No abstract

This study examined the effects of emotional suppression, a form of emotion regulation denned as the conscious inhibition of emotional expressive behavior while emotionally aroused. Ss (43 men and 42 women) watched a short disgust-eliciting film while their behavioral, physiological, and subjective responses were recorded. Ss were told to watch the film (no suppression condition) or to watch the film while behaving "in such a way that a person watching you would not know you were feeling anything" (suppression condition). Suppression reduced expressive behavior and produced a mixed physiological state characterized by decreased somatic activity and decreased heart rate, along with increased blinking and indications of increased sympathetic nervous system activity (in other cardiovascular measures and in electrodermal responding). Suppression had no impact on the subjective experience of emotion. There were no sex differences in the effects of suppression.Little is known about what happens when people regulate their emotions. In this article, we investigate one kind of emotion regulation, namely, emotional suppression.

Emotion-specific activity in the autonomic nervous system was generated by constructing facial prototypes of emotion muscle by muscle and by reliving past emotional experiences. The autonomic activity produced distinguished not only between positive and negative emotions, but also among negative emotions. This finding challenges emotion theories that have proposed autonomic activity to be undifferentiated or that have failed to address the implications of autonomic differentiation in emotion.

Emotion regulation plays a central role in mental health and illness, but little is known about even the most basic forms of emotion regulation. To examine the acute effects of inhibiting negative and positive emotion. we asked 180 female participants to watch sad, neutral. and amusing films under I of 2 conditions. Suppression participants (N = 90) inhibited their expressive behavior while watching the films; no suppression participants (N = 90) simply watched the films. Suppression diminished expressive behavior in all 3 films and decreased amusement self-reports in sad and amusing films. Physiologically. suppression had no effect in the neutral film, but clear effects in both negative and positive emotional films. including increased sympathetic activation of the cardiovascular system. On the basis of these findings, we suggest several ways emotional inhibition may influence psychological functioning. Emotion regulation and dysregulation figure prominently in mental health and illness (Gross & Munoz. 1995). Indeed. by our count, over half of the nonsubstance related Axis I disorders and all of the Axis II personality disorders involve some form of emotion dysregulation (American Psychiatric Association. 1994; see also Thoits. 1985). Thus. for example. major depressive disorder is characterized by a deficit of positive emotion and/or a surplus of negative emotion; generalized anxiety disorder by heightened levels of anxiety; schizophrenia. disorganized type, by inappropriate emotional responses; and hisQionic personality disorder by excessive emotionality. Despite the manifest importance of emotion regulation to psychological well-being. surprisingly little has been done to document adults' attempts to influence which emotions they have, when they have them. or how these emotions are experienced or expressed. I This relative neglect is quite puzzling and invites speculation. Is emotion regulation so ubiquitous that we already know all there is to know about it? This seems unlikely. in that commonsense views of emotion regulation are remarkably inconsistent (e.g., the injunction to count to 10 before acting so that your anger will disappear seems to contradict the conventional wisdom that bottling up your anger will hurt you). A second possibility is that the diversity of emotion regulatory James 1. Gross.

Two studies tested the hypothesis that certain positive emotions speed recovery from the cardiovascular sequelae of negative emotions. In Study 1, 60 subjects (Ss) viewed an initial fear-eliciting film, and were randomly assigned to view a secondary film that elicited: (a) contentment; (b) amusement; (c) neutrality; or (d) sadness. Compared to Ss who viewed the neutral and sad secondary films, those who viewed the positive films exhibited more rapid returns to pre-film levels of cardiovascular activation. In Study 2, 72 Ss viewed a film known to elicit sadness. Fifty Ss spontaneously smiled at least once while viewing this film. Compared to Ss who did not smile, those who smiled exhibited more rapid returns to pre-film levels of cardiovascular activation. We discuss these findings in terms of emotion theory and possible health-promoting functions of positive emotions.