When we want to know what others are feeling, we look to the face for clues. However, individual differences matter: Some faces are more expressive than others. Do both emotion experience and dispositional expressivity predict emotion expression? Based on an analysis of display rules, the authors hypothesized that expressivity would moderate the relation between experience and expression for negative, but not for positive, emotion. Study 1 examined the relation between habitual emotion experience and peer-rated expressive behavior and showed the predicted moderator effect for negative emotion: Experience was related to expression only for dispositionally high-expressivity participants, not for low-expressivity participants. For positive emotion, however, experience was related to expression for both groups. Study 2 replicated these findings using momentary emotion experience and objectively coded expressive behavior during films that elicited amusement and sadness. Results are interpreted in terms of low-expressivity individuals' propensity to dynamically regulate negative emotion-expressive behavior.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Adelmann, P. K. , & Zajonc, R. B. (1989). Facial efference and the experience of emotion. Annual Review of Psychology, 40, 249-280.
2.
Aiken, L. S. , & West, S. G. (1991). Multiple regression: Testing and interpreting interactions. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
3.
Arnold, M. B. (1960). Emotion and personality (Vols. 1 & 2). New York: Columbia University Press.
4.
Averill, J. R. (1982). Anger and aggression: An essay on emotion. New York: Springer-Verlag.
5.
Blumberg, S. H. , & Izard, C. E. (1991). Patterns of emotion experiences as predictions of facial expressions of emotion. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, 37, 183-197.
6.
Buck, R. , Savin, V., Miller, R. E., & Caul, W. F. (1972). Nonverbal communication of affect in humans. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 23, 362-371.
7.
Burrowes, B. D. , & Halberstadt, A. G. (1987). Self-and family-expressiveness styles in the experience and expression of anger. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 11, 254-268.
8.
Cacioppo, J. T. , Martzke, J. S., Petty, R. E., & Tassinary, L. G. (1988). Specific forms of facial EMG response index emotions during an interview: From Darwin to the continuous flow hypothesis of affect-laden information processing. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54, 592-604.
9.
Casey, R. J. (1993). Children's emotional experience: Relations among expression, self-report, and understanding. Developmental Psychology, 29, 119-129.
10.
Caspi, A. , & Bem, D. (1990) Personality continuity and change across the life course. In L. Pervin (Ed.), Handbook of personality: Theory and research (pp. 549-575). New York: Guilford.
11.
Chaplin, W. F. (1997). Personality, interactive relations, and applied psychology. In R. Hogan, J. Johnson, & S. Briggs (Eds.), Handbook of personality psychology (pp. 873-890). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
12.
Chovil, N. (1991). Social determinants of facial displays. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 15, 141-154.
13.
Cole, P. M. (1986). Children's spontaneous control of facial expression. Child Development, 57, 1309-1321.
14.
Costa, P. T. , & McCrae, R. R. (1992). Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI-R) and NEO-Five Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI) professional manual. Odessa, FL: Psychological Assessment Resources.
15.
Diener, E. , Smith, H., & Fujita, F. (1995). The personality structure of affect. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 69, 130-141.
16.
Dimberg, U. (1988). Facial electromyography and the experience of emotion. Journal of Psychophysiology, 2, 277-282.
17.
Ekman, P. (1972). Universal and cultural differences in facial expressions of emotion. In J. R. Cole (Ed.), Nebraska symposium on motivation, 1971 (pp. 207-283). Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
18.
Ekman, P. (1993). Facial expression and emotion. American Psychologist, 48, 384-392.
19.
Ekman, P. , & Friesen, W. V. (1969). The repertoire of nonverbal behavior: Categories, origin, usage, and coding. Semiotica, 1, 49-98.
20.
Ekman, P. , & Friesen, W. V. (1975). Unmasking the face: A guide to recognizing emotions from facial clues. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
21.
Ekman, P. , Friesen, W. V., & O'Sullivan, M. (1988). Smiles when lying. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54, 414-420.
22.
Eysenck, H. J. (1990). Biological dimensions of personality. In L. A. Pervin (Ed.), Handbook of personality: Theory and research (pp. 244-276). New York: Guilford.
23.
