Are you emotionally “in” or “out”?

To what extent is emotional expression needed and at what point does it become too much?

Growing in societies of rules and social restrictions, many develop means with which they manage their self-expression. Repeated and prolonged control often results in these conscious techniques to become subconscious which sometimes leads to affecting interactions in unintended ways.

Though scientists do agree that a certain amount of innate temperament plays a factor in how we behave socially, the management of that temperament occurs only through social conditioning. Just like anyone who was found alone on a deserted island would no longer be preoccupied with their physical looks or public behavior, such a person would not feel the need to repress emotional reactivity.

As the prefrontal lobes of the brain develop, first through human evolution and then some more throughout our lives, our ability to control our impulses develop as well. This control occurs in two ways: before an emotion is completely sensed and in response to a felt emotion.

The most obvious and first learned technique is the latter, in which a person would suppress an emotion in order to obey social decorum. Poker-faces are typical examples of this. However, habitual and extensive emotional suppression has been known to have many side-effects. Bottling up emotions has been known to lead to physical disorders such as high blood pressure, heart problems, ulcers, migraines, etc. It can also lead to socio-psychological difficulties such as impeding social interactions, depression, anxiety and even psychoses.

The more subtle version of emotional control happens when we change the way we perceive events. By maintaining focus on positives only, for instance, or diverting our attention away from something we dislike, we are essentially controlling what would be a natural emotional reaction to a stimulus. Similarly, a person can be cynical with a pessimistic view of the world thus ignoring positive aspects of situations. Health-related effects of such pre-emptive management of self-expression are not yet well-known. However, on the practical side, this could render a person unable to perceive events objectively which is essential for good decision-making and valuable social interactions.

Without using either of these two strategies, one would enter the category of those who openly express their emotions. Though the physical body often responds best to this strategy of emotional aperture, social restrictions often require us to impose certain limits on our behavior. Especially when interacting with other people where social judgment can play a major role in the success or failure of the interface (in a business meeting, in a court room, etc), complete freedom of expression may prove unwise.

Every one of the above strategies can be helpful in certain situations and anyone who limits themselves to only one of these approaches, whether based on too little control or perhaps too much, will most likely suffer from social, psychological or physical maladaptations. Essentially, the more people can understand their own patterns of behavior and emotional temperament, the more likely they are to grasp what is the best strategy to use.