Display Rules in Expressing Emotions

In our everyday life, we are faced with many different daily challenges regarding how to express or suppress our internal feelings, which might be governed by a variety of factors.

While observing the nature of the expression and management of emotions, Ekman and Friesen propose four sources of display rules: 1) cultural display rules, 2) personal display rules, 3) vocational requirements, and 4) need of the moment (Ekman and Friesen, 1975).

Cultural display rules are the conventions "followed by all (non-rebellious) members of a given social class, sub-culture, or culture" (Ekman, 1975:138). Examples of cultural display rules comprise instances of exhibiting grief at funerals, displaying joy at weddings and birthdays, men not exhibiting fear or tears in public, or women not exhibiting anger in public. Notably, some nations are more inclined to handle their emotions, whereas others rarely suppress them.

It should be noted that individuals may also differ in the way they adhere to and manifest cultural display rules. In other words, some people may be more likely to intensify emotions across cultures and situations, whereas others may generally be more inclined to suppress them, irrespective of the current circumstances. This phenomenon leads to the observation that besides cultural display rules there are personal display rules that can also be detected in interpersonal communication.

Personal display rules are generally considered to stem from families. Matsumoto speaks about the existence of such personal display rules, suggesting that different families "may allow the expression of certain emotions but not others" (Matsumoto, 1991: 131). Consequently, it is considered that family-predefined display rules that solidify in maturity might encourage overt displays of anger, resentment, or aggression, and suppression of excitement, amusement, or joy, irrespective of the general culturally-governed display rules.

The third influential component that has an impact on the expression management of emotions is vocational requirements. In this group, we consider people who have to act in certain ways according to their profession. Many jobs require what Hochschild calls an emotional labour (Hochschild, 1983:95). His use of this concept involves, for instance, flight attendants who, because of the demands of their occupation, engage in surface and deep structures of acting to shape the outward appearance of a tranquil, unworried, relaxed and pleasant emotional state.

Finally, Ekman and Friesen (1975) suggest that the need of the moment greatly influences emotion expression and emotion management as well. This proposed group includes examples of controlling the expression of emotions for a certain personal gain, e.g. a guilty criminal who lies displaying a seemingly innocent face when pleading guiltlessness to have an impact on the jurors and the Judge. While these may seem congruent with general culturally-governed display rules, the authors view such incidents of emotion management as a distinct kind (Rostomyan, 2012).

The four types of display rules identify stereotyped rules according to which people have to display or manage their emotions, depending on the circumstances, which may naturally vary across cultures, sub-cultures, individuals, and situations. Yet, it should be kept in mind that over-suppression of emotions may be destructive, thus, one should find the golden middle of balancing and inhibiting emotions.