Fernandez-Dols, J. M. , & Ruiz-Belda, M. A. (1995). Are smiles a sign of happiness? Gold medal winners at the Olympic games. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 69, 1113-1119.
24.
Fernandez-Dols, J. M. , Sanchez, F., Carrera, P., & Ruiz-Belda, M. A. (1997). Are spontaneous expressions and emotions linked? An experimental test of coherence. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 21, 163-177.
25.
Fridlund, A. J. (1994). Human facial expression. San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
26.
Fridlund, A. J. , Kenworthy, K. G., & Jaffey, A. K. (1992). Audience effects in affective imagery: Replication and extension to dysphoric imagery. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 16, 191-212.
27.
Friedman, H. S. , & Miller-Herringer, T. (1991). Nonverbal display of emotion in public and in private: Self-monitoring, personality, and expressive cues. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 61, 766-775.
28.
Gross, J. J. (1998). Antecedent-and response-focused emotion regulation: Divergent consequences for experience, expression, and physiology. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74, 224-237.
29.
Gross, J. J. (1998). The emerging field of emotion regulation: An integrative review. Review of General Psychology, 2, 271-299.
30.
Gross, J. J. & Richards, J. M. (2000). Emotion regulation in everyday life: Sex, ethnicity, and social context. Manuscript in preparation.
31.
Gross, J. J. , & John, O. P. (1995). Facets of emotional expressivity: Three self-report factors and their correlates. Personality and Individual Differences, 19, 555-568.
32.
Gross, J. J. , & John, O. P. (1997). Revealing feelings: Facets of emotional expressivity in self-reports, peer ratings, and behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 72, 435-448.
33.
Gross, J. J. , & John, O. P. (1998). Mapping the domain of emotional expressivity: Multi-method evidence for a hierarchical model. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74, 170-191.
34.
Gross, J. J. , & Levenson, R. W. (1993). Emotional suppression: Physiology, self-report, and expressive behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 64, 970-986.
35.
Gross, J. J. , & Levenson, R. W. (1995). Emotion elicitation using films. Cognition and Emotion, 9, 87-108.
36.
Gross, J. J. , & Levenson, R. W. (1997). Hiding feelings: The acute effects of inhibiting negative and positive emotion. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 106, 95-103.
37.
Gross, J. J. , Sutton, S. K., & Ketelaar, T. V. (1998). Relations between affect and personality: Support for the affect-level and affective-reactivity views. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 24, 279-288.
38.
Hall, J. A. (1979). Gender, gender roles, and nonverbal communication. In R. Rosenthal (Ed.), Skill in nonverbal communication (pp. 32-67). Cambridge, MA: Oelgeschlager, Gunn & Hain.
39.
Hess, U. , Banse, R., & Kappas, A. (1995). The intensity of facial expression is determined by underlying affective state and social situation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 69, 280-288.
40.
Hinde, R. A. (1985). Was `the expression of the emotions' a misleading phrase?Animal Behavior, 33, 985-992.
41.
Izard, C. E. (1971). The face of emotion. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts.
42.
Izard, C. E. (1977). Human emotions. New York: Plenum.
43.
Jancke, L. (1993). Different facial EMG-reactions of extraverts and introverts to pictures with positive, negative and neutral valence. Personality and Individual Differences, 14, 113-118.
44.
Jones, H. (1950). The study of patterns of emotional expression. In M. L. Reymert (Ed.), Feelings and emotions (pp. 161-168). New York: McGraw-Hill.
45.
Kappas, A. (1997). The fascination with faces: Are they windows to our soul?Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 21, 157-161.
46.
King, L. A. , & Emmons, R. A. (1990). Conflict over emotional expression: Psychological and physical correlates. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 58, 864-877.
47.
Kring, A. M. , & Gordon, A. H. (1998). Sex differences in emotion: Expression, experience, and physiology. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74, 686-703.
48.
Kring, A. M. , Smith, D. A., & Neale, J. M. (1994). Individual differences in dispositional expressiveness: Development and validation of the Emotional Expressivity Scale. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 66, 934-949.
49.
Lang, P. J. (1995). The emotion probe: Studies of motivation and attention. American Psychologist, 50, 372-385.
