The impact of suppressing and amplifying expressions on personality judgments

Abstract

We tested how expression-based regulation strategies influence personality judgments in an experiment with 164 undergraduate stranger dyads. One partner suppressed or amplified their emotional expressions during a conversation. Afterwards, partners rated their own and their partner’s personality. Suppressors were seen as less extraverted and warm than controls and amplifiers, while amplifiers were seen as more neurotic. