CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 504Attachment and Relationship DynamicsEmotions and Moral BehaviorChild and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional Development

The social costs of emotional suppression: a prospective study of the transition to college

Open access
Srivastava, Sanjay, Tamir, Maya, McGonigal, Kelly M., John, Oliver P., Gross, James J.·2009·Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
DOI 10.1037/a0014755PMC PMC4141473
Open this paper in CoChat — free account

Abstract

There is growing interest in understanding how emotion regulation affects adaptation. The present study examined expressive suppression (which involves inhibiting the overt expression of emotion) and how it affects a critical domain of adaptation, social functioning. This investigation focused on the transition to college, a time that presents a variety of emotional and social challenges. Analyses focused on 2 components of suppression: a stable component, representing individual differences expressed both before and after the transition, and a dynamic component, representing variance specific to the new college context. Both components of suppression predicted lower social support, less closeness to others, and lower social satisfaction. These findings were robustly corroborated across weekly experience reports, self-reports, and peer reports and are consistent with a theoretical framework that defines emotion regulation as a dynamic process shaped by both stable person factors and environmental demands.

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1037/a0014755

Cites

62 of 62 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • Suppression of various emotions including sadness and anxiety was associated with perceptions of receiving less support from peers.

    “Similarly, in a longitudinal field study, suppression of various emotions including sadness and anxiety was associated with perceptions of receiving less support from peers (Srivastava et al. 2009).”

    From The Social Effects of Emotions (2022) · cites this paper as Srivastava et al. 2009

  • Individuals who habitually engage in expressive suppression have lower-quality relationships.

    “Accordingly, individuals who habitually engage in expressive suppression were found to have lower-quality relationships (Srivastava et al. 2009).”

    From The Social Effects of Emotions (2022) · cites this paper as Srivastava et al. 2009

  • Expressive suppression has been linked to negative outcomes in youth, such as low social support and connectedness, poorer self-esteem and life-satisfaction, depression and increased suicidality in the face of adversity.

    “Expressive suppression has been linked to negative outcomes in youth, such as low social support and connectedness (Gross and John, 2003, Srivastava et al., 2009), poorer self-esteem and life-satisfaction (Gross and John, 2003), depression (Betts et al., 2009, Larsen et al., 2013) and increased suicidality in the face of adversity (Kaplow et al., 2014).”

    From A pilot evaluation of the SPARX-R gaming intervention for preventing depression and improving wellbeing among adolescents in alternative education (2017) · cites this paper as Srivastava et al., 2009

  • Trait tendencies toward expressive suppression have been shown to predict negative interpersonal outcomes over time including reduced social support and difficulty forming new relationships.

    “Furthermore, trait tendencies toward expressive suppression have been shown to predict negative interpersonal outcomes over time (126, 142) including reduced social support (143) and difficulty forming new relationships (126).”

    From MDMA-Assisted Therapy as a Means to Alter Affective, Cognitive, Behavioral, and Neurological Systems Underlying Social Dysfunction in Social Anxiety Disorder (2021) · cites this paper as [126]

  • These behaviors have been shown to interfere with the development and maintenance of the kinds of close and secure relationships that are essential to adaptive functioning.

    “In addition, these behaviors have been shown to interfere with the development and maintenance of the kinds of close and secure relationships that are essential to adaptive functioning (125, 126).”

    From MDMA-Assisted Therapy as a Means to Alter Affective, Cognitive, Behavioral, and Neurological Systems Underlying Social Dysfunction in Social Anxiety Disorder (2021) · cites this paper as [126]

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Research works printed but not linked: 1

  1. Cantor N Norem JK Niedenthal PM Langston CA Brower AM 1987 Life tasks and cognitive strategies in a life transition Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 53 1178 1191

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Related

Authors
Srivastava, S., Tamir, M., McGonigal, K. M., John, O. P., & Gross, J. J.
Affiliations
  • University of Oregon (US)
  • Boston College (US)
  • Stanford University (US)
  • University of California, Berkeley (US)
ORCID
Venue
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
Publisher
American Psychological Association (APA)
Published
2009-04
Volume
96
Issue
4
Pages
883-897
ISSN
  • 0022-3514 (ISSN-L)
  • 1939-1315
DOI
10.1037/a0014755
PMC
PMC4141473
OpenAlex
W2124098695
Cited by
504
References
61
Citations by year
2026: 27 · 2025: 22 · 2024: 27 · 2023: 31 · 2022: 33 · 2021: 35 · 2020: 31 · 2019: 33 · 2018: 43 · 2017: 28 · 2016: 37 · 2015: 39 · 2014: 23 · 2013: 32 · 2012: 28
FWCI
27.31
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
Funders
  • National Institutes of Health (R01 MH58147)
  • University of California
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Attachment and Relationship Dynamics
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Emotions and Moral Behavior
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Child and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional Development
Keywords
expressive suppression, emotional suppression, emotion regulation, transition to college, social functioning, social support, social proximity, social satisfaction, adaptation, person-environment interaction
MeSH terms
Emotions, Female, Humans, Internal-External Control, Interpersonal Relations, Life Change Events, Longitudinal Studies, Male, Peer Group, Personal Satisfaction, Prospective Studies, Psychometrics, Self Disclosure, Social Adjustment, Social Behavior, Social Support, Students, Universities

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review