12 Emotion in interpersonal communication
Abstract: This chapter explores the role of emotion in recent research and prominent theories of interpersonal communication. It is argued that emotion is both pervasive and rare in interpersonal interaction, and that emotion occurs both within and between people, depending on what aspects of the emotion process are emphasized. Recent research is reviewed on how emotions are communicated verbally and nonverbally, managed taking into account communicative goals, and shared through compassion, sympathy and empathy. Existing research on specific emotions is synthesized and reviewed, including work on: love and affection, loneliness, anger, jealousy, hurt feelings, shame, guilt, and embarrassment. The review reveals that emotions are deeply embedded in the communication process, serving as as antecedents, mediators, moderators, and consequences of interpersonal interaction. Ways of incorporating and acknowledging emotion in interpersonal communication theories are also explored by analyzing its role in theories of uncertainty and information management, expectancy violation, disclosure and privacy, and computer-mediated communication.
Key Words: emotion, love, loneliness, anger, jealousy, hurt, shame, information management, expectancy violation, privacy management, computer-mediated communication
“… it is within our relationships with others that we humans most frequently and intensely experience emotion and process stimuli heavily saturated with affect.” (Berscheid 2006: xiv).
1 Introduction
The widespread view in Western cultures is that emotions are individual subjective experiences that are best studied by psychologists or by neurobiologists. At the same time, Berscheid’s observation rings true. Interpersonal relationships are a crucible for emotion like no other. Emotions such as love, anger, sadness, and joy are felt more often in the context of social interactions than alone, except perhaps fear (Scherer et al. 1988), and other emotions are inherently social: guilt, shame, embarrassment, jealousy, and envy. It should come as no surprise that emotions are an important topic of research in interpersonal communication, both as a focus in their own right and as an integral part of the complex process of communicating, especially face-to-face and in close relationships (Andersen and Guerrero 1998).
2 Changing views of emotion: Figure and ground
2.1 Emotion within and between people
In the U.S. “real” emotions have been widely assumed to occur within the individual, so that during social interaction one’s true feelings may be expressed, manipulated, or suppressed to varying degrees. I feel, and you either get it or you don’t. By contrast, in Bhatgaon (Fiji) “real” emotions are believed to be located in events themselves, while individuals’ experiences of emotions are considered trivial and transient (Brenneis 1990). We feel together, and what you experience is beside the point.
In a classic experiment Schachter and Singer (1962) manipulated physiological arousal by administering epinephrine and the social situation by a confederate acting either angry or giddily happy. The take-away lesson is often that emotions have a “real” physiological substrate that is shaped by “variable” social interpretations, but a complementary interpretation is that emotions have a “variable” physiological component that is interpreted through “real” social interaction. Which is figure and which is ground? One might ask whether the “real” emotion arises outside its social context. For instance, people smile more when looking toward their bowling companions when they make strikes (Kraut and Johnston 1979), and videos get more laughs when companions are also watching (Fridlund 1991). Perhaps “real” emotions are displayed differently in social situations, but equally plausible is that “real” emotions arise from those social situations.
The “between/within” duality is best illustrated by love: each partner’s love is communicated from one to the other (“within” love); but they also create love together through communication (“between” love). In individualistic societies, “within” love is likely to be the figure with “between” love as the ground, but the reverse is true for communal societies (Markus and Kitayama 1991). In fact, individuals’ experiences of emotion may be “between” more than is recognized due to social referencing. Just as infants can be encouraged to bravely cross a visual cliff by an encouraging mother or to hold back by a fearful one, older children and teens may not know how to feel about an event without texting to find out their friends’ reactions (Turkle 2011). Hardin and Higgins (1996) have argued that communication transforms subjective experience into intersubjective experience or shared reality, a perspective which helps explain dramatic differences between cultures in the experience of emotion (Planalp 1999), despite feeling that one’s own emotions are “natural.”
2.2 Emotion(s) as pervasive and rare
Emotions are often described metaphorically as natural forces – waves, eruptions, or storms (Kövecses 2000). Indeed, emotions sometimes feel like they come out of nowhere and are powerful if not irresistible forces. But we know that waves, eruptions and storms originate in air and water currents and movements of tectonic plates that are going on constantly, largely outside of our awareness. Similarly, full-blown emotions are extraordinary events that originate in particular configurations of very ordinary processes. The most basic of those is the process of monitoring the environment for novel events that are relevant to well-being, what is known as appraisal. Appraisals are linked to tendencies to act or refrain from acting to preserve well-being (e.g., fight, flee, or freeze), sometimes also fueled by changes in physiological preparedness and made available to others through characteristic expressions (Frijda 1986).
