Exploring the Impacts of Response-focused Emotion Regulation Strategies on Psychophysiology, Cognition, Affect, and Social Consequences

Abstract

Researchers have categorized emotion regulation strategies generally as adaptive or maladaptive, depending on impacts of the strategy on psychophysiological, cognitive, and emotional outcomes. A strategy that is widely considered to be maladaptive is expressive suppression, which refers to inhibiting one’s facial expression, to appear neutral. Another emotion regulation strategy that is commonly used but infrequently studied is expressive dissonance, which refers to showing the opposite of how one feels. There is limited research on expressive dissonance, but the longstanding facial feedback hypothesis suggests that facial expressions can further enhance or lower one’s mood; if this is the case, then smiling, even when feeling anxious, may be more adaptive than showing no emotion at all. The objective of my thesis was to examine whether using expressive dissonance was more adaptive than expressive suppression, for regulating negative emotions. To determine adaptiveness, I examined the effect of these two strategies on both intrapersonal factors (i.e., impacts of the strategy on one’s own psychophysiology, memory accuracy, and affect) and interpersonal factors (i.e., impacts of the strategy on social qualities like friendliness and likeability). In the first study, I tested the intrapersonal impacts of expressive suppression and expressive dissonance, compared to a control condition, while women participants (n = 144) viewed negatively arousing images. In the second study, I expanded on the first study by examining intrapersonal and interpersonal qualities (e.g., friendliness, likeability, warmth), in an ecologically valid context (i.e., a conversation with an unacquainted opposite gender confederate). Across both studies, I found no effect of strategy on intrapersonal factors; however, there were effects on interpersonal factors in Study 2. Participants engaging in expressive dissonance were rated more positively, and people in the expressive suppression condition were rated more negatively on interpersonal qualities, relative to the control condition. Taken together, our findings suggest that neither strategy impacted the participant intrapersonally, but both strategies influenced the observer’s impression of the participant. Based on the findings, I encourage a shift from conceptualizing strategies as overall maladaptive or adaptive, to considering specific strategies as helpful or unhelpful based on the regulation’s goal.