Beyond the emotional event: Six studies on the social sharing of emotion

We believe that emotions are not only seen as short-lived and intrinsic phenomena. On the contrary, based on five theoretical arguments, we propose that social sharing of emotional experiences form part of the emotional process. A series of six studies investigated different aspects of this hypothesis. Study 1 reports that the vast majority of people share their emotional experiences, and the memory of these experiences often shows that they voluntarily return to their consciousness. There is no difference in emotion. Using different procedures, studies 2 and 3 reproduced these findings in two different populations. In addition, these studies show that women share experiences with more people than men. In the first three studies, there was no difference between emotions, but shame was not included. People tend not to tend to share embarrassment experience in society, but this experience of shame is usually caused by violation of social rules. Study 4 specifically studied this hypothesis. Except for the delay of sharing experiences for the first time, no difference was found between shame and other emotions. In Study 5, we first investigated whether emotional social sharing is an important process in today's Western culture. Even when comparing Dutch and Surinamese, no big difference was found. Based on the results of the first five studies, the relevant model was designed in the study. It tested the interrelationship between emotional confusion, social sharing, psychological reflexes and emotional confusion. A consistent pattern of findings has emerged, suggesting that social sharing can be viewed as a two-dimensional concept defined by quantitative and shared delay characteristics. Furthermore, social sharing and psychological reflections depend on the destructive nature of emotions. But surprisingly, recovery can not be shared with social, psychological thought or time that has elapsed since the episode.

The theory of 'social sharing of feelings' (Rimé et al., 1991, p. 436) suggests that emotional sharing is a natural and beneficial way to recover from emotional events. The authors believe that after an emotional event, individuals intentionally seek contact with interpersonal relationships to discuss the events and their reactions to their emotions. This result is seen as an adaptive behavioral process that uses languages ​​(through clarity of recognition) to express, clarify, mark and organize individual emotions in a logical way (Rimé et al., 1991).

We believe that emotions are not only seen as short-lived and intrinsic phenomena. On the contrary, based on five theoretical arguments, we propose that social sharing of emotional experiences form part of the emotional process. A series of six studies investigated different aspects of this hypothesis. Study 1 reports that the vast majority of people share their emotional experiences, and the memory of these experiences often shows that they voluntarily return to their consciousness. There is no difference in emotion. Using different procedures, studies 2 and 3 reproduced these findings in two different populations. In addition, these studies show that women share experiences with more people than men. In the first three studies, there was no difference between emotions, but shame was not included. Study 4 specifically studied this hypothesis