Emotion Elicits the Social Sharing of Emotion: Theory and Empirical Review

TLDR

The review investigates how emotion regulation remains socially interdependent, arguing that emotional experiences routinely trigger social sharing and that this process has interpersonal, collective, and regulatory functions. It synthesizes theoretical and empirical evidence showing multiple reasons why adults’ emotional experiences elicit social sharing, the effects of sharing at interpersonal and collective levels, and its contribution to emotion regulation. The review concludes that an individualist view of emotion and regulation is untenable, underscoring the essential role of social sharing.

Abstract

This review demonstrates that an individualist view of emotion and regulation is untenable. First, I question the plausibility of a developmental shift away from social interdependency in emotion regulation. Second, I show that there are multiple reasons for emotional experiences in adults to elicit a process of social sharing of emotion, and I review the supporting evidence. Third, I look at effects that emotion sharing entails at the interpersonal and at the collective levels. Fourth, I examine the contribution of emotional sharing to emotion regulation together with the relevant empirical evidence. Finally, the various functions that the social sharing of emotion fulfills are reviewed and the relevance of the social sharing of emotion for emotion scientists is discussed.