Therein lies the debate about conceptualizing emotions as discrete phenomena (e.g., anger, joy, or fear) or emotion as continuous multidimensional processes (primarily valence and intensity for the U.S.). Similar to the “within” and “between” conceptualizations of emotion, there is a case to be made for both. Discrete emotional “places” are identifiable in a landscape where relations among them can be discerned by the “cardinal directions” of valence and intensity (in the U.S. but not universally). The choice of which to count as figure or ground may turn on which is most suitable for answering a specific research question (Bolls 2010; Nabi 2010). Discrete emotions such as joy and anger may occur rarely, but the underlying dimension of evaluation is pervasive.
3 The roles of emotion in interpersonal communication research
One of the most important outcomes of these changing views of the relationship between emotion and social interaction is that emotion is now seen as a pervasive phenomenon that is a legitimate concern to communication scholars. Some emotions remain objects of study in their own right, especially those that are clearly interpersonal such as jealousy and hurt feelings. Perhaps more importantly, emotions are being seen as deeply embedded in communicative processes, serving as antecedents, moderators, mediators, and consequences of messages and patterns of interaction.
In this chapter, we focus on research that features emotion while also recognizing that emotion is essential to understanding the other fundamental processes, functions, and contexts that are reviewed in other chapters of this volume, especially relationship development and social support. We leave closer analysis of research on emotion within those topics to other chapters.
3.1 Communicating emotion
Emotion was first considered as message content that is communicated more or less accurately, especially through facial expression (Ekman 1982). Since those early studies, it has become clear that emotion is ordinarily communicated through a range of cues, including vocal, body, verbal, and situational cues (Bowers, Metts, and Duncanson 1985; Planalp, DeFrancisco, and Rutherford 1996). The issue of accuracy of emotion identification, especially across cultures, remains controversial (Russell 1994; Ekman 1994), but communication scholars have turned instead to the issue of managing emotional expressions (see Floyd and Mikkelson 2003). Emotion management may include trying to display felt emotions accurately, adapting expressions using display rules (Hayes and Metts 2008), especially to meet the U.S. expectation of cheerfulness (Kotchemidova 2010), but also managing the emotion itself in the service of social goals (Planalp, Metts, and Tracy 2011).
The degree to which emotional experience is expressed rather than controlled has also been studied. For example, Mikkelson, Farinelli, and La Valley (2006) found very small but significant gender and hemispheric dominance effects on emotional expressiveness. Larger effects were found when different styles of emotional expression were tested as mediators between attachment styles and relational satisfaction (Guerrero, Farinelli, and McEwan 2009). The results raise the practical question of whether communication interventions might be able to counteract potentially damaging relational effects of dismissive and preoccupied attachment styles by modeling the more positive emotional expression styles of securely attached people (e.g., seeking social support rather than being detached or aggressive).
3.2 Compassion, sympathy, and empathy
Empathy, sympathy and compassion are meta-emotions that occur when people recognize and feel the emotions of others. Empathy applies broadly to feeling the feelings of others, be they joy, fear, or sadness, whereas compassion and sympathy connote feeling others’ distress. Both are different from emotional contagion in which people “catch” others’ emotions and take them on as their own (e.g., crowd enthusiasm). With empathy, sympathy and compassion, the object of the emotion is the other person’s emotions or emotion-evoking circumstances (Planalp 1999: 54–67). Sympathy further connotes feeling for another’s suffering whereas compassion connotes feeling with another in their suffering (Kanov et al. 2004).
Empathy, sympathy and compassion become relevant to interpersonal communication only insofar as they are communicated. It is cold comfort if others do not speak or act, hence communication is seen as a core component of compassion (Miller 2007; Way and Tracy 2012). Research has established a firm but complex link between empathy (empathic concern) and altruism (prosocial behaviors) (Batson, Ahmad, and Lishner 2009; Stiff et al. 1988). For example, Takada and Levin (2007) found that empathic concern increased students’ willingness to volunteer in response to a request that “even a few minutes would help,” but only for those high in perspective-taking; for those low in perspective-taking, the strategy worked less well than a direct request.
Empathy and perspective-taking have also been studied in everyday conversations of spouses and families during conflict using video-assisted recall. The emphasis has been more on thoughts than feelings, largely because positive and negative feelings, including anger and frustration, were seldom articulated separately from the thoughts that accompanied them (Sillars et al. 2000: 488–490). Nevertheless, sometimes emotion comes to surface in findings such as parents attributing more negative thoughts to their adolescent children than the children reported themselves (Sillars, Smith, and Koerner 2010). Although accuracy in knowing or feeling the emotions of intimates might at first appear helpful, scholars also recognize circumstances under which empathic accuracy might be harmful (Ickes and Simpson 1997; Sillars 1998).
