aroma of recently baked bread or cookies.

Researchers have also explored the positive impact of seeing flowers has on emotional experience. Just being around flowers increases positive mood, but it can even increase the positive perception that we have toward someone! Smelling flowers has been shown to make us more likely to accept a date (Guéguen, 2011). How could this be? Natural odors from plants can affect our emotional experiences and motivation (Haviland-Jones, et al., 2016). When substituted for anti-depressants, the smell of flowers (i.e., floral odors) decreased depressive symptoms (Komori, et al., 1995).

If both the sense of smell and taste cause trigger emotions then it is reasonable to think that individuals who have dulled sense of taste or smell will be less likely to experience a trigger from their sense of smell or taste.

Relational Culture

Our interpersonal relationships are characterized by some of the most intense emotions that we experience. For example, have you ever experienced puppy love or a new love? Did it feel exhilarating to anticipate seeing them? The end of relationships can bring a variety of intense emotions. Guilt for having done something to end the relationship, anxiety for starting a new relationship, anger at the partner, or sadness for missing being with them. The emotions that we experience can vary in intensity along the spectrum gradients from sadness to despair or mild amusement to joy.

How we talk about emotions with relational partners also influences our experience of those emotions. This is particularly evident in our emotional experiences surrounding imagined infidelity in romantic partners (Harris, 2000). When we have a supportive and non-judgmental conversational partner, we will usually be more likely to express our emotions. This makes sense because it is easy to discuss our emotions with someone who is genuinely interested and not going to criticize us. If we are around an encouraging partner, we will start to be more emotionally expressive as well.

Another factor in how we express our emotions in our close relationships is emotional co-regulation which occurs between partners, and results in the tendency to react similarly to your partner in a close relationship (Butler & Randall, 2013). Butler and Randall (2013) have found evidence that interpersonal partners impact each other’s experience of emotions.

Cultural Expectations

If a culture is individualistic or collectivistic will impact how emotions are felt and displayed. In Western cultures people try to influence others, so high arousal emotions are utilized. Emotions such as excitement or enthusiasm are preferred states of emotion in Americans (Lim, 2016). However, in Eastern cultures where interdependence is promoted between individuals, emotions such as sympathy are encouraged (Markus & Kitayama, 1991).

Additionally, Kacen and Lee (2002) found that Caucasian individualistic persons reported to feel high arousal emotional states (stimulated, excited, frenzied, and aroused) compared to Asian collectivistic individuals who reported low arousal emotional states (relaxed, calm, sluggish, and unaroused) in impulse buying. Collectivistic cultures may suppress the urge to engage in impulse buying, since it is related to “highly individualistic, emotionally charged behavior” (Kacen & Lee, 2002, p. 173). See Table 2 below for distinctions.

How a culture views happiness can shed light on how low arousal and high arousal emotions are experienced and expressed. In the Chinese culture happiness focusses on being solemn and reserved, being harmonious within oneself. Conversely, American individuals describe happiness with upbeat and described happiness in absolute terms: “Happiness is life!” (Lu & Golmour, 2004).

Although emotions are felt across all people, your experiences are dependent on your culture, how you experience stimuli, and how you label that stimuli within that certain culture. Are you excited or enthusiastic or are you relaxed and calm? Do you emphasize individualism or look to those around you to promote harmony?

Table 2: Low Arousal vs. High Arousal Emotions

Low Arousal Emotions	High Arousal Emotions
Predominant in Eastern Cultures	Predominate in Western Cultures
Calm	Agitated
Serene	Jittery
Relaxed	Stressed

Display Rules

Ekman (1969) found that there are five display rules which govern our use of emotional expression. He made the argument that we follow these sociological rules in order to preserve social expectations in our interactions. The five display rules are: intensification, de-intensification, simulation, inhibition, and masking. We describe each in Table 3 below.

