Understanding the social effects of emotion regulation: The mediating role of authenticity for individual differences in suppression.

Abstract

Individuals differ in the strategies they use to regulate their emotions (e.g., suppression, reappraisal), and these regulatory strategies can differentially influence social outcomes. However, the mechanisms underlying these social effects remain to be specified. We examined one potential mediator that arises directly from emotion-regulatory effort (expression of positive emotion), and another mediator that does not involve emotion processes per se, but instead results from the link between regulation and self-processes (subjective inauthenticity). Across three studies, only inauthenticity mediated the link between habitual use of suppression and poor social functioning (lower relationship satisfaction, lower social support). These findings replicated across individuals socialized in Western and East Asian cultural contexts, younger and older adults, when predicting social functioning concurrently and a decade later, and even when broader adjustment was controlled. Thus, the social costs of suppression do not seem to be due to reduced positive emotion expression but rather the incongruence between inner-self and outer-behavior. Reappraisal was not consistently related to social functioning. Implications of these findings for emotion processes, self processes, and interpersonal relationships are discussed.

Predicting well-being in managers: Test of a positive psychology model

“…(p. 471) In line with this conclusion, Ilies, Cursue, Dimotakis, and Spitzmuller (2013) subsequently found that managers' emotional experiences and relational authenticity were indeed favorably associated with their subordinates' extra work efforts and their perceptions of their managers' effectiveness. Taken together, these findings and conclusions align with those in the broader literature on emotion regulation which has consistently found that the deliberate suppression of emotion is associated with elevated blood pressure as well as with impaired social functioning and inhibited relationship formation (Butler et al, 2003;English & John, 2013;Srivastava, Tamir, McGonigal, John, & Gross, 2009). However, to the best of our knowledge, no prior studies have conjointly assessed the contributions of adult attachment security and of both experienced and expressed forms of work authenticity to the well-being of business managers.…”

Facial expression of positive emotions in individuals with eating disorders

“…Indeed, inhibited emotional expression has been shown to make it more likely for others to perceive the inhibited person as untrustworthy or inauthentic (e.g., English and John, 2013) and to reduce social connectedness (e.g., Mauss et al, 2011). It has also been hypothesized that people who show reduced positive facial expression are trying to avoid people's attention .…”

Personality, Sex of Participant, and Face-to-Face Interaction Affect Reading of Informed Consent Forms

“…Emotion suppression can give a participant a slightly negative view of past experience, making him or her more suspicious of later studies. English and John (2013 ) argued that emotion suppression results in a diff erence between the inner self and outward behavior. This diff erence in self led to a social cost, i.e., not found in emotion reappraisal.…”