Altogether, we show how framing emotion expressions as a value-based communicative decision can be incredibly helpful in understanding the myriad of expressive behaviors people deploy in their social interactions with others.

People also were keenly attuned to the social context and flexibly regulated their emotion expressions accordingly. When their reputation was at stake, people selectively suppressed/exaggerated happiness to communicate stronger normative preferences for equity than they seemed to privately hold.

We show that people in general tended to suppress anger in anticipation of social costs, as much work before us have theorized. But people also demonstrated remarkable flexibility in their expressive behaviors. They did not suppress all negative emotions and sometimes exaggerated/faked sadness.

We propose that it comes down to a weighting of the communicative benefits of expressing a particular emotion against the potential social costs it incurs, and develop both a new paradigm and computational model to capture this evaluative process.

Emotion expressions are critical signals for communicating how we feel, but lots of research (and our own anecdotal experiences) tell us that people don't always express how they genuinely feel. How do people choose when and what to express?

I’m hiring at all levels and accepting graduate students through Psychology and the Graduate Program in Neuroscience. Reach out if you’re interested in joining a collaborative, fun, creative, and supportive team in beautiful Vancouver! 🏔️ ⛷️ 🏖️ 🌆

thanks for putting it together. would like to be added if possible.