Being Authentic and Feeling Understood: A Structural Equation Model of the Relationship between Expressive Suppression and Social Outcomes
(2015) PSYP01 20142Department of Psychology
- Abstract
- Previous research has shown that hiding one’s emotions, an emotion-regulation strategy known as expressive suppression (Gross, 1998a), leads to adverse social outcomes. The underlying mechanisms that explain this relationship are not yet fully understood. The present study developed and tested a structural equation model with two mediators (authenticity and feeling understood) and two moderators (attachment and gender). 405 participants completed a set of online questionnaires that assessed individual differences in expressive suppression, authenticity, feeling understood, attachment styles, and social outcomes. Suppression was negatively correlated with social satisfaction, social support, and friendship, and positively correlated with... (More)
- Previous research has shown that hiding one’s emotions, an emotion-regulation strategy known as expressive suppression (Gross, 1998a), leads to adverse social outcomes. The underlying mechanisms that explain this relationship are not yet fully understood. The present study developed and tested a structural equation model with two mediators (authenticity and feeling understood) and two moderators (attachment and gender). 405 participants completed a set of online questionnaires that assessed individual differences in expressive suppression, authenticity, feeling understood, attachment styles, and social outcomes. Suppression was negatively correlated with social satisfaction, social support, and friendship, and positively correlated with loneliness. These associations were mediated by authenticity and feeling understood, suggesting that individuals who habitually suppress their emotions experience adverse social outcomes because they feel inauthentic in their social interactions, which in turn makes them feel poorly understood by others. Feeling understood was a particularly powerful mediator among women, whereas the relationship between suppression and social outcomes was mostly mediated by authenticity in men. Attachment did not moderate the relationship between suppression and social outcomes, which indicates that suppression has a negative effect on social outcomes regardless of an individual’s attachment style. The study is the first to suggest that expressive suppression is associated with feeling poorly understood and that the mechanism underlying the relationship between suppression and social outcomes differs between men and women. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/4940097
- author
- Koppel, Lina LU
- supervisor
-
- Elia Psouni LU
- organization
- course
- PSYP01 20142
- year
- 2015
- type
- H2 - Master's Degree (Two Years)
- subject
- keywords
- emotion regulation, expressive suppression, authenticity, feeling understood, social outcomes, attachment
- language
- English
- id
- 4940097
- date added to LUP
- 2015-02-09 09:29:22
- date last changed
- 2015-03-27 08:42:57
@misc{4940097,
abstract = {{Previous research has shown that hiding one’s emotions, an emotion-regulation strategy known as expressive suppression (Gross, 1998a), leads to adverse social outcomes. The underlying mechanisms that explain this relationship are not yet fully understood. The present study developed and tested a structural equation model with two mediators (authenticity and feeling understood) and two moderators (attachment and gender). 405 participants completed a set of online questionnaires that assessed individual differences in expressive suppression, authenticity, feeling understood, attachment styles, and social outcomes. Suppression was negatively correlated with social satisfaction, social support, and friendship, and positively correlated with loneliness. These associations were mediated by authenticity and feeling understood, suggesting that individuals who habitually suppress their emotions experience adverse social outcomes because they feel inauthentic in their social interactions, which in turn makes them feel poorly understood by others. Feeling understood was a particularly powerful mediator among women, whereas the relationship between suppression and social outcomes was mostly mediated by authenticity in men. Attachment did not moderate the relationship between suppression and social outcomes, which indicates that suppression has a negative effect on social outcomes regardless of an individual’s attachment style. The study is the first to suggest that expressive suppression is associated with feeling poorly understood and that the mechanism underlying the relationship between suppression and social outcomes differs between men and women.}},
author = {{Koppel, Lina}},
language = {{eng}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
title = {{Being Authentic and Feeling Understood: A Structural Equation Model of the Relationship between Expressive Suppression and Social Outcomes}},
year = {{2015}},
}