Facial expressions of emotion and the course of conjugal bereavement

“Bereaved individuals who exhibited genuine laughs and smiles when speaking about a recent loss had better adjustment over several years of bereavement (Bonanno & Keltner, 1997) and also evoked more favorable responses in observers (Keltner & Bonanno, 1997).”

“Together with positive emotions, plans and goals predict greater psychological well-being 12 months post-bereavement (Stein et al. (1997); for related work, see Bonanno & Keltner (1997) and Keltner & Bonanno (1997)).”

“By the same token, when anger is expressed in contexts that require rapport building or affiliation, it can potentially damage relational bonds (Bonanno & Keltner, 1997; Cole & Zahn-Waxler, 1992; Keltner, Ellsworth, & Edwards, 1993).”

“By contrast, those who express positive emotions after a loss are more likely to exhibit resilience in subsequent years (Bonanno & Keltner, 1997).”

“However, a new generation of studies has begun to cast doubt on these initial findings by showing that under adverse situations, reduced emotional responding sometimes predicts better long-term functioning (Bonanno & Keltner, 1997).”

“Bonanno and his colleagues (Bonanno & Keltner, 1997; Keltner & Bonanno, 1997) found that bereaved individuals who showed laughter at least once during a narration about their lost relationship also reported better adjustment.”

“In extremely adverse conditions, the ability to modulate display of negative emotions can foster the recovery of normal functioning ( Bonanno & Keltner, 1997 ), help maintain and expand social networks (Coyne, 1976; Harber & Pennebaker, 1992), and facilitate close personal relationships (Levenson & Gottman, 1983).”

“Also, not only do positive emotions usually assist in quieting or undoing negative emotion (Fredrickson & Levenson, 1998) but such positive emotions are increased by “continued contact with and support from important people in the . . . person’s social environment” (Bonanno & Keltner, 1997, p. 134).”

“…less negative emotion and greater positive emotion than other bereaved individuals (e.g., Bonanno & Keltner, 1997), thereby minimizing the impact of the loss while ‘‘increasing continued contact with and support from important people in…”

“For example, a man who begins dating 6 months after the death of his wife may elicit severe criticism from friends and neighbors who believe that such behavior indicates that the man is either shallow and superficial, or running away from his distress (Bonanno & Keltner, 1997).”

“The expression of genuine smiles during the monologue predicted better psychological adjustment 2 years later, but only for the students who were first made to feel sad, suggesting that genuine smiles are especially adaptive in the context of adversity (Bonanno & Keltner, 1997).”

“Finally, Bonnano and Keltner (1997) found that the occurrence of positive-emotion expressive behavior during an interview predicted good subsequent adjustment among recently bereaved individuals, a group that is typically characterized by elevated levels of depressive symptoms.”

“For example, bereaved individuals who exhibited genuine laughs and smiles when speaking about a recent loss had better adjustment over several years of bereavement (Bonanno & Keltner, 1997) and also evoked more favorable responses in observers (Keltner & Bonanno, 1997).”

“Our focus in this article has been expression of distress, but recent research and theory point to the importance of expression of positive emotions (e.g., Bonanno & Keltner, 1997; Fredrickson, 1998; Keltner & Bonanno, 1997).”

“Several studies have demonstrated that the majority of bereaved individuals exhibit genuine smiling and laughter while discussing their recent loss (e.g., Bonanno & Keltner, 1997) and that individuals showing these positive expressions tended to have better adjustment over time and better social relations compared wit…”

“…people who exhibit seemingly defensive or avoidant approaches to loss suffer less in the long run than those who actively express or “work through” their grief (see Bonanno & Field, 2001; Bonanno & Keltner, 1997; Bonanno, Keltner, Holen, & Horowitz, 1995; Bonanno, Znoj, Siddique, & Horowitz, 1999).”