3.3 Specific emotions as foci of research
Communication researchers have studied a wide range of emotions, including love, anger, hurt feelings, jealousy, envy, shame, guilt, embarrassment, regret, and loneliness. Notable is the greater focus on research directed toward managing problematic feelings rather than fostering positive ones, a tendency that is bemoaned by positive psychology and has yet to be rectified by communication research as well. Also notable is the strong emphasis on social emotions as befits a social discipline like Communication, although all emotions play roles in social interaction, not just emotions that are inherently social such as love, jealousy, and guilt. It is impossible to provide a comprehensive account of these research developments; instead we provide overviews with emphasis on recent work as examples.
3.3.1 Love and affection
The most notable line of research on communicating affection is the long-standing and ongoing program of Floyd and colleagues (partially summarized in Floyd 2006, but more recent examples are Floyd, Pauley, and Hesse 2010; Hesse and Floyd 2011). Most of the work documents the beneficial effects of communicating affection on a wide range of responses, most commonly reducing physiological indicators of stress (e.g., Floyd and Riforgiate 2008; Hesse and Floyd 2008). Even seemingly mundane affectionate behaviors such as kissing can alleviate stress and depression and boost overall relationship satisfaction (Floyd et al. 2009). The fact that love messages are often the focus during end-of-life conversations between loved ones affirms its importance as a means of reconciliation and affirmation (Keeley 2004).
Even though love is an ideal many wish to experience (Spitzberg and Cupach 2007), trying to protect it may trigger jealousy (Fleischmann et al. 2005), which can be problematic (see section to come). Game-playing love (ludus) has been found to be associated with infidelity and jealousy induction (Goodboy, Myers, and Members of Investigating Communication 2010). Love is both costly and rewarding, in that being the recipient of expressed affection among friends can present a threat to one’s negative face by urging the recipient to reciprocate the affection (Erbert and Floyd 2004).
Love and affection are further complicated by cultural factors that determine how love is not only viewed, but also communicated. Kline, Horton and Zhang (2008) found differences between the U.S. and East Asian countries in beliefs about love and ways of expressing affection. Gareis and Wilkins (2011) took an even broader perspective to review research on how love is defined, experienced, and expressed across cultures and historical periods in the European-American context.
3.3.2 Loneliness
Despite some contrary findings (Segrin 1996), ample research indicates that loneliness is associated with a host of social disorders, especially communication skills deficits (Daly 2011: 140–141; Spitzberg and Canary 1985), which in turn are often associated with problematic communication patterns such as family conflicts (Burke, Woszidlo, and Segrin 2012) and the tendency to interpret ambiguous messages negatively (Edwards et al. 2001). Lower levels of loneliness, more than other factors including social support, are linked to better health, as loneliness can disrupt recuperative processes, such as sleep and leisure (Segrin and Domschke 2011; Segrin and Passalacqua 2010).
Being socially skilled enables individuals to better cope with stressful life-events, which in turn decreases loneliness (Segrin and Flora 2000). Gareis, Merkin, and Goldman (2011) found that international students perceive friendships with individuals of the host country to be of lesser quality, in part due to their experiences with loneliness. Generally, loneliness is related to difficulties initiating new relationships and maintaining existing ones. Individuals with effective plans to initiate dates or new roommate friendships tend to be less lonely than individuals with less effective plans (Berger and Bell 1988). Further, lonely individuals tend to use considerably fewer relational maintenance strategies than their less lonely counterparts (Henson, Dybvig-Pawelko, and Canary 2004).
3.3.3 Anger
Communication scholars have studied anger almost exclusively for its role in conflict. Canary (2003), for example, notes that anger-provoking situations hold high potential for conflict and that aggressive expressions of anger tend to be more dysfunctional than cooperative expressions. Communicated anger can amplify escalation of conflict situations and can be linked to physical violence, especially when provoked (Bettencourt et al. 2006). Anger is more difficult to conceal and more likely to be identified by others (Sternglanz and DePaulo 2004), and suggests greater dominance and lower levels of affiliation (Montepare and Dobish 2003), which likely contributes to conflict.
Recently, anger has also been studied in association with psychological reactance, which is defined as an individual’s motivation to maintain or restore autonomy of choice when faced with a persuasive message. When one’s choice is threatened, reactance (conceptualized as consisting of negative cognitions and anger) hinders the persuasiveness of safe-sex ads (Quick and Stephenson 2007), as well as ads advocating limited alcohol intake or dental flossing (Dillard and Shen 2005). In addition to influencing individuals’ receptivity to messages, anger can also impact message production and interaction goals. Research on regretted messages found that anger is one of the most commonly cited emotional states prior to saying something an individual later regrets (Meyer 2011).
