Is feeling conflicted about expressing emotions linked to a mismatch between words and what people express without speaking?

Details

Researchers used a questionnaire to assess female students' conflict about expressing emotions. They videotaped the students completing a conflict-resolution and feedback task with their boyfriends, and external raters evaluated their communication.

Greater conflict about emotional expression was associated with less agreement between spoken and unspoken communication, even after accounting for depression and other personality variables. Raters also found less positive speech and more restricted expression without words. After accounting for mood and other personality characteristics, greater conflict about expressing emotions was also associated with more outwardly submissive behavior—visibly taking a subordinate position in the interaction.

The study links feelings about emotional expression with observed communication; it does not show that those feelings caused the communication patterns. Its findings concern female students in a structured task with their boyfriends, not all relationships or everyday conversations. The abstract does not report the sample size or the strength of the associations.