50.
Lanzetta, J. T. , & Kleck, R. E. (1970). Encoding and decoding of nonverbal affect in humans. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 16, 12-19.
51.
Lazarus, R. S. (1991). Emotion and adaptation. New York: Oxford University Press.
52.
Levenson, R. W. (1994). Human emotion: A functional view. In P. Ekman & R. J. Davidson (Eds.), The nature of emotion (pp. 123-126). New York: Oxford University Press.
53.
Leventhal, H. (1984). A perceptual motor theory of emotion. In K. R. Scherer & P. Ekman (Eds.), Approaches to emotion (pp. 271-292). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
54.
McHugo, G. J. , & Smith, C. A. (1996). The power of faces: A review of John T. Lanzetta's research on facial expression and emotion. Motivation and Emotion, 20, 85-120.
55.
McIntosh, D. N. (1996). Facial feedback hypotheses: Evidence, implications, and directions. Motivation and Emotion, 20, 121-147.
56.
Mischel, W. , & Peake, P. K. (1982). Beyond déjà vu: In the search for cross-situational consistency. Psychological Review, 89, 730-755.
57.
Morra, B. P. , Brezner, L. P., & Gowers, B. D. (1986). Robin Williams live [Film]. Stamford, CT: Vestron Video.
58.
Plutchik, P. (1980). Emotion: A psychoevolutionary synthesis. New York: Harper & Row.
59.
Rosenberg, E. L. , & Ekman, P. (1994). Coherence between expressive and experiential systems in emotion. Cognition and Emotion, 8, 201-229.
60.
Rothbart, M. K. , & Ahadi, S. A. (1994). Temperament and the development of personality. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 103, 55-66.
61.
Scheier, M. F. , & Carver, C. S. (1993). On the power of positive thinking: The benefits of being optimistic. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 2, 26-30.
62.
Scherer, K. R. (1984). On the nature and function of emotion: A component process approach. In K. R. Scherer & P. Ekman (Eds.), Approaches to emotion (pp. 293-318). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
63.
Schwartz, G. E. , Fair, P. L., Salt, P., Mandel, M. R., & Klerman, G. L. (1976). Facial expression and imagery in depression: An electromyographic study. Psychosomatic Medicine, 38, 337-347.
64.
Snyder, M. (1974). Self-monitoring of expressive behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 30, 526-537.
65.
Stark, R. P. , & Ross, H. D. (1989). Steel magnolias [Film]. Burbank, CA: Columbia/Tri-Star.
66.
Stemmler, G. (1997). Selective activation of traits: Boundary conditions for the activation of anger. Personality and Individual Differences, 22, 213-233.
67.
Tellegen, A. (1985). Structures of mood and personality and their relevance to assessing anxiety, with an emphasis on self-report. In A. H. Tuma & J. D. Maser (Eds.), Anxiety and the anxiety disorders (pp. 681-706). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
68.
Thayer, R. E. , Newman, J. R., & McClain, T. M. (1994). Self-regulation of mood: Strategies for changing a bad mood, raising energy, and reducing tension. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67, 910-925.
69.
Tomkins, S. S. (1962). Affect, imagery, consciousness: Vol. 1. The positive affects. New York: Springer.
70.
Watson, D. , & Clark, L. A. (1991). Self-versus peer ratings of specific emotional traits: Evidence of convergent and discriminant validity. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 60, 927-940.
71.
Watson, D. , & Clark, L. A. (1994). Manual for the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (expanded form). Unpublished manuscript, University of Iowa.
72.
Watson, D. , Clark, L. A., & Tellegen, A. (1988). Development and validation of brief measures of positive and negative affect: The PANAS scales. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54, 1063-1070.
73.
Weinberger, D. A. (1990). The construct validity of the repressive coping style. In J. L. Singer (Ed.), Repression and dissociation: Implications for personality theory, psychopathology, and health (pp. 337-386). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
74.
Wiggins, J. S. (1973). Personality and prediction: Principles of personality assessment. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
75.
Williams, D. G. (1982). Weeping by adults: Personality correlates and sex differences. Journal of Psychology, 110, 217-226.