Nonetheless, anger itself does not necessarily have to lead to negative outcomes. Guerrero and colleagues found that assertively communicated anger has fewer negative effects on relational satisfaction than anger that is expressed (passive) aggressively (Guerrero et al. 2009). In other words, it is not the anger itself that brings about dysfunctional consequences, but rather it depends on how the anger is expressed, thus pointing to the importance of communication.
Cross-cultural studies of anger also indicate behavioral differences in angerladen situations. Specifically, Koreans who experience anger due to being in an inequitable relationship are more likely to change their own behavior in an effort to restore equity than Americans (Kingsley-Westerman, Park, and Lee 2007). These findings suggest that even though anger fuels behaviors, the behaviors themselves differ across cultures.
3.3.4 Jealousy
Jealousy has captured the attention of many communication scholars in recent years, probably because it can put close relationships at risk if not managed well. Most of the work links communication strategies to either antecedents of jealousy or their effects on relationships and targets, although some studies link all three. For example, research has traced links among goals (relational vs. revenge), tactics (relational distancing, flirtation façade, relational alternatives), and partner responses (i.e., aggressive, withdrawal, relational compensation) (Fleischmann et al. 2005; Theiss and Solomon 2006).
Types of jealousy, relationship factors, and attributes of the jealous party have been found to influence communicative responses. Comparing types of jealousy for cross-sex friends, Bevan and Samter (2004) found stronger emotional reactions to intimacy jealousy (not being told something important) than to romantic jealousy (friend spending a lot of time with new romantic partner). Comparing different relationships, Bevan and Lannutti (2002) found gay men to be more likely to use violent strategies compared to heterosexual men, and lesbians were less likely to use manipulation attempts than gay and heterosexual men and women. An exchange rather than communal relational orientation was related to actively evoking jealousy (Cayanus and Booth-Butterfield 2004), and different relational maintenance goals (Guerrero and Afifi 1999) were related to communicative strategies in complex ways. Factors related to the jealous person show masculinity was associated with antisocial and femininity with prosocial communicative strategies (Aylor and Dainton 2001), and rumination was related to counterproductive strategies (Carson and Cupach 2000).
Communicative expressions of jealousy are also related to a variety of emotional and relational consequences. Yoshimura (2004) found that targets of jealous expressions had both positive and negative emotional responses, and they responded to the partner accordingly. Others have linked jealousy expressions with targets’ feelings of hurt, anger, and of exclusion (Aune and Comstock 2001) and with rumination after their partners used distributive communication (Bevan and Hale 2006). Relational effects are also common, including greater perceived relational uncertainty following negative jealousy expressions (Bevan and Tidgewell 2009; Kennedy-Lightsey and Booth-Butterfield 2011), which can lead to rumination and negative emotion (Bevan 2006). Not surprisingly, Dainton and Gross (2008) also found that using jealousy induction as a relational maintenance strategy backfired.
3.3.5 Hurt feelings
Communication research on hurt feelings has come into its own in the last decade. Seminal work by Vangelisti (1994) and Vangelisti and Crumley (1998) has inspired extensive research both within communication and across disciplines (Vangelisti 2009). Hurt feelings have been studied primarily in dyadic relationships but also in families (Vangelisti et al. 2007). As with jealousy, hurt feelings have been studied in terms of sources, types, message attributes, facilitating conditions, physiological reactions, communicative responses (including repair), and relational consequences. Somewhat unlike the jealousy research, however, most studies address several factors together, thus providing more overlap among pieces of the puzzle.
Fundamentals of hurt feelings such as defining features (relational and personal devaluation), types (e.g., accusations, evaluations, etc.), perceived causes (e.g., rejection, betrayal, and undermining self-concept), emotional appraisal processes and related emotions (sadness and fear due to vulnerability) have been addressed by Vangelisti and colleagues (Vangelisti 1994; Vangelisti et al. 2005). Attributes of hurtful messages, such as intensity and intentionality, have been shown to affect emotional appraisal processes (McLaren and Solomon, 2010; Young 2004), as well as demonstrated mitigating effects of well-conceived humor (Young and Bippus 2001) or giving advice instead of directives (Young 2010). Hurtful messages impact physiological stress (Priem and Solomon 2011), relational satisfaction (Vangelisti and Crumley 1998), and relational distancing responses (McLaren and Solomon 2008, 2010). Naturally, communicative strategies used to try to repair the damage have also been investigated (Dunleavy et al. 2009; Miller and Roloff 2005; Vangelisti and Crumley 1998). Finally, relational conditions such as turbulence can mediate the effects of messages on hurt and other negative emotions (McLaren, Solomon, and Priem 2011).
