Strategic expression of emotion

The strategic expression of emotion is a subsection of the emotion category. It relates to how we express our emotions in different situations. This article covers some basic information about what constitutes the strategic expression of emotion as well as examining past and current research that relates to this concept.

Strategic Expression of Emotion
Description

Most emotion research focuses on how we react to stimuli in an attempt to better understand how different emotional responses are generated. One area where research has been thin is in the area of strategic expression of emotion. Strategic expression of emotion can be understood as intentionally choosing the expression of specific emotions in a given situation in order to generate a desired response. The American Heritage Dictionary defines strategy as: a plan of action resulting from strategy or intended to accomplish a specific goal. It identifies plan as a synonym of the term. Thus, strategic expression of emotion implies some sort of premeditated component of the emotional expression.

For example, when a child throws a tantrum in order to try to get his or her way the child is using expression of emotions in order to generate a desired response from his or her parents. The question that comes as a result of that situation being identified is what constitutes strategy being a component of emotional expression and how it can be identified. To best understand this concept it is important to examine emotion research that can be connected to strategic expression as well as identifying suggestions for research methods to dig further into this realm of emotion research.
Because strategic expression of emotion implies selecting emotional responses there is one primary area where this would best be understood in terms of fields of emotion research. That area is regarding interpersonal deception theory (IDT). The reason for this is that in order to utilize emotions strategically in many circumstances some measure of deception is required. Strategic use of emotions involves using expression of emotions to manipulate a situation to produce a desired result. Because we tend to not be very effective at detecting deception the use of deception to manipulate situations via emotion occurs often. (Buller and Burgoon, 1996)
Another area where strategic expression of emotion is important to consider is in regulating emotions. Greenspan (2000) explains that emotions have a connection to rationality and how we make rational decisions. It is important to be able to control the expression of emotions because if one cannot control how an emotion is expressed then it is not possible to utilize it strategically. If in the above example, the child throws a tantrum as a reflexive reaction to receiving a negative response it would not be considered a strategic expression of emotion because of the lack of premeditation in the response. For strategic expression of emotion to occur some measure of premeditation must occur which means that, unless the child made the choice to throw said tantrum with the intent of the tantrum generating the desired response, the act would only be considered an emotional response.

Research
As was discussed above - research focusing on emotion being expressed in a strategic manner tends to not focus on the idea of why we strategically express emotion but on the role it plays in decision making in different situations. One way this is often approached in research is through connection to attachment theory. Cassidy (1994) explains that people tend to regulate their emotions in order to generate desirable results in relationships. Thompson (1994) articulates that regulation of emotion is biological and affects many aspects of our behavior.
Buller & Burgoon (1996) also explain the role of emotion in relation to deception. This is further explained in the article on interpersonal deception theory.
A third major area where emotion research intersects with this concept in regarding consumer products in attempting to understand consumer evaluation of products (Ruth, 2001) or even looking at coping mechanisms regarding negatively valenced advertising. (Luce, 1998).
Finally, an additional theory is tied in with strategic expression of emotion by Lawler & Thye (1999) when they evaluate emotion in context of social exchange theory. Lawler & Thye conclude that further research must be done to fully understand the role of emotion in exchange research.
Conclusion
The strategic expression of emotion is one that is well researched across many parts communication and psychology research in terms of how it functions to create desirable results, but one key area of this research that needs much more depth is looking at what motivates individuals to use emotion to generate these desirable ends and how effective emotional manipulation is in comparison to other forms of compliance and coping techniques.

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