Table 3: Five Types of Display Rules

Display Rule	Description	Example
Intensification	Increasing the intensity of the emotion that we feel in order to better match social or role expectations	A friend says they just bought a new car and you are impressed. You decide to act even more impressed than you actually feel
De-intensification	Minimizing the intensity of the emotion that we feel in order to better match social or role expectations.	You are so angry you cannot concentrate at work, you attempt to decrease how angry you feel because other people are not showing their anger.
Simulation	Pretending that you feel a certain emotion that you don’t feel.	You pretend to feel sad when at a graduation.
Inhibition	Attempting to display neutrality or indifference when actually experiencing an emotion.	You try to keep your emotions from showing on your face when someone says something hurtful.
Masking	Selecting a different emotion to display than the one that you are actually experiencing.	You are experiencing a severe anxiety attack but you manage to display anger.

Age

Have you ever tried to talk to someone who is uncomfortable talking about emotions to talk about them? The process of aging also plays a role in how much we express our emotions. The generation who was alive during the 1930’s Great Depression is greatly impacted by the scarcity of food and, people of this generation were expected to not ask others for help even if they needed it. During the recession of 2008 in the United States, you might have been similarly impacted by your expectations of financial scarcity. While you are reading this think back to how you have communicated with close others about your financial concerns. Did you avoid these conversations?

Research that investigates the emotional experiences of people between their seventies and nineties, consistently find that there is a positivity effect- the tendency to recall more positive events/effects than negative; this effect often increases with age (Reed, Chan, & Michaels, 2014).

People in their later years use different emotion regulation strategies than younger people. Younger people may use cognitive re-appraisal – reinterpreting situations to modulate emotional responses (Goss, 1999). They also tend to use rumination for regulating their emotions (Goss, 1999). Elderly people are more likely to report that they use suppression – restricting the outward expression of an emotion (Nolen-Hoeksema & Aldao, 2011; Goss 1999) and avoid situations that are emotional in order to decrease the need for using emotional regulation – the process of monitoring, evaluating, and modifying emotional reactions for what is socially acceptable (Lawton, Kleban, Rajagopal, & Dean, 1992).

Sex and Gender

The idea that men and women differ greatly in how often they express emotions is mostly exaggerated and often there are more differences among women and among men than between women and men.

In a study of imagined emotional experiences surrounding infidelity in romantic partners women did not have stronger reactions compared to men when it came to emotional infidelity. “Moreover, women with committed sexual relationship experience showed reactivity patterns similar to those of men” (Harris, 2000, p. 1082).

In the correct context, like while watching a favorite sports team, there is absolutely very little gender difference in emotional expression. However, there can be a significant gender difference in decoding ability of emotional expression of others. Women tend to be more accurate at decoding emotions than men.

Technology and Social Media

Our use of social media may also impact our emotional expression. Look at the women in this picture.

How likely is it that they will share emotions with each other when they are busy looking at their phones? While these friends might not express themselves with each other in this picture, they are quite likely to use emotional expression online. The act of being on social media can also impact the likelihood of emotional expression on that particular platform. On Twitter, we often see that people’s emotional intensity in their comments and posts is high. They may use exclamation points and all caps or emojis in order to express this intensity. Although even without this nonverbal communication, readers are still impacted by others posts (Kramer, Guillory, & Hancock, 2014). Researchers found that abuse of technology in the form of bullying and antisocial behavior was related to low emotional intelligence (Nasaescu et. al., 2018). Emotional intelligence is defined as the ability to monitor your own feelings and emotions and to use this information to guide your thinking and actions (Salovey & Mayer, 1990). Remember that it is more emotionally intelligent to filter what you express on online platforms because of its permanence and impact on others.

Emotional Contagion

Emotional Contagion is the ability to pass emotions from one person to another or also known as “catching” someone else’s emotions (Hatfield et al, 1994). Perhaps you are around someone who is beaming because they have just become a mother or father. You leave their hospital room with a sense of new-found joy. In addition to nonverbal emotional contagion, exposure to others' written emotions can also be catching (Ferrara & Yang, 2015) . When people post depressing statuses and updates on social media, we are also more likely to report feelings of sadness even when in excellent spirits before the exposure (Coviello et al., 2014). Additionally, Coviello found that positive posts had an even stronger impact on readers' emotions. Every positive post had a ripple effect in that, followers posted 1.75 positive posts after seeing the initial positive post.