3.3.6 Shame family
Communication work on the shame family and their cousin regret is relatively rare despite the many opportunities provided by interpersonal communication to induce and facilitate regret, shame, guilt, or embarrassment (Planalp, Hafen, and Adkins 2000). The most obvious link is to interpersonal transgressions where shame and guilt play a documented role (Horan and Dillow 2009; Seiter and Bruschke 2007). Shame and guilt serve as constraints that guide individuals’ behaviors, present a means of control, and help redistribute emotional distress within relationships (Vangelisti and Sprague 1998). In romantic relationships deceivers’ feelings of shame and guilt were indicative of relational satisfaction and commitment (Horan and Dillow 2009). Not only are guilt and shame healthy emotional reactions to deceiving others, they are expected emotional consequences of deception that are consistent across cultures (Seiter and Bruschke 2007).
Guilt-evoking messages speak to the control aspect of guilt. Common guilt-evoking strategies aimed at persuading one’s relational partner include reminding the interactant of his or her obligations and of sacrifices one has made for that individual (Vangelisti, Daly, and Rudnick 1991). Generally, participants report using guilt in intimate relationships and consistently underestimate the frequency with which they use such strategies (Vangelisti et al. 1991). In addition, it is common to regret one’s message choices, which can generate feelings of guilt, shame, and embarrassment (among others), which in turn leads to messages designed to repair the damage (Meyer 2011; Meyer and Rothenberg 2004).
Similarly, remedial strategies – communicative acts aimed at restoring face – have been studied in association with embarrassment. Messages are used to recover from embarrassing situations and mitigate feelings of embarrassment (Cupach and Metts 1990, 1992), which also affects those who observe the embarrassing event (Sharkey and Stafford 1990). Remedial strategies are not only used by the embarrassed individual, but also by witnesses of the embarrassing situation in an effort to help restore face (Metts and Cupach 1989).
4 Roles of emotion in interpersonal communication theories
No distinctive theory of emotion is likely to arise to explain interpersonal phenomena in all contexts, any more than any single theory of interpersonal communication is likely to do the job. Instead, research on emotions has come to play an increasingly important role in theories of interpersonal communication. Emotion is often a hidden or neglected aspect of theories, sometimes an integral part, and more often a component whose importance is under investigation. Regardless, theories of interpersonal communication serve to benefit from tapping into issues and drawing on research from the broader scholarly literature on emotion.
In the next section, the role of emotion is considered for several prominent theories of interpersonal communication. The goal is to suggest fruitful connections and to generate new research ideas by drawing on existing research in emotion, as described earlier for social exchange theory, relational dialectics theory, and stage theories of relational development (Planalp 2003) and for evolutionary theory, attachment theory, social cognitive theories, and theories of social roles and power (Planalp, Fitness, and Fehr 2006).
4.1 Theories of uncertainty and information management
Theories of uncertainty and information management have a long history in communication, going back to Berger and Calabrese’s (1975) uncertainty reduction theory (URT), which posited that uncertainty is an uncomfortable state that motivates people to reduce it through communication (see Chapter 13, Knobloch and McAninch). Its most serious challenger has been Predicted Outcome Value theory (POV; Sunnafrank 1986), which argued that people may be motivated to decrease uncertainty or not, depending on the outcomes they expect from the interaction. Berger (1986) countered with the argument that people cannot know what outcomes to expect without having already reduced uncertainty to some extent.
The debate has striking parallels to the debate between Zajonc (1984) and Lazarus (1984), famously titled “On the Primacy of Affect” and “On the Primacy of Cognition.” Like the proverbial chicken and the egg, the argument hinged on the primacy of embryonic forms of cognition and affect (simple familiarity, primitive valence) and their relationship to far more complex counterparts, which may even be under conscious control to some extent (sophisticated cognition and affect, including thoughts and discrete emotions). If one is persuaded by both Zajonc and Lazarus to some extent, we learn, like the chicken and the egg, that cognition and emotion do not so much take turns in guiding behavior as they work together (Duncan and Feldman Barrett 2007; Storbeck and Clore 2007).
The URT/POV debate teaches us that information and emotion work together, as more recent theories of uncertainty and information recognize. It has become clear that that undifferentiated anxiety based on uncertainty cannot predict both information seeking and information avoiding, both of which occur in managing illness (Brashers, Goldsmith, and Hsieh 2002). A deeper meaning analysis grounded both in information and emotion is needed, and theorists have turned in that direction (Brashers 2001). For further analysis, we turn primarily to the Theory of Motivated Information Management, which has recently incorporated appraisal theories of emotion into the core of the theory (Afifi and Morse 2009) and also tested its implications empirically (Fowler and Afifi 2011).
