emotions, social structures, and conflict

Emotions and miscommunication are two key drivers in conflict. Everyone has first hand experience with the self-perpetuating cycle of conflict triggering powerful emotions, which then, in turn, trigger more conflict. Everyone at some time in his or her life misread or misinterpreted another person’s intentions. The ways humans express emotions and communicate are exceptionally complex, and much is still unknown. Despite the complexity, much work has been done in order to understand how and why humans respond to emotional stimuli, and the realm of nonverbal communication. Studying these areas reveals a lot about the role an individual’s history has on the way they conduct conflicts. Significant work has also been done on perfecting methods of lie detection, which would have obvious affects on the mediation and conflict resolution processes. Because of their roles in conflict it is important to attempt to understand some key drivers behind emotion and nonverbal communication.
Before considering the implications of emotion and social interactions it is important to first understand the most basic yet complex of all emotional expressions: the smile. Dr. Paul Eckman, a leading researcher in the field of nonverbal communication has successfully defined a total of 18 different smiles, and postulates that there may be as many as 50 (Tavris, 2003). To be a successful member of our society it is important that an individual be able to recognize and react appropriately to all of these smiles, as well as the numerous other facial expressions at our disposal. There are two types of information that help us to determine the meaning of a specific smile: Static facial information, and dynamic facial information. Static information is easier to study and document as it is all information that can be discerned from a photograph: the expression itself. From this information we can break smiles into enjoyment (Duchenne smiles), and non-enjoyment smiles. Duchenne smiles are the most complex. There indicators are largely centered around the eyes: contractions of the outer edges of the eye i.e. crow’s feet, bagging of the skin under the eye, lowering of eyebrows, narrowing of the eye aperture, and raising of the cheeks; in addition the smile is also more symmetrical (Miles, 2007). These smiles have been shown to elevate self-reported levels of enjoyment in both parties, as well as higher ratings of positive mood, and create patterns of positive neural activity. Dynamic facial information has to do with the way the smile is executed. Dynamic information tells us more about non-enjoyment smiles. The indicators for these smiles are in their irregular execution: phases to the smile, pauses before execution, and greater onset/offset speed in the zygomatic major muscle (how fast the smile starts and stops). These indicators relate to expressive suppression, which will be addressed in detail later in this paper. Numerous studies have also shown that “Humans have a significant ability to subconsciously detect the difference between the two smiles.” (Miles, 2007).
A great amount of work has been done on emotions and how they affect individuals and society in general. In 1992 Dr. Paul Eckman published findings concerning human facial expressions of emotions. What he had found were that emotion driven facial expressions are universal (Eckman, 1992). For example, the expression of fear is recognized among all cultures, both literate and illiterate (meaning cultures which have a mass media and those that do not). To come to this conclusion Echman and Izard conducted similar but separate tests. Using photos of staged emotions (fear, happiness, surprise, etc.) portrayed by Caucasian subjects, they tested subjects from different cultures around the world to determine if all of them could correctly identify the emotions expressed in the photos. Testing both literate and illiterate cultures to rule out the role of the mass media. Overwhelmingly they found that people performed the same regardless of their culture. This means that all people have a common ground when it comes to nonverbal communication and expression recognition.
This creates an interesting parallel when you consider the occurrence of emotional contagion, the strange ability for humans to pick up on other’s emotional expressions and actually feel and replicate that same emotion. For example when you are speaking with someone and they frown you are compelled to mimic the same emotion, or if a group is laughing you are likely to join in, even if you do not understand what caused the laughter. Amiello, et al. tested this occurrence in 2009. Their hypothesis was that emotional contagion was not simply mimicry but an actual emotional response (Amiello, 2009). They found that unseen emotional stimuli elicited a greater emotional response than seen stimuli, thus confirming the hypothesis. This is interesting when we consider that all cultures express emotions in the same way. This would then suggest that humans could communicate cross-culturally on a deep level.
From there we move to a smaller scope, but one that can be expanded to teach us something about the larger society: adolescent responses to emotion and affective reactivity. This is a particularly interesting section of any society to study because it tells us a lot about the way we grow and the way we are socialized, also do to their hormones, adolescents are already off balance, and as such, more reactionary and interesting to study. In a study by Gallaty, et al. we see the importance of relationships on individuals. The study was on the effects of maltreatment in adolescent romantic relationships. The findings were both interesting as they pertain to adolescent romantic relationships, but also on the social networks of society. This study found that there is a significant amount of maltreatment present in romantic relationships with 14-45% reporting physical maltreatment, and 80% reporting verbal and psychological maltreatment. The results of this maltreatment, of course, are quite profound: poor academic performance, eating disorders, higher rates of suicide, lower self esteem, as well as other debilitating social effects, in particular poor perception of social support structures. This is significant when we consider that the way humans are socialized as children and adolescents has a profound affect on how they will conduct themselves as adults (Gallaty, 2008)). For instance consider the cycle of abuse: it has been found that adults who are abused by their parents as children are more likely to abuse their own children. Considering the high instance of maltreatment within adolescent relationships it is not far fetched to hypothesize that there might be a similarly high rate of maltreatment in adult romantic relationships. This study also examined affective reactivity. This is the relationship between daily events and daily emotional outcomes. Adolescents that experienced maltreatment in their romantic relationships had a higher sensitivity to affective reactivity. That is to say that these adolescents had a stronger, more positive correlation between the number of negative occurrences in a day, and an overall negative mood. These Adolescents also showed high interpersonal sensitivity, which is a heightened awareness and reactivity to the behaviors and feelings of others. In conclusion: adolescents which experience maltreatment in their romantic relationships, and perhaps by extension many adults, have a stronger positive correlation between negative daily occurrences and their mood, and are significantly more reactionary to smaller, less apparent triggers.
Despite the possible ramifications of the above-mentioned emotional reactivity it is also important to note that the solution to conflict is not to suppress one’s emotions. Srivastava et al. found negative side effects in a study on the effects of emotional suppression, and in particular expressive suppression, that is the suppression of an emotional response such as a facial expression. Emotional reactions fit into two categories: antecedent-focused regulations, and Response-focused regulations. Antecedent-focused regulations are reactions that automatically. If an emotional response were to be mapped along a timeline, antecedent-focused reactions would come first; they are the original emotional response. Antecedent-focused reactions also occur based on each individual’s pattern of response. That is to say that each individual responds to emotional stimuli slightly differently than other individuals, and each individual builds up a pattern which the antecedent-focused reactions follow. After the antecedent-focused regulation on the timeline comes the response-focused regulation. These are things we do once the emotional response is underway and our response tendencies (those are our antecedent-focused regulations) have been generated. Basically what it comes down to is emotional stimuli trigger a reaction, this is the antecedent-focused regulation, and then we choose how we express that reaction, that is the response-focused regulation. This is the stage, according to Srivastava et al. that can get us into trouble through expressive suppression. Expressive suppression is the suppressing of one’s emotion expressing behaviors. Looking calm while actually feeling angry, for instance. Expressive suppression occurs late in the emotional response. Expression suppression is a very common action within social situations in most societies. However, as Srivastava et al. discovered, this action has significant effects on us. Using an Emotion Regulation Questionnaire, they were able to measure suppression responses of their subjects. What they found was that expressive suppression decreases a person’s experience of positive emotions while allowing one to feel the negative emotions (Srivastava, 2009). It does this by shifting one’s focus away from positive emotions on to the negative emotions, and over time, this creates a pattern of emotional response.
In conclusion we have seen that emotions have a considerable ability to bring people together, and at the same time, we know that they also pull people apart when it comes to conflicts. It is clear that there are many emotions, and within that, many types of smiles, and yet as functioning members of society most people are able to detect and react appropriately to all of them. Humanity also seems to be linked together, at least in the most basic of ways, by a shared language of sorts expressed in our facial expressions. Humans also do a great deal of sharing with their emotions and expressions; we not only mimic each other’s expressions, but actually feel them. We have also seen the negative effects of emotions: emotional suppression and affective reactivity. How humans create negative emotional patterns by suppressing their emotions, and through our relationship conflicts, actually harm us emotionally by becoming more reactionary. Emotions play a key part in our conflicts, yet they also tie us all together as a shared language, and perhaps through the understanding of this fact, and the understanding of each other’s emotional drivers, they can also bring us together and solve our conflicts.



