Emotion suppression: a preliminary experimental investigation of its immediate effects and role in subsequent reactivity to novel stimuli.

ABSTRACT

This study details a preliminary investigation of the subjective and physiological effects of emotion suppression, relative to the allowance of emotional experience, within one distressing situation on responses to another, unrelated situation. Thirty-four men were instructed to suppress or allow their emotional responses to a distressing film clip. Immediately following the film clip, participants responded to a mildly emotionally evocative interpersonal scenario. There was evidence of significantly different patterns of change in subjective distress and heart rate (HR) from one situation to the next as a function of whether participants received instructions to suppress or allow their emotional experience to the film clip. Specifically, allowance participants exhibited a significant decrease in subjective distress, whereas suppression participants exhibited no change in distress. Further, suppression participants' distress was significantly higher than that of allowance participants following the interpersonal scenario. Suppression participants also exhibited a significant increase in mean HR from one situation to the next, whereas allowance participants exhibited no change. Finally, allowance participants were significantly more likely to report being willing to watch the film clip again than were suppression participants. Results are discussed in terms of their implications for understanding the delayed negative consequences of emotion suppression.