Fowler and Afifi (2011) found clear evidence that discrepancies between what adult children know about their elderly parents’ future care wishes and what they want to know generated a number of emotional responses. Anxiety was not even in the top ten, in part because some of the discrepancies were small and presumably emotionally unproblematic (top 6 emotions were positive). Still, anxious was out-ranked by worried, sad, pensive, nervous, and scared (Fowler and Afifi 2011; Table 1), which were in turn associated with efficacy (especially anxiety negatively associated with target honesty and happiness positively associated with communication efficacy). From the point of view of emotion, one wonders if the factors can be neatly separated into ones that precede emotion or follow from it. For example, if I don’t know very much about what my parents want, and I think talking would cause more harm than good, and I don’t think they’ll tell me the truth anyway, I am likely to feel anxious (or sad or scared) and unlikely to have “the talk.” On the other hand, if I have the information I want, I think talking is likely to lead to more good than harm, and I know what I need to say, I’ll feel happy (or perhaps calm or secure) and willing to give it a go. In any case, it is very difficult to “place” emotion and thought in the stream of feeling/thinking that leads to a decision and maybe not the final one.
Brashers (2001) recognized that the tension between information gathering and information avoidance is often founded in the need to regulate emotion. For seriously ill individuals, unwanted information can create distress, and ignorance can keep hope alive, just as helpful information can be reassuring, and ignorance can be anxiety-producing. As Brashers (2001) points out, overwhelming emotion “can be counterproductive if it decreases attention to health and well-being,” not to mention love of life, so we must manage both emotional and physical well-being at the same time.
Little is known about the thought/feeling processes that underlie uncertainty. Some theorists argue that mixed emotions are not strictly possible; instead emotions may change in a moment from one to another, having the overall effect of feeling mixed emotions. At one moment, I am sad that my sister has the BRCA1 gene, then I am hopeful that I do not have it; then I feel anticipatory guilt that I might not have it when my sister does; then I feel dread at the thought of living with the knowledge that I have it. Do I get tested? I have mixed feelings (like “outcome expectancies” in TMIM, only discrete emotions, not just valence), even about information that might save my life. Uncertainty management, then, might be seen as a special case of emotion regulation, where managing incoming information is the specific strategy being used.
4.2 Theories of expectancies and violations
In the past, theories related to violations of expectations in social interaction, especially as the source of adjustments to nonverbal behaviors, originally came in several forms, including equilibrium theory (Argyle and Dean 1965), discrepancy arousal (Cappella and Greene 1982), and expectancy violation theory (Burgoon 1993) (see Chapter 10, Burgoon, Dunbar, and White). Empirical research and new developments to these theories has been dominated by Expectancy Violation Theory (EVT), and so we address its relationship to emotion while recognizing that many of the same issues also apply to its sister theories.
The components of emotion that are most directly relevant to the core components of EVT are emotional appraisal (Scherer, Schorr, and Johnstone 2001) combined with action tendencies, intentions and instrumental behavior (Frijda, Kuipers, and ter Shure 1989; Frijda and Zeelenberg 2001). In EVT, violation of expectations in social situations trigger interpretive/evaluative processes which in turn generate arousal, resulting in meaning analysis and behavioral adjustments (Burgoon 1993). In a close parallel, the initial trigger for an emotional reaction is novelty (parallel to expectancy violation), followed by an intrinsic pleasantness check (parallel to valence assessments) (Scherer 2001: 95). In other words, events in the social world that violate expectations have more impact than expected behaviors because they trigger emotion, and they are evaluated emotionally. Indirect evidence that emotion can intensify responses just as expectancy violations can be found in a study in which negatively primed affect tended to intensify positive reactions to involved conversational partners and negative reactions to uninvolved partners (Monahan and Zuckerman 1999).
The second component of EVT is that communication behavior is adjusted according to the outcomes of the meaning/valence assessment, especially in terms of approach or avoidance. For emotion, appraisal processes must be dovetailed with a behavioral component of emotion in order to make the link to communication, and Frijda et al. (1989) have argued that the two crucial components of emotion are appraisals and action tendencies. More importantly, they have demonstrated how the two are associated empirically for a variety of emotions. It does not take a sophisticated emotion theory to know that positively valenced appraisals lead to approach tendencies whereas negatively valenced appraisals lead to avoidance tendencies (which is not exactly the main point of EVT either), but it also may not be quite that simple.