“Thus, whereas toa complete a denial has frequently been associated with pathological farms ofgrieving (e.g., Jacobs, 1993), Bonanno et al.'s study suggests that same de~ gree of avoidance maf be healthy (see also Bonanno & Keltner, 1997).”

“Bereaved individuals who express more positive affect and laugh while speaking about their lost loved one prospectively report less grief, increased positive emotions, and better social relations (Bonanno & Keltner, 1997; Keltner & Bonanno, 1997).”

“In contrast to the traditional perspective, which equates the absence of grief processing with grief avoidance, the grief work as rumination framework assumes that resilient individuals are able to minimize processing of a loss through relatively automated mechanisms, such as distraction or a shifting attention toward…”

“High quality videotape of the interview segments were available only for a randomly selected subset of participants (for more details, see Bonanno & Keltner, 1997).”

“Bonanno and Keltner (1997) studied the correlation between the facial expressions of adults experiencing conjugal bereavement and their reported emotions at the time of displaying the expression. Correlations were obtained by aggregating across emotions of the same valence, but even in this way the correlation was sig…”

“Positive Emotion Dissociation, Social Connectedness, and Psychological Functioning Iris B. Mauss, Amanda J. Shallcross, and Allison S. Troy University of Denver Oliver P. John University of California, Berkeley Emilio Ferrer University of California, Davis Frank H. Wilhelm University of Salzburg James J. Gross Stanfor…”

“However, factors in addition to experienced emotion, such as display rules (Ekman, 1971; McNeill, 1998) and social context (Bonanno & Keltner, 1997; Hess, Banse, & Kappas, 1995; Jakobs, Manstead, & Fischer, 1999; Kraut & Johnston, 1979), also influence facial expressions.”

“Therefore, the experience of a particular life event will not be associated with changes in life satisfaction for all individuals (Lucas, 2005, 2007b; Lucas et al., 2003, 2004; also see Bonanno, 2004; Bonanno & Kaltman, 2001; Bonanno & Keltner, 1997).”

“Several studies have also found positive affect to be a predictor of long-term bereavement outcome, independent of its concurrent association with depression (Bonanno & Keltner, 1997; Keltner & Bonanno, 1997; Moskowitz, Folkman, & Acree, 2003; Ong, Bergeman, & Bisconti, 2004).”

“A number of studies (Bonanno, 2004 ; Bonanno & Keltner, 1997 ; Fredrickson, Tugade, Waugh, & Larkin, 2003 ) have highlighted the value of positive emotions, such as laughter, in the psychological adjustment of individuals experiencing adversity.”

“This finding is particularly concerning given that acute grief reactions in the early months of mourning is a risk factor for a protracted course of grief (Boelen & Lenferink, 2020; Bonanno et al., 1995; Bonanno & Keltner, 1997).”

“Keltner and Bonanno (1997) similarly reported that the occurrence of Duchenne laughter during the course of bereavement was correlated with verbal autonomic response dissociation, indicating that those who engaged in full-laughter displays were better able to emotionally dissociate or distance…”

“One possibility is that helping behavior stimulates positive emotional states (Yinon & Landau, 1987), which in turn speeds the recovery from cardiovascular stress (Fredrickson, Mancuso, Branigan, & Tugade, 2000) and thus may mediate recovery from bereavement (Bonanno & Keltner, 1997).”

“Bonanno and Keltner (1997), for example, found that bereaved adults who expressed positive emotions when talking about their recently deceased spouse (during an otherwise negative grieving period) experienced reduced grief over time.”

“Some studies suggest that individuals who experience both positive and negative emotions while coping with a severe stressor experience better psychological outcomes [46,55-57].”

“Humour can help reduce distress from difficult situations, both by ‘quieting’ or undoing negative emotion and by maintaining supportive interactions with co-workers (Bonanno and Keltner, 1997; Fredrickson and Levenson, 1998).”

“These scores provided a more reliable measure of the overall magnitude of emotional expression (Bonanno & Keltner, 1997).”

