Face-to-face arguing is an emotional experience: triangulating methodologies and early findings.

• Author: Hample, Dale
• Position: Report

People react emotionally to all communicative interactions, even if the level of arousal is so low as to be almost unnoticeable. Feelings are a fundamental part of what it is to be human, and to act in the social domain. Although emotions are precursors of certain sorts of communication, the essential content of particular messages, or the regnant set of memories for some encounters, this study takes yet another tack. We see emotional experience as an object of study in its own right, regardless of its causal role in larger processes. That emotional states have implications for other elements of human interaction is undoubted, and detailed evidence on that point is to be welcomed. However, we believe that feelings can be so completely absorbing that little further cognition can occur simultaneously, that people can feel personally inadequate either because they do not have an expected emotion or because they have a flash of a reprehensible one, and that both internal and displayed affect can be central to definitions of self, other, and relationship. Research exploring emotional experiences in communication is necessary, not only for its intrinsic interest, but also because such work will establish the foundations for inquiries into the place of emotion in traditional topics such as message production, content, and reception.

We focus on the emotional experience of interpersonal arguing. Dillard (2004, p. 199) reports that no focused work on emotions and arguing currently exists. Only a few studies even begin to suggest a qualification to his claim (see Hample, 2005b, ch. 5). A noticeable body of work indicates that people often have negative expectations, preconceptions, and reactions to arguing (Benoit, 1982; Benoit & Hample, 1998; Dallinger & Hample, 2002; Hample & Benoit, 1999; Hample, Benoit, Houston, Purifoy, VanHyfte, & Wardwell, 1999; Martin & Scheerhorn, 1985; Trapp, 1986). Naive actors often associate arguing with hostility, uncontrolled negative emotionality, stubbornness, frustration, and a host of related considerations. However, this research is restricted to retrospective or impressionistic data, and does not offer evidence concerning the direct, immediate emotional experience of arguing. The argumentativeness (Infante & Rancer, 1982), argument framing (Hample, 2005a), and Taking Conflict Personally scales (Hample & Dallinger, 1995) all contain items asking respondents to indicate whether they find arguments and conflicts to be enjoyable. However, these instruments normally are administered either without reference to a particular encounter or after one's end. None has been applied, as far as we know, to the concurrently experienced feelings of a participant in an ongoing interaction. A recent exception to Dillard's statement (although he could not have known about it) indicates that observers reliably can code displays of affect during arguments, and that the resulting data reveal patterns of emotional experience (Hample, 2004). That investigation, however, examined only two dyadic arguments, which is too small a sample to support any firm conclusions.

Because we are traversing relatively unexplored ground, methodology is a fundamental concern. Consequently, we tested three sorts of operationalization in this study: own self-reports of emotions, one's argument partner's estimates of one's emotions, and observers' ratings of affect displays. Naturally, we wanted to determine whether these methods would give similar results and whether there might be a reason to prefer one of them in further work. Our second impulse was to provide an initial, basic description of the emotional experience of arguing. We sought to determine what feelings are most salient and whether they connect with one another. We looked for associations within each person's own emotional field and for the possibility of relationships between interactants' feelings. We also explored several personality traits that may well be relevant to the display or suppression of one's affective reactions to arguing. Before elaborating our specific aims, however, we examine what is known about emotions in communication generally.

SOCIAL INFLUENCES ON THE EXPERIENCE AND EXPRESSION OF ARGUERS' EMOTIONS

Research on emotional expression has contrasted the roles of biological and social factors (Buck, 2003). From a biological standpoint, emotional displays can be viewed as a reflection of underlying emotional states. From a social standpoint--our main emphasis here--emotional displays can be viewed as processes that regulate social interaction. Four key ideas elaborate the social aspects of emotional experience: display rules, emotion work, reappraisal, and emotional contagion.

