Disclosing and sharing emotion: Psychological, social, and health consequences (original) (raw)
Related papers
Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 2002
Two longitudinal studies assessed whether disclosure of emotions facilitates recovery from bereavement. Study 1 tested prospectively over a 2-year period whether the extent to which bereaved persons talked about their loss to others and disclosed their emotions was associated with better adjustment to the loss of a marital partner. There was no evidence that disclosure facilitated adjustment. Study 2 randomly assigned recently bereaved individuals either to the Pennebaker writing task (J. W. Pennebaker & S. K. or to no-essay control conditions. The writing task did not result in a reduction of distress or of doctors visits either immediately after the bereavement or at a 6-month follow-up. Beneficial effects were not demonstrated for bereaved persons who had suffered an unexpected loss or who at the time of the study still expressed a high need for emotional disclosure.
Emotional disclosure for whom?
Biological Psychology, 2005
Recent investigations have shown little evidence that written disclosure benefits bereaved individuals over a control condition. The present study hypothesized that the effectiveness of written disclosure for bereavement may be moderated by vagal tone, as indexed by respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA). Vagal tone has been identified as an important individual difference in depression. The present study investigated 35 bereaved participants in a longitudinal design, with participants writing each week for 3 weeks, and then participating in follow-up sessions 1 week and 1 month later. As with previous studies, bereaved participants showed improvement, although no differential improvement was seen in the emotional Disclosure group compared to a Control writing group. As hypothesized, however, those participants with the highest RSA benefited most from the written disclosure, while RSA level did not predict outcome in the control condition. Future research should investigate whether vagal tone moderates the impact of written disclosure for non-bereaved individuals.
Beyond the myth of venting: Social sharing modes determine the benefits of emotional disclosure
European Journal of Social Psychology, 2012
When individuals experience an emotion, they talk about it afterwards. A popular 'emotional venting' belief claims that doing so dissolves the emotional impact. This study tested a model of when and how sharing emotions is beneficial. It predicts that benefits vary according to the listener's response mode. A socio-affective (empathic) mode was expected to buffer emotional distress temporarily. A cognitive (reframing) mode was anticipated to grant emotional recovery. Participants viewed an aversive film and then talked about it with an intimate. The latter was instructed to adopt either cognitive or socio-affective response modes in a 2 Â 2 design (cognitive/non-cognitive; socio-affective/neutral). Emotional, cognitive and social benefits were assessed immediately afterwards and again 2 days later following re-exposure to the film. As predicted, emotional recovery occurred exclusively when the listener stimulated the participant's cognitive work. Cognitive variables (basic assumptions) were also positively modified by these conditions. Listeners' socio-affective responses entailed enhanced social integration (i.e. greater proximity to the listener; less loneliness) and an impression of feeling better. These results demonstrated that sharing emotions can lead to multiple benefits depending upon the listeners' response modes: emotional recovery, consolidation of shattered assumptions, social integration and temporary distress reduction.
Grief work, disclosure and counseling: Do they help the bereaved?
Clinical Psychology Review, 2005
Bereavement is associated with increased risk of morbidity and mortality. How to protect the bereaved against extreme suffering and lasting health impairment remains a central research issue. It has been widely accepted that to adjust, the bereaved have to confront and express intense emotions accompanying their loss. It has further been assumed that others assist in this process, and that intervention programs are effective. To assess validity of these assumptions, this article reviews research on the impact of expressing and sharing emotions across four research domains (social support; emotional disclosure; experimentally induced emotional disclosure; and grief intervention). In none of these areas is there evidence that emotional disclosure facilitates adjustment to loss in normal bereavement. Implications of these findings are discussed. D 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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
Clinical Psychology Review, 2006
Pennebaker's disclosure paradigm is a powerful manipulation: writing or talking about emotional experiences has positive effects on health. Nevertheless, the effect does not work for all people and some studies, including those of the highly emotional event of bereavement, have failed to demonstrate any effect at all. This paper reviews empirical evidence and proposes an integrative model to help explain discrepant findings and assess individual differences in the manipulation's effectiveness. Taking bereavement as exemplary of an attachment-related loss experience, it examines the relationship between styles of attachment, internal representations of the self and other, and patterns of disclosure in the coping process. Research has shown disturbances in disclosure among insecurely attached persons. We argue that secure persons are less likely to benefit from the disclosure paradigm, since they are better able to disclose in ways that further the adjustment process in their everyday lives. Targeting persons with insecure attachment styles and providing attachment-style-specific disclosure instructions are likely to increase the power of the manipulation. Our examination of these individual difference patterns is compatible with recent cognitive and linguistic analyses underlying the disclosure paradigm's impact on health. D
A Current Paradigm : Written Emotional Disclosure
2018
It has been supposed for years that expressing feelings and thoughts about stressful or traumatic events is helpful for health. In this regard, Pennebaker developed “Written Emotional Disclosure Paradigm” that refers to the importance of not only verbal but also written disclosure of feelings and thoughts. He suggested that written emotional disclosure improves physical and psychological health. The studies pointed out that individuals who are healthy or have health problems experience positive changes in various health outcomes when they wrote for 3-4 consecutive days, for at least 15 minutes and after about 2 months from traumatic or stressful experiences. Also, important findings from studies that examine who can benefit from this paradigm attracted attention. The aim of this article is to review the structure of written emotional disclosure paradigm, its effects and benefits, mechanisms of action underlying these effects, its procedure and relationship with individual difference...
Palliative Medicine, 2021
Background: Emotional disclosure is the therapeutic expression of emotion. It holds potential as a means of providing psychological support. However, evidence of its efficacy in palliative settings is mixed. This may be due to variation in intervention characteristics. Aim: To derive a greater understanding of the characteristics of potentially effective emotional disclosure-based interventions in palliative care by: (1) Developing a taxonomy of emotional disclosure-based interventions tested in people with advanced disease and (2) Mapping and linking objectives, outcomes, underlying mechanisms, and implementation factors. Design: A scoping review drawing on Intervention Component Analysis to combine evidence from studies’ methods, results, and discussion sections. Data sources: Six databases were searched to May 2020 including CINAHL, PsycINFO, and MEDLINE. Studies of emotional disclosure in adults with advanced disease were included. Study quality was appraised using an establishe...
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...