Conveying Emotions

Emotions are present in everyone’s daily life, as they change to accommodate each new situation we experience. How you feel can affect your personal motivation, actions, and attitudes towards peers. Expressing emotion can be an easy task for some and it maybe uncomfortable for others. According to a study by Gross (2014), emotions occur when a situation is deemed important to an individual and they have assessed it to some extent. The emotion is the reaction to the situation they are in. The significance of the situation is key to the emotions released, as each situation leads to a goal. That goal ultimately guides which feelings are produced and how strongly they are felt. Gross (2014) states that emotions can have positive benefits, allowing connections to form between people. They can also have negative effects if the feelings become too intense or if they cause painful …show more content…
In fact, every culture has established some form of emotional norms when it comes to the processing and sharing of emotions. In a study by Soto et al. (2011), they compared the cultures of European Americans, Eastern Asians, and Hong Kong Chinese by having a sample of each answer a few self-report questionnaires. They found that European Americans typically associated the use of suppression with poor psychological functioning, while Eastern Asians did not. European Americans may feel more comfortable expressing their emotions. Therefore, because openly sharing their emotions may be what they are accustomed to they could find it bizarre for some people to suppress their emotions and assume that they do not have good mental health. They also found that Hong Kong Chinese tend to report higher levels of suppression, than European Americans. The culture of Hong Kong Chinese is often considered fast-paced. This may not allow for a lot of time to share what one is feeling, or for others to have the time to