Works Cited
Amiello, M., Castelli, L., Vighetti, S., Perozzo, P., Geminiani, G., Weiskrantz, L., & de Gelder, B. (2009). Unseen facial and bodily expressions trigger fast emotional reactions. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 106(42), 17661.

Carol Tavris. (2003, June). A polite smile or the real McCoy? Scientific American, 288(6), 87-88. Retrieved February 22, 2010, from ABI/INFORM Global.

Eckman, Paul (1992). Facial Expressions of Emotion: New Findings, New Questions. Psychological Science, 3(1) 34-38.

Elfenbein, H., & Eisenkraft, N.. (2010). The Relationship Between Displaying and Perceiving Nonverbal Cues of Affect: A Meta-Analysis to Solve an Old Mystery. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 98(2), 301. Retrieved February 24, 2010, from ABI/INFORM Global.

Gallaty, K., & Zimmer-Gembeck, M.. (2008). The Daily Social and Emotional Worlds of Adolescents Who Are Psychologically Maltreated by Their Romantic Partners. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 37(3), 310-323. Retrieved March 28, 2010, from ABI/INFORM Global.

Goode. (1999, May 11). To Tell the Truth, It's Awfully Hard to Spot a Liar. New York Times (Late Edition (east Coast)), p. 1. Retrieved February 24, 2010, from ProQuest National Newspapers Core.

Judy Foreman. (2003, August 5). The 43 Facial Muscles That Reveal Even the Most Fleeting Emotions :[Interview]. New York Times, p. F.5. Retrieved February 22, 2010, from ProQuest.

Miles, L., & Johnston, L.. (2007). Detecting Happiness: Perceiver Sensitivity to Enjoyment and Non-Enjoyment Smiles. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 31(4), 259-275. Retrieved March 28, 2010, from Research Library.

Srivastava, S., Tamir, M., McGonigal, K., John, O., & Gross, J.. (2009). The Social Costs of Emotional Suppression: A Prospective Study of the Transition to College. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 96(4), 883. Retrieved March 28, 2010, from ABI/INFORM Global.

Jo-Ann Tsang, Michael E McCullough, & Frank D Fincham. (2006). The longitudinal association between forgiveness and relationship closeness and commitment. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 25(4), 448-472. Retrieved March 28, 2010, from Research Library.