Don't hide your happiness! Positive emotion dissociation, social connectedness, and psychological functioning

Abstract

It is now clear that positive emotion leads to enhanced psychological functioning. What is less clear, however, is just why this is so. Drawing on a social-functional perspective, we argue that positive emotional behavior that accurately signals to others the individual's internal state will enhance social connectedness. Positive emotional behavior that does not accurately signal a person's experience--such as a smile that is not felt--may impede social connectedness and, in turn, psychological functioning. This perspective suggests that (a) the degree to which experience and behavior are dissociated during positive emotional episodes, over and above level of positive behavior, should predict worse psychological functioning and (b) the effect of dissociation should be mediated by social connectedness. To test these hypotheses, we conducted a short-term prospective longitudinal study, with a baseline assessment of depressive symptoms and well-being at Time 1. Six months later, at Time 2, we used a novel within-individual laboratory paradigm to measure the degree to which positive emotional behavior was dissociated from (vs. coherent with) a participant's positive emotional experience. We also assessed level of positive behavior and experience. Then, another 6 months later, we assessed social connectedness as a mediator and depressive symptoms and well-being as outcomes at Time 3. Even when controlling for baseline functioning and for level of positive emotion behavior and experience, we found that greater positive experience-behavior dissociation at Time 2 predicted higher levels of depressive symptoms and lower levels of well-being at Time 3. As predicted, these associations were mediated by social connectedness.

Figure 1

Schematic of steps used to compute within-individual experience-behavior dissociation index d (Steps 1 and 2) and to obtain correlates between individual differences in experience-behavior dissociation and psychological functioning (Step 3). Data displayed are hypothetical. PF = psychological functioning.

Figure 2

Second-by-second plots for z-scored emotion experience and behavior (greater values represent more positive emotion experience and behavior) for the amusing film clip. Each panel depicts a representative participant with high dissociation (Panel A, corresponding to a dissociation index of .36) and low dissociation (Panel B, corresponding to a dissociation index of –.90).

Figure 3

Mediation of the relationship between positive experience- behavior dissociation and depressive symptoms (Panel A) and well-being (Panel B) by social connectedness. Values are standardized betas. ns = nonsignificant. * p < .05. ** p < .01.