Display rules may require people to minimize, exaggerate, or alter their expressions in social situations in order to manifest socially appropriate emotions (Burgoon & Bacue, 2003, pp. 189-190; Ekman & Friesen, 1975). Arguers, of course, have such display rules, which serve as both expressive and interpretive resources. Each culture has its own rules (Porter & Samovar, 1998), and particular relationships, such as marriages, also may develop their own. Display rules not only influence the expected emotional behavior in a given situation but also provide information for the decoding of emotional displays (Hess & Kirouac, 2000). For instance, men and women who express fear usually appear to be less dominant than those who express anger, but the effect is particularly pronounced for women due to a greater social proscription against their expression of anger (Hess, Blairy, & Kleck, 2000).

People are sensitive to display rules and, therefore, may alter their emotional expressions to some degree (Burleson & Planalp, 2000). Gross and John (2003) indicate that, although sometimes emotions are automatically displayed, at other times careful thought goes into the expression of an emotion. We use, shape, and construct our displays to fit both the situation and the goals at hand (Gross & John, 2003). Arguers feeling some of the negative reactions mentioned above may choose to express them or not. Other arguers who lack such feelings might display them purposefully.

Whereas display rules are a useful resource in understanding what arguers look and sound like, emotion work is a parallel construct for studying arguers' internal states. According to Hochschild (1979), emotion work is an individual's attempt to generate appropriate feelings for specific social situations. Unlike display rules, which concern outward displays of emotion, emotion work is directed internally. It is a response to feeling rules, which stipulate what is expected and appropriate to feel in a given situation (Hochschild, 1979). For example, if one person feels pleasure at another's failure to answer an argumentative challenge, he or she also may regard this emotion as inappropriate and engage in emotion work to feel sad instead.

Similar to emotion work, reappraisal is a form of cognitive change in which people decrease negative emotions by altering their thoughts (Gross & John, 2003). Reappraisal may include taking a more optimistic attitude, attempting to repair bad moods, and reframing stressful situations. Gross and John (2003) report that, compared to those who merely suppress their negative emotions, people who engage in reappraisal (thus altering these emotions) also experience and express more positive and less negative emotion, resulting in closer friendships and greater well-being. The common appearance of negative feelings about arguing in the retrospective studies mentioned earlier suggests that reappraisal ought to be an early point of inquiry here.

Emotions also are shaped and regulated through contagion, which occurs when one person experiences a response parallel to another's emotional display (Coke, Batson, & McDavis, 1978; Davis, 1983; Deutsch & Madle, 1975; Feshbach, 1975; Stofland, 1969). Because arguing is an emotional experience, we are interested in knowing the degree to which these feelings spread from one arguer to another. Totterdell (2000), for instance, found that individual moods of professional sports players are associated with the collective moods of teammates. Something similar might well be true of dyadic arguers.

In combination, display rules, emotion work, reappraisal, and emotional contagion reveal how the experience and expression of emotion is regulated in part by social processes. Metts and Planalp (2002, p. 362) note, however, that more studies of moment-to-moment emotionality during interactions are needed. The present study examined such phenomena during interpersonal arguments.

METHODOLOGY FOR STUDY OF ARGUERS' EMOTIONS

Several scholars call for more study of emotions in ordinary encounters, with attention to the appropriateness of various methodologies (Dillard & Wilson, 1993; Fiehler, 2002). Most researchers employ subjective or experiential measures to operationalize emotion (Dillard & Wilson, 1993), but external coding sometimes also has been included, with useful results (e.g., Bohner & Schwarz, 1993; Senecal, Murard, & Hess, 2003).

In our design, arguers self-reported their feelings, conversational partners rated those same emotions, and external coders rated them via a videotape of the conversation. Although assessing the same thing (i.e., person A's feelings at a given moment), these three sorts of people had access to different information (Folger, Hewes, & Poole, 1984). In a relationship, person A has privileged access to own feelings, of course, and might be presumed to be most accurate (although the possibilities of self-deception and general lack of self-awareness should not be ignored). The conversational partner lacks such access, but does possess information about the flow and climate of the argumentative interaction. Presumably, participation is more involving and informative than viewing a videotape. Further, most of our participants...