“…produced by bereaved widows while they spoke with a clinician about their deceased husband; this research established links between laughter and outside observers’ interpersonal evaluations of the laugher as well as her future mental health (Bonanno & Keltner, 1997; Keltner & Bonanno, 1997).”

“Within the meaning-reconstruction paradigm, these resources are understood to include beliefs about the world and the self that allow the nondisruptive assimilation of the loss experience (Berg & Braun, 1994; Janoff-Bulman & Yopyk, 2004 ; Neimeyer, 2006b ; Park & Folkman 1997 ), for example by placing it in a personal…”

“…activity in the orbicularis occuli muscles surrounding the eye and are associated with genuine positive emotion, from non-Duchenne smiles, which are not associated with positive emotion (Duchenne de Bologne, 1862; Ekman & Friesen, 1982; Frank, Ekman, & Friesen, 1993; Keltner & Bonanno, 1997).”

“…with the ability to continue fulfilling personal and social responsibilities, with the capacity for positive emotions and generative experiences (Bonanno and Keltner, 1997; Keltner and Bonanno, 1997; Bonanno et al., 2002b; Tugade and Fredrickson, 2004; Bonanno et al., 2005a), and with greater…”

“A series of studies of bereavement by Bonanno and colleagues (Bonanno & Keltner, 1997; Bonanno et al., 1995, 1999; Keltner & Bonanno, 1997) have demonstrated that verbal-autonomic dissociation (a discrepancy between expressed affect and physiological responsiveness) was not associated with negative…”

“The small group of studies that have specifically investigated the relationship between mixed emotional experience and psychological well-being has implicitly embraced a multi-faceted notion of well-being, including both hedonic and eudaimonic elements [15,17].”

“Hence, to the extent that positive emotions reduce the focus on negative emotions, they can put people’s minds at ease, which is a seasonable effect of positive emotions in crises (cf. Bonanno & Keltner, 1997; Folkman & Moskowitz, 2000).”

“bereavement reduces grief over time [5] and that adding positive”

“Contrary to popular wisdom, Bonanno and colleagues have found that verbal-autonomic dissociation (a discrepancy between expressed emotions and physiological responsiveness) (Bonanno, Znoj, Siddique, & Horowitz, 1999 ) and fewer facial expressions of negative emotions were associated with positive psychological consequ…”

“However, research has demonstrated that when dealing with extremely adverse situations, such as conjugal bereavement, suppressing the facial expressions of negative affect (e.g., anger) has been found to be beneficial for longer-term recovery of normal functioning (Bonanno & Keltner, 1997).”

“These measures were included so that the investigators could determine whether negative feelings, while no more prevalent than positive ones, were more intense.”

“In the current study, as in previous studies from the larger bereavement project, grief was operationally defined as the total disruption in daily functioning that could be directly attributed to the loss (Bonanno & Keltner, 1997; Bonanno, Keltner, Holen, & Horowitz, 1995).”

“Joy is an expression correlated positively with self-reports of felt happiness [3] and correlated negatively with felt grief [32].”

“[11,13]) and whose ecological validity is confirmed by its applicability in a German bereavement sample.”

“However, by and large, the literature tends to reveal personal benefits to expressing positive emotion (e.g., Bonanno & Keltner, 1997; Fredrickson & Levenson, 1998; Gable et al., 2004; Harker & Keltner, 2001).”

“Prior research examining in vivo emotion broadly in relation to psychological adjustment has similar findings (e.g., Bonanno and Keltner 1997).”

“In a second report on the same group (Bonanno & Keltner, 1997), the participants' grief symptoms were also investigated.”

“Given the literature on the importance of positive emotions in the coping process after trauma (Bonanno & Keltner, 1997; Folkman & Moskowitz, 2000a, 2000b; Fredrickson et al., 2003), the question arises why positive affect did not serve as a protective factor against PTSD symptoms?”