Expressive suppression 101

Expressive suppression is a term referring to the intentional masking of outward signs of an underlying emotion. Usually, it’s studied in terms of facial expressions, but also sometimes includes involuntary emotional giveaways such as laughter. The concept also overlaps with a couple others: masking and display rules.

Display rules are about how we both diminish and amplify or modify certain emotional expressions to fit in with our culture, both at macro and micro levels. Display rules could be considered an umbrella that both masking and expressive suppression fit under.

When considering the research done on expressive suppression, it’s important to know that some people regard expressive suppression as involuntary, or something that has been pushed on us through punishment of some kind. Being punished for expressing sadness, fear, or anger are some of the examples cited to be possible causes of expressive suppression. However, some other studies define expressive suppression as a conscious decision to limit one’s expressions.

Pros of expressive suppression

It’s not necessarily a bad thing! Behaviors like expressive suppression formed out of necessity. Some potential advantages include:

• Self-protection, such as hiding anger at your parents or boss, or avoiding showing fear when public speaking.

• Social purposes, like avoiding laughing at someone when they hurt themself because you don’t want to hurt their feelings or embarrass them, or avoiding reacting to something horrible a relative says at dinner in order to avoid conflict or starting a fight.

• There is some evidence to suggest that suppressing the physical response to an emotion can also decrease the actual experience of that emotion, though unfortunately, that has been shown to be more effective at limiting positive emotions and less effective at limiting negative ones.

Cons of expressive suppression

Although not necessarily a bad thing, too much expressive suppression can greatly impact your relationships. For example:

• Suppression isn’t always 100% perfect. If someone catches us concealing our feelings, they may perceive that we are covering something more sinister or lose trust in us because they feel like we are trying to deceive them.

• In close relationships, hiding feelings is incredibly unhelpful. If our partner can’t tell what we’re feeling (or even worse, can tell we are hiding our feelings) then it is harder for us to be on the same team and help each other. It can also prevent building intimacy.

• Studies have shown that people who have recently done a large amount of expressive suppression actually have more difficulty making decisions, learning new things, and perform poorly on tests of executive function. The mental resources needed for these types of activities have already been taken up by suppressing expressions.

How to combat it

If you find yourself engaging in expressive suppression more often than you should, don’t beat yourself up about it. It’s something many of us struggle with! But some ways to combat the downsides of expressive suppression include:

• Counseling or therapy. This is particularly helpful when your expressive suppression may stem from fears or conditioning.

• Reappraisal, or changing how we think about a situation. For example: “In moments when I was upset, I have thought about what I could learn from this experience.”

• Antecedent-focused emotion regulation. This happens before a stressful or emotional event and refers to reframing or reappraising how you look at a situation as well, only it is done proactively.