To elaborate on the appraisal component of EVT, Scherer (2001) would suggest several additions. First is goal relevance detection, which is essential for doing triage among social cues that would otherwise be overwhelming. Consider the example of personal space violation by either a positively or negatively evaluated other, leading either to approach or avoidance. In an intense conversation with an acquaintance at a social gathering the space violation would probably be appraised as relevant and so trigger an emotional response. Alternatively, if it is occurred as an unexpected jostle on a crowded bus, it would probably be assessed instantaneously as irrelevant unless it prevented you from getting off at your stop. In other words, of all the expectations that are violated in interaction, why do some trigger emotional responses and not others? Indeed, as EVT suggests, violations can be better or worse than doing what is expected (depending on its evaluation) because emotion is triggered.
Second, Scherer and other appraisal theorists (e.g., Roseman and Smith 2001) would include not only an instantaneous valence appraisal (see discussion above of the Zajonc/Lazarus debate), but also a more sophisticated and ongoing appraisal process. The reaction to the personal space violation may not be limited to valence but go on to reactions such as joy, anger or disgust. According to Scherer (2001), those appraisals involve assessing (1) additional implications (including causal attributions, likely outcomes, degree of deviation from expectations, consistent with goals, and urgency), (2) coping potential (including control, power, and adjustment potential), and (3) normative significance (internal and external standards checks). In other words, the huge edifice of emotion appraisal may unfold, even in an immediate reaction of disgust or other emotion. As Afifi and Morse (2009: 94) have observed for TMIM and as also applies to EVT, “the difference between the accounts is in the breadth of possible emotions, not their valence.”
Like appraisals, responses may be founded in a fundamental tendency either to approach or avoid, but action tendencies, intentional behavioral decisions, and strategic message choices introduce additional complications, especially when discrete emotions are considered instead of just valence. Burgoon (1993) notes that responses to expectancy violations may range from subtle changes such as heightened alertness and an orientation response to more dramatic full-blown arousal, both of which are consistent with emotional responses roughly parallel to an intensity dimension. When appraisal processes trigger discrete emotions (e.g., anger, fear, joy), then certain action tendencies are more predictable, though never completely determined (Shaver et al. 1987).
Emotion and EVT also come together, as described by Burgoon (1993), when an observed emotion itself violates social expectations either because it violates a cultural display rule (“No laughing at funerals!”) or a personal pattern (“You’re usually so happy; why the sad face?”). An unexpected “I love you” can trigger stronger reactions (either negative or positive per EVT) than a routine “I love you” because expressions of emotions are phenomena in the social world to which we respond as we do with other social behaviors and messages, as both EVT and emotion theory would predict. In fact, one’s own emotion can be unexpected or novel either in its quality or intensity, and thus provoke a meta-emotion (e.g., shame at feeling love).
4.3 Theories of disclosure and privacy
Today’s theories of self-disclosure and privacy trace back to progenitors such as the transparent self and social penetration theory (for a review, see Greene, Derlega, and Mathews 2006). In those theories emotion always lurked in the guise of urges to disclose or fear of disclosing, especially on topics that lie at the core of the self. Topics such as personal faults are likely to be emotionally loaded because they reflect on personal worth and they carry the potential to trigger shame. Today the most fertile living descendant of early theories is Communication Privacy Management or CPM (Petronio 1991, 2002), which addresses concerns of openness/ privacy in part from a dialectical perspective, though individual and jointly-held rules and boundaries also play important roles.
Drawing from relational dialectics, tension between expression and protection is the guiding concern of this theory. The urge to express feelings seems to arise from a variety of motives, including managing physiological arousal, understanding the experience, managing social bonds, and social control (Derlega and Grzelak 1979; Kennedy-Moore and Watson 1999). Rimé (2007) has also argued that social sharing of emotionally-charged experiences serves the evolutionary function of “social broadcasting” (before TV and cellphones), with the striking exception being experiences of shame. Shame may be a strong force restraining self-disclosure, with its signature expressions centering on social withdrawal, including verbal withdrawal, and hence the strong link to inhibited disclosure.
Similarly, emotional sharing fosters intimacy in many ways. Other people help us understand emotional experiences, as discussed earlier, thus creating and reinforcing shared reality. Communicating emotional distress may also serve as a request for social support (see Chapter 16, Jones and Bodie) and constitute a bid for or affirmation of a communal bond (Clark and Brissette 2000). Emotional discrepancies between people just do not feel good, and empathy may be more the order of the day than not, especially in communal relationships. Conversely, sharing experiences of shame risks social rejection (Gilbert 2007). In addition, inherent fear of intimacy can suppress the desire to disclose (Vangelisti and Beck 2007), whereas self-clarification and catharsis motivate disclosure (Greene et al. 2006).
