華人角色關係的情緒表達規則回顧與前瞻

A Review of Emotional Display Rules: Roles in Chinese Context

華人傳統文化注重角色規範，依循關係特徵進行人際互動，並且在泛家族主義的影響之下，家庭中所學習的人際互動模式會擴展應用至家族外的群體，形塑成具有華人文化特色的情緒表達規則。情緒展現規則的樣貌與對人際互動的影響在西方已有豐富的研究成果，不過在華人社會中的情緒表達規則與情緒展現行為仍尚未有系統性地進行探討。因此，本文回顧本土心理學研究中，華人家庭與組織涉及情緒互動的文獻，從夫妻婚姻、父母教養與子女孝道，呈現家庭中上下角色的情緒表達與互動關係，接著延伸至組織中主管的華人領導行為，以及部屬對主管展現的忠誠與忍，透過比較家族內外的上下關係之互動模式，試圖瞭解華人角色關係中的情緒表達規則。並進一步從關係脈絡、文化與組織脈絡，以及個人價值觀切入，探討華人情緒表達規則與展現行為的特色。最後，本文為未來研究提供具文化意涵之方向與建議。

Emotional expression plays an important role in interpersonal interaction and communication. Emotion conveys information that helps the receiver to understand the expresser's intentions and influences the receiver's behavior. Studies have shown that emotion can be expressed nonverbally through tone of voice, physical gestures, and facial expressions. How people express their emotion is affected by culture; emotional display rules provide the norms for individuals to express emotions that meet cultural expectations. Regulating emotional behavior based on emotional display rules reduces vagueness and uncertainty in social interactions. Past studies have discussed the behavior and effects of interpersonal emotional display rules in Western culture, but the corresponding rules in Chinese culture are still poorly understood. Chinese culture has unique vertical role relationships characterized by unequal interaction norms, and there are different behavioral expectations for people of different statuses within a vertical relationship. We reviewed journal articles from Indigenous Psychological Research in Chinese Societies in order to develop a framework of the emotional display rules used in Chinese role relationships. We focused on studies of three kinds of role relationships that have a clear vertical structure in Chinese culture: the relationships between husband and wife, parents and children, and leader and subordinate. We reviewed 44 articles (12 about marriage, 13 about the family, and 18 about organizations) and conducted a content analysis. The analysis showed that the relationship between husbands and wives follows Chinese cultural traditions. There is a hierarchical difference between genders, with men having greater power than women. Wives are expected to be warm, caring, and obedient to their husbands. Expressing positive emotion and suppressing negative emotion are the wives' main display rules when interacting with their husbands. In contrast, husbands represent authority in the family, and do not need to regulate their emotions. Husbands should be willing to suppress their negative emotions to avoid conflict and maintain harmony in the family, but tend to use implicit ways to express their love and thankfulness toward their wives. In the vertical relationship between Chinese parents and children, Chinese society encourages parents to be strict with their children's education, and parents are thus expected to mask their positive emotion and express negative emotion to prevent their children from becoming rebellious, and to build their authority in the family. Children must follow the norm of filial piety by taking good care of their parents and suppressing their own needs to fulfill their parents' expectations. The corresponding emotional display rule requires children to express positive emotion and suppress negative emotion when interacting with their parents. Cultural norms may also affect interpersonal interactions in the workplace. Chinese culture emphasizes hierarchy and authority. Authoritarian leadership is a traditional Chinese value, with leaders expected to be father-like, disciplinarian, and powerful. Leaders may reprimand their subordinates and behave seriously to earn subordinates' reverence. Chinese subordinates are sensitive to authority and may actively show obedience and loyalty to their leaders. They tend to suppress their negative emotions to fulfill leaders' requests and express positive emotion to support leaders. Based on this review of Chinese vertical role relationships and emotional expression, we present six propositions. First, we propose that people with a lower status (such as children, wives, and subordinates) follow the emotional display rules of suppressing negative emotions and expressing positive emotions, whereas people with a higher status (such as parents, husbands, and leaders) follow the emotional display rules of expressing negative emotions and suppressing positive emotions (Proposition 1). We also suggest that the specific role norms of Chinese culture may enhance individuals' perception of emotional display rules in vertical role relationships (Proposition 2). In the organizational context, subordinates, who occupy a lower status role, tend to pay attention to others' emotional cues to regulate their emotions appropriately, and thus may be more conscious of emotional display rules. In contrast, supervisors may pay less attention to others' emotional cues because they are the higher status role model and do not need to be careful about following norms (Propositions 3 and 4). Furthermore, we propose that personal values may moderate the relationship between emotional display rules and individuals' emotional expressions. When people value interpersonal harmony, they may suppress negative emotion to avoid conflict, but may also be concerned that expressing positive emotions will be seen as immature behavior. Therefore, the display rule of suppressing negative emotions has a stronger positive association with suppressing behavior, whereas the display rule of expressing positive emotions may have a weaker association with expressing emotional behavior when individuals value harmony (Proposition 5). We further hypothesize that the values associated with the modernization of Chinese societies influence the effect of Chinese emotional display rules. Individuals displaying more modern characteristics may pay less attention to the cues of others and to authority. The emotional display rules of vertical role relationships may have a stronger positive effect on emotional display behavior in individuals displaying fewer modern characteristics (Proposition 6). In this article, we reviewed empirical studies of Chinese vertical role relationships in marriage, the family, and organizations, and analyzed the emotional interaction behaviors in these studies to identify the features of emotional display rules in Chinese culture. Future research could explore Chinese emotional display rules in different situations and the personal consequences of emotional interactions to gain a better understanding of emotional expression in Chinese societies.