Summary

In this unit, we examined influences on emotions. We saw how relational culture and cultural experiences impact our emotions. We discussed how, genetic differences in how we process hormones affects our emotional experiences. We explored how age, sex and gender, and our use of technology will influence our emotions. We learned the importance of emotional intelligence and how we can “catch” other people’s emotions. Each of these factors, relational culture, cultural experiences, age, sex and gender and technology, all influence how our emotions are developed.

Learning Activities

Activity 1: Anger Management

Write down three common triggers that make you angry. How do you go about expressing your anger? Then write down three common ways you soothe your anger. What should a relational partner do to help you when you are angry?

Activity 2: Display Rules

Go back to Table 3. Think about what kinds of display rules would apply to you in the following scenarios:

• Your friend informs you that they got a promotion that you had also applied for but did not get.
• You shake hands with an opponent whom you had just lost a very close match to in a sport that you love.
• In a class where the workload was excessive, your professor informs you that you will earn a B, even though you felt like you had put in A-level work all semester.

References

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Caspi, A., Sugden, K., Moffitt, T. E., Taylor, A., Craig, I. W., Harrington, H., H., McClay, J., Mill, J., Martin, J., Braithwaite, A., & Poulton, R. (2003). Influence of life stress on depression: Moderation by a polymorphism in the 5-HTT gene. Science, 301, 386-389.

Coviello, L., Sohn, Y., Kramer, A.D.I., Marlow, C., Franceschetti, M., Christakis, N.A., Fowler, J. H. (2014). Detecting emotional contagion in massive social networks. PLoS ONE 9(3): e90315. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0090315

Ekman, P. E., Sorenson, R., & Friesen, W. V. (1969). Pan-Cultural Elements in Facial Displays of Emotion. Science. 4, 86-88.

Ekman , P. , & Friesen , W. V. ( 1969 ). The repertoire of nonverbal behavior: Categories, origins, usage, and coding. Semiotica, 1, 49 – 98 .

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Harris, C. R. (2000). Psychophysiological responses to imagined infidelity: The specific innate modular view of jealousy reconsidered. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 78(6), 1082.

Hatfield, E., Cacioppo J., & Rapson R. (1994). Emotional Contagion. Cambridge University Press.

Haviland-Jones, J. M., Wilson, P., & Freyberg, R. (2016). Olfaction: Explicit and implicit emotional processing. In L. F. Barrett, M. Lewis, & J. M. Haviland-Jones (eds.), Handbook of Emotions (4^th ed., pp. 199-214). Guilford Press.

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Kang, A. M., Palmatier, M. A., & Kidd, K. K. (1999). Global variation of a 40-bp VNTR in the 3’-untranslated region of the dopamine transporter gene (SLC6A3). Biological Psychiatry, 46, 151-160.

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Glossary

Emotional Regulation: The process of monitoring, evaluating, and modifying emotional reactions for what is socially acceptable

Intensification: Increasing the intensity of the emotion that we feel in order to better match social or role expectations.

De-intensification: Minimizing the intensity of the emotion that we feel in order to better match social or role expectations.

Simulation: Pretending that you feel a certain emotion that you don’t feel.

Suppression: Restricting the outward expression of an emotion

Inhibition: Attempting to display neutrality or indifference when actually experiencing an emotion.

Masking: Selecting a different emotion to display than the one that you are actually experiencing.

Positivity effect: The tendency to recall more positive events/effects than negative; this effect often increases with age

Media

1. TED Talk: Emotional Intelligence

Watch this Tedtalk that focuses on emotional intelligence from the perspective of a teenager. How does Emotional Intelligence change across the lifespan?

Here is the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbmLNr89L-A

2. NPR: Emotional Contagion

Watch this NPR presentation that discusses emotional contagion. How does it happen? Can you think of other examples where it occurs?

Here is the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VW1PH6B9p20

Contributors and Attributions

This work is CC-BY-NC-SA Unless otherwise noted, "Communicating to Connect: Interpersonal Communication for Today" by the Department of Communication Studies at ACC is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Media Attributions

Person lying on sofa licensed by Pixabay is in the Public Domain, CC0.

Three women stting on sofa using smartphone licensed by cottonbro is in the Public Domain, CC0.

Woman wearing hat and sunglasses” licensed by Nashua Volquez is in the Public Domain, CC0.