Other links between emotion and CPM are that emotions, especially socially-disapproved emotions, may themselves be governed by privacy rules (“Don’t tell mom about my depression”). For instance, divorced co-parents use privacy rules when it comes to communication regarding their current dating behaviors to avoid hurting former spouses’ feelings and save face (Miller 2009). As with violations of any other norms, rule or laws, violations of privacy boundaries can also produce a wide range of powerful emotions. Children from divorced families report feelings of being caught when privacy boundaries are violated by one or both parents through disclosure of hurtful or inappropriate information about the other parent (Afifi 2003).
4.4 Theories of computer-mediated communication
It is now apparent that computer-mediated communication (CMC) is not the emotional wasteland that it was once feared to be; on the contrary, with e-addiction, e-infidelity, flaming, and emoticons, e-emotion seems to be alive and well. Boase and Wellman (2006) argue that both utopian views of inter-connected consciousness and dystopian views of eroded community and individual alienation are over-simplifications and, in fact, people’s lives have not changed all that much. If so, changes in emotional experiences and expressions are still largely understandable in terms of face-to-face (F2F) processes.
One of the earliest theories of CMC was the “cues-filtered-out” framework, which at first glance might suggest that emotion would be difficult to communicate for lack of visual and vocal cues (Walther 2010: 492; see Chapter 23, Walther and Lee). Instead, with Social Information Processing Theory (SIPT; 1992) Walther argued that verbal text is exploited quite effectively, albeit more slowly. There are, of course, diverse and rich ways to communicate emotion verbally (from emotion words to expletives to poetry), including verbal options for expressing interpersonal liking (Walther, Loh, and Granka 2005). Emoticons seem to have only limited effects (Walther and D’Addario 2001), though they say more about social intent than felt emotion, as do other “cues to emotion.” Facial and electronic smiles may both signal that “I’m just joking” not “I feel good” (Dresner and Herring 2010).
The most intriguing link between emotion and CMC is the hyperpersonal model, which proposes that specific conditions of CMC are ripe to create greater affection and emotion than is achieved F2F (Walther 1996). Four processes are proposed: selective self-presentation, idealization of partners, careful message design with reduced cues, and mutually-enhancing feedback mechanisms. All these processes work in the direction of building emotional momentum toward either strong positive (for hyperpersonal) or strong negative feelings (for hypernegative) responses.
Extensive research on affect-infusion effects documents that emotions guide expectations, thoughts, interpretations, memories, and behavior in social situations, which in turn feed the emotions and influence beliefs about the relationship that are consistent with them (Forgas 2000). More speculative is the possibility that widespread experience with written and electronic narratives may cultivate the ability to empathize with fictional characters and feel our own emotions about them (Johnson-Laird and Oatley 2008). That ability may in turn foster imagined interactions (Honeycutt 2008; see Chapter 11, Honeycutt) that are consistent with the receiver’s own emotions. In fact, e-interaction may be a kind of imagined interaction, where words are imagined with accompanying facial and vocal expressions, all consistent with the receiver’s current emotions. That is not to say, however, that reality may not set in when expectations are violated, verbal cues are unambiguous, or the receiver recognizes the bias and compensates or even over-compensates (Berkowitz et al. 2000).
5 Conclusion
The last two decades have seen increasing recognition of the importance of emotion in interpersonal communication. Key issues such as how emotion is communicated interpersonally and how people empathize with one another through messages are better understood. The beneficial effects of communicating positive emotion such as love and affection are now well-documented, as are the hazards of social skills deficits tied to loneliness. Anger management and conflict management go hand in hand. Messages can bring out jealousy and hurt feelings, and messages can stimulate or soothe the jealousy and hurt. Shame, guilt, and embarrassment can result from communicative transgressions such as deception, but they can also be used to persuade. All told, emotion is deeply embedded in the processes of interpersonal communication, able to play the roles of antecedent, mediator, moderator, or consequence as needed.
Emotion is also poised to play an important role in theories of interpersonal communication, and in some cases already does. Emotion may serve as a more palatable form of the rewards and costs of social exchange and introduce more complex reactions to unfairness. It may provide a subjective window into the push and pull of relational dialectics. It may also help to explain why we seek information, hide from it, and manage it with messages. In addition, it may give us a more complex understanding of how unexpected events affect us more than those we take for granted. Understanding the role of emotion in interpersonal communication theories may help us understand why we want to open up or keep it to ourselves, or react emotionally when another person opens up about something we thought they were going to keep to themselves. It may even help us understand how relating interpersonally through computers is not an oxymoron.
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