Beyond the myth of venting: Social sharing modes determine the benefits of emotional disclosure (original) (raw)
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Social Sharing of Emotion, Emotional Recovery, and Interpersonal Aspects
Social sharing of emotion is a very common long-term consequence of emotional experiences. Despite the fact that it reactivates the emotions associated with the experience, people are prone to talk about the negative events they face. So, why do people share their emotions? From an intrapersonal perspective, a widespread belief exists that verbalising an emotion alleviates the impact of an emotional event. The purpose of our research was to
2014
Social sharing of emotion is a very common long-term consequence of emotional experiences. Despite the fact that it reactivates the emotions associated with the experience, people are prone to talk about the negative events they face. So, why do people share their emotions? From an intrapersonal perspective, a widespread belief exists that verbalising an emotion alleviates the impact of an emotional event. The purpose of our research was to examine whether verbalisation of emotions effectively contributed to the recovery from the emotion. We review the correlative and experimental studies that were conducted to test this hypothesis. They consistently failed to support the view that mere talking about an emotional memory can lower its emotional load. Nevertheless, participants generally reported that they perceived the sharing process as beneficial. The question then remains as to why people share their emotions and report it is a beneficial process, if it does not bring emotional re...
Clinical Psychology & Psychotherapy, 2005
People generally share their emotions with others and believe that they will recover from their emotions after having talked about them. The aims of the present studies were to examine whether (1) talking about a specific emotional episode really facilitates emotional recovery (‘recovery’ effect) and (2) talking about emotions leads to perceived benefits (‘perceived benefits’). Consistently in the two studies, a decrease of emotional impact was found over time for participants in all conditions. Contrary to expectations, participants assigned to talk about their emotions did not demonstrate beneficial recovery effects at 3 or 7 days or 2 months compared with participants assigned to a factual description of the event (experiment 1), to the expression of another emotional event (experiment 2), to a trivial control condition (experiments 1 and 2) or to a non-talking condition (experiment 2). However, in the two experiments, participants assigned to talk about negative emotional experiences reported more subjective benefits from the session than control participants. The role of personal beliefs about the effects of social sharing of emotion is discussed. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Emotion, 2012
After an emotional episode individuals need to talk about their experiences in a repetitive process called social sharing of emotions. In the present study we adopted a longitudinal design over a 9-month period to achieve 2 main goals: First, we aimed to investigate the relationship between social sharing and recovery from an initial emotional experience; second, we tested a model of prediction of the perpetuation of social sharing over time. Findings confirm that social sharing is a common consequence of experiencing an emotion, regardless of participants' levels of education, which tends to diminish over time, leading to an increasing sense of recovery. The prolongation of social sharing is a maladaptive outcome of experiencing an emotion, and a poor recovery is a direct consequence of long-term self-perpetuating social sharing. The results have implications for the assessment of the role of both dispositional factors and characteristics of the eliciting event on the prolongation of social sharing of emotions.
Intrapersonal, interpersonal, and social outcomes of the social sharing of emotion
Current Opinion in Psychology, 2019
Emotional experiences trigger the social sharing of emotion. This disclosure of emotional facts and feelings to the social surrounding was generally considered as a simple process of emotional release. The empirical data reviewed in this article invalidate this simplistic view. They show that the social sharing of emotions is a complex process that results not only in intrapersonal effects for the source person, but also in important interpersonal and social outcomes. The intrapersonal effects of the social sharing of emotions are varied, they do not necessarily go together, and they respond to specific conditions. At the interpersonal level, both the sharing of positive and negative emotional episodes affects relationships with the audience. Finally, the research highlights broader social effects relating to social structure, social norms, group action, beliefs, collective resilience, and intergroup relations.
It's not that bad: Social challenges to emotional disclosure enhance adjustment to stress
Anxiety Stress and Coping, 2004
Studies conducted in the United States (n0/115) and Spain (n0/146) examined how talking about an acute stressor in different social contexts influences cognitive, emotional, and physiological adjustment. In both studies, female college students viewed a video dramatizing a real-life, gang rape scene on two separate days. After the first viewing, participants were randomly assigned to one of four social conditions: no talk , talk alone about their reactions, talk to a validating confederate about their reactions, or talk to a challenging confederate about their reactions. Participants in the challenge condition showed the greatest emotional, cognitive, and physiological benefits across cultures, whereas participants in the validate and talk conditions evidenced only modest benefits. These findings suggest that the social context of disclosure has a strong influence on adjustment processes and that providing an alternative and more sanguine perspective can help individuals recover from acute stressors.
The Influence of Social Skills on Private and Interpersonal Emotional Disclosure of Negative Events
Http Dx Doi Org 10 1521 Jscp 23 5 635 50747, 2005
This study examined the influence of social skills on emotional disclosure in private and interpersonal settings. Eighty-five women with either high or low social skills disclosed an emotionally painful event in private (i.e., to a tape recorder) or to another participant with either high or low social skills (interpersonal condition). Increases in negative affect were greatest when disclosure was in the private (vs. interpersonal) condition and also when the discloser had high social skill (vs. low social skill). Interestingly, increases in positive affect were greatest in the interpersonal condition where both discloser and facilitator had high social skills. However, these facilitators themselves experienced decreases in their positive affect. The authors propose that an interactive transfer of positive affect between individuals of high social skills can provide an interpersonal interaction conducive to self-disclosure.
Emotion (Washington, D.C.), 2014
Previous research has shown the relation between social sharing and emotional processing to be notoriously complex. In the present study, we unraveled this complexity by, for the first time, taking 3 key aspects of this relation into account simultaneously: the nature of the emotion, the timing of possible sharing effects, and the multicomponential character of emotions. Using the day reconstruction method, we first identified an intense anger or sadness target episode for each participant. In a second phase, participants repeatedly reported their sharing behavior and intensity of different emotion components over 5 days. Growth curve analyses revealed that sharing anger leads to several immediate and delayed beneficial effects, whereas sharing sadness leads to limited positive effects that emerge later on. This implies that all 3 aspects under study, as well as their interplay, are of critical importance in the relation between sharing and emotional processing.