The Nonverbal Expression of Negative Emotions: Peer and Supervisor Responses to Occupational Therapy Students' Emotional Attributes

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the preclinical and clinical consequences of occupational therapy students' emotional attributes. When students conducted interviews in pairs with one another, their feelings and behavior were associated with their attributes of negative emotionality and nonverbal expressiveness. When the student with a higher degree of negative emotionality within a dyad was the more expressive one, both students within that dyad reacted with less positive feelings and nonverbal behavior than when the student with the lower degree of negative emotionality was the more expressive one. Furthermore, during level II fieldwork experiences, expressive negatively emotional students were evaluated by their clinical supervisors as less clinically skilled than individuals who were expressive yet non-negatively emotional. Processes of emotional contagion and social impression formation may have mediated the associations that were found.