Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences - Research Publications

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Author: Bastian, Brock × Author: KUPPENS, PETER × End date: 2019 × Start date: 2010 ×

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    Feeling Bad About Being Sad: The Role of Social Expectancies in Amplifying Negative Mood
    Bastian, B ; Kuppens, P ; Hornsey, MJ ; Park, J ; Koval, P ; Uchida, Y (AMER PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSOC, 2012-02)
    Our perception of how others expect us to feel has significant implications for our emotional functioning. Across 4 studies the authors demonstrate that when people think others expect them not to feel negative emotions (i.e., sadness) they experience more negative emotion and reduced well-being. The authors show that perceived social expectancies predict these differences in emotion and well-being both more consistently than-and independently of-personal expectancies and that they do so by promoting negative self-evaluation when experiencing negative emotion. We find evidence for these effects within Australia (Studies 1 and 2) as well as Japan (Study 2), although the effects of social expectancies are especially evident in the former (Studies 1 and 2). We also find experimental evidence for the causal role of social expectancies in negative emotional responses to negative emotional events (Studies 3 and 4). In short, when people perceive that others think they should feel happy, and not sad, this leads them to feel sad more frequently and intensely.
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    Perceived social pressure not to experience negative emotion is linked to selective attention for negative information
    Bastian, B ; Pe, ML ; Kuppens, P (ROUTLEDGE JOURNALS, TAYLOR & FRANCIS LTD, 2017)
    Social norms and values may be important predictors of how people engage with and regulate their negative emotional experiences. Previous research has shown that social expectancies (the perceived social pressure not to feel negative emotion (NE)) exacerbate feelings of sadness. In the current research, we examined whether social expectancies may be linked to how people process emotional information. Using a modified classical flanker task involving emotional rather than non-emotional stimuli, we found that, for those who experienced low levels of NE, social expectancies were linked to the selective avoidance of negative emotional information. Those who experienced high levels of NE did not show a selective avoidance of negative emotional information. The findings suggest that, for people who experience many NEs, social expectancies may lead to discrepancies between how they think they ought to feel and the kind of emotional information they pay attention to.