People & context · Relationship conflict
Correlational studies Association
People who habitually hide feelings still felt more negative emotion
Across five studies, people who habitually suppressed emotional expression showed less positive emotion yet experienced more negative emotion and had worse interpersonal functioning, while habitual reframers showed the reverse, as found using questionnaires and peer reports.
Details
- Who was studied
- Five samples
- Observation window
- Mostly one time point
- What was measured
- Habitual reappraisal and suppression, emotion, relationships, well-being
- What this establishes
- An association, not cause and effect
Limits: Correlational, so habits and outcomes may influence each other.
What it does not show: This establishes that habitual suppression goes with feeling worse, but not that holding stress quietly, as Absorb describes, is the same as suppression.
Relationship to Calmistry
Absorb (stress goes in and is held) overlaps with suppression only partly. Separating thinking-it-through from hiding-it is a Calmistry hypothesis to test.
Calmistry hypothesis · not yet tested in Calmistry's own instrument
Related findings
Checked against the original on 2026-10-08 · DOI 10.1037/0022-3514.85.2.348 · PMID 12916575
Gross & John (2003), Journal of Personality and Social Psychology · Original publication