Controlling others and controlling oneself: Social power and emotion suppression

Individual differences in social power: Links with beliefs about emotion and emotion regulation

OBJECTIVE

People differ in how they regulate their emotions, and how they do so is guided by their beliefs about emotion. We propose that social power-one's perceived influence over others-relates to one's beliefs about emotion and to emotion regulation. More powerful people are characterized as authentic and uninhibited, which should translate to the belief that one should not have to control one's emotions and, in turn, less suppression and more acceptance. More powerful people are also characterized as self-efficacious and confident, which should translate to the belief that one can control one's emotions and, in turn, more reappraisal and acceptance.

METHOD

Two preregistered studies using four samples (Ntotal  = 1286) tested these hypotheses using cross-sectional and longitudinal surveys as well as diaries.

RESULTS

In Study 1, power related to beliefs about emotion and emotion regulation in hypothesized ways. Study 2 also largely supported the hypotheses: The belief that one should not have to control one's emotions accounted for the links between power and suppression and acceptance, whereas the belief that one can control one's emotions accounted for the link between power and reappraisal.

CONCLUSION

Power and emotion regulation are interconnected, in part because of their links with beliefs about emotions.

Minority Influence and Degrowth-Oriented Pro-environmental Conflict: When Emotions Betray Our Attachment to the Social Dominant Paradigm

If today the anthropogenic origin of climate change gathers almost total scientific consensus, human pro-environmental action is not changing with sufficient impact to keep global warming within the 1.5° limit. Environmental psychology has traditionally focused on the underlying barriers towards more pro-environmental behaviours. Emotions-like fear or anger-may act as such barriers especially in case of radical change (e.g., degrowth). While minority influence has been extensively applied to understand societal change, it has rarely been applied to understand the emotional responses that may hinder counter-normative pro-environmental messages. However, past literature on emotions shows that, in challenging situations-the likes of radical minority conflict-people will tend to use their emotional reaction to maintain societal status quo. Two studies investigated how participants emotionally react towards a counter-normative pro-environmental minority message (advocating degrowth). A qualitative (thematic analyses) and a quantitative (emotional self-report paradigm) studies showed that participants report emotions that allow them to realign themselves with the cultural backdrop of the social dominant paradigm (growth), thus resisting change. Specifically, although all participants tend to demonstrate higher proportions of control-oriented emotions, men do so more. These effects, as well as questions of cultural and ideological dominance, are discussed considering barriers towards pro-environmentalism.

When smiles (and frowns) speak words: Does power impact the correspondence between self-reported affect and facial expressions?

Self-reported experiences are often poor indicators of outward expressions. Here we examine social power as a variable that may impact the relationship between self-reported affect and facial expressions. Earlier studies addressing this issue were limited by focusing on a single facial expression (smiling) and by using different, less sensitive methods that yielded mostly null results. Sampling, for the first time, self-reported affect repeatedly in response to different negative, neutral and positive stimuli, and measuring concurrent facial muscle activation via electromyography, we found that high power (vs. baseline) increased the correspondence between self-reported positive affect and smiling. There was also an indication that high power (vs. baseline) bolstered the association between self-reported negative affect and frowning but the effect did not pass more stringent criteria for significance (p ≤ .005) and was therefore deemed inconclusive. The prediction that low power (vs. baseline) decreases the correspondence between self-reported affect and smiling and frowning facial expressions was not supported. Taken together, it would appear that (high) power can impact the relationship between self-reported affect and facial expressions, but it remains to be seen whether this effect extends beyond smiling facial expressions.

Inequality is in the air: contextual psychosocial effects of power and social class

Social class and power inequalities are defining features of current societies and tend to influence several social psychological processes. Two types of consequences of social class and power inequalities can be differentiated: mechanical and contextual. Mechanical effects occur when inequality strengthens the relation between social class or power and a given outcome; conversely, contextual effects occur when inequality creates a social context that changes the relationship between social class or power and a given outcome. We exemplify these two different types of effects, focusing on the contextual ones, by analyzing the consequences of social class and power on a) status anxiety, b) the perception of society: social norms and mobility, and c) cohesion and social distance. Finally, we argue that perceived inequality and ideologies of inequality (e.g. economic system justification or social dominance orientation) might moderate these two described effects.

Frontal Cortical Asymmetry May Partially Mediate the Influence of Social Power on Anger Expression

When irritated by other people, powerful people usually tend to express their anger explicitly and directly, whereas people in less powerful positions are more likely not to show their feelings freely. The neural mechanism behind power and its influence on expression tendency has been scarcely explored. This study recorded frontal EEG activity at rest and frontal EEG activation while participants were engaged in a writing task describing an anger-eliciting event, in which they were irritated by people with higher or lower social power. Participants' anger levels and expression inclination levels were self-reported on nine-point visual analog Likert scales, and also rated by independent raters based on the essays they had written. The results showed that high social power was indeed associated with greater anger expression tendency and greater left frontal activation than low social power. This is in line with the approach-inhibition theory of power. The mid-frontal asymmetric activation served as a partial mediator between social power and expression inclination. This effect may relate to the functions of the prefrontal cortex, which is in charge of information integration and evaluation and the control of motivation direction, as reported by previous studies.