Composure at Any Cost? The Cognitive Consequences of Emotion Suppression
Abstract
We frequently try to appear less emotional than we really are, such as when we are angry with our spouse at a dinner party, disgusted by a boss’s sexist comments during a meeting, or amused by a friend’s embarrassing faux pas in public. Attempts at emotion suppression doubtless have social benefits. However, suppression may do more than change how we look: It also may change how we think. Two studies tested the hypothesis that emotion suppression has cognitive consequences. Study 1 showed that suppression impaired incidental memory for information presented during the suppression period. Study 2 replicated this finding and further showed that suppression increased cardiovascular activation. Mediational analyses indicated that physiological and cognitive effects were independent. Overall, findings suggest that emotion suppression is a cognitively demanding form of self-regulation.
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Sympathetic activation was found to be reduced by suppression in comparison to non-suppression, but suppression seems less effective in sympathetic downregulation than other ER strategies.
“Sympathetic activation was found to be reduced by suppression in comparison to non-suppression (but see [11]), but seems to be less effective in sympathetic downregulation than other ER strategies (e.g., [12,13]).”
From Effects of differential strategies of emotion regulation (2019) · cites this paper as [11]
The sample size is quite small compared with other studies.
“First of all, the sample size is quite small compared to other studies (e.g., [10,11,13]).”
From Effects of differential strategies of emotion regulation (2019) · cites this paper as [11]
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- Authors
- Richards, J. M., & Gross, J. J.
- Affiliations
- Stanford University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Gross, James J.
- ORCID
- Gross, James J.
- Venue
- Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 1999-08
- Volume
- 25
- Issue
- 8
- Pages
- 1033-1044
- ISSN
- 0146-1672 (ISSN-L)
- 1552-7433
- OpenAlex
- W1971399204
- Cited by
- 607
- References
- 37
- Citations by year
- 2026: 15 · 2025: 9 · 2024: 18 · 2023: 17 · 2022: 14 · 2021: 26 · 2020: 37 · 2019: 21 · 2018: 76 · 2017: 24 · 2016: 22 · 2015: 38 · 2014: 24 · 2013: 28 · 2012: 37
- FWCI
- 7.83
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Emotions and Moral Behavior
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Deception detection and forensic psychology
- Keywords
- emotional suppression, incidental memory, self-regulation, emotion regulation
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