School of Psychology.
School of Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts.
J Fam Psychol. 2018 Sep;32(6):722-732. doi: 10.1037/fam0000429. Epub 2018 Jun 21.
The way emotions are expressed during relationship conflict should play an important role in facilitating conflict resolution, but the risk of rejection that conflict poses may promote expressive suppression, which could impede conflict resolution. In the current research, the authors applied a risk regulation perspective to understand when expressive suppression will occur during conflict. They predicted that (a) perceiving lower regard from the partner during conflict would predict greater expressive suppression, and (b) greater expressive suppression would undermine conflict resolution. In Study 1, individuals engaged in a conflict discussion with their romantic partner ( = 180 couples) and then reported the degree to which they felt regarded by their partner and generated a solution to the conflict during the discussion. Independent coders rated how much individuals attempted to suppress their emotional expressions during the conflict. In Study 2, individuals reported on their relationship conflict, perceived regard, expressive suppression, and conflict resolution every day across a 3-week period ( = 73 couples). In both studies, perceiving lower positive regard during conflict was associated with greater expressive suppression. Greater expressive suppression was, in turn, associated with lower conflict resolution. These associations were not due to greater stress/upset or negative emotions, greater withdrawal, greater attachment insecurity, or lower positive regard for the partner. These within-situation associations suggest that expressive suppression may often arise to bypass the risk of rejection that occurs when people feel less positively regarded by their partner, but expressive suppression may also put relationships at further risk by undermining conflict resolution. (PsycINFO Database Record
在关系冲突期间表达情绪的方式应该在促进冲突解决方面发挥重要作用，但冲突带来的被拒绝的风险可能会促进表达抑制，从而阻碍冲突的解决。在当前的研究中，作者应用风险调节的观点来理解在冲突期间何时会发生表达抑制。他们预测：（a）在冲突期间感知到伴侣的尊重程度较低，会预测出更大的表达抑制；（b）更大的表达抑制会破坏冲突的解决。在研究 1 中，个体与他们的浪漫伴侣进行了冲突讨论（=180 对夫妇），然后报告了他们在讨论期间感到伴侣的尊重程度，并生成了冲突的解决方案。独立的编码者评估了个体在冲突期间试图抑制情绪表达的程度。在研究 2 中，个体在 3 周的时间内每天报告他们的关系冲突、感知的尊重、表达抑制和冲突解决情况（=73 对夫妇）。在这两项研究中，在冲突期间感知到的正面尊重程度较低与表达抑制程度较大有关。更大的表达抑制又与较低的冲突解决相关。这些关联不是由于压力/不安或负面情绪更大、更多的回避、依恋不安全感更大或对伴侣的正面评价较低所致。这些情境内的关联表明，表达抑制可能经常出现，以规避当人们感到自己受到伴侣的正面评价较低时所产生的被拒绝的风险，但表达抑制也可能通过破坏冲突的解决而进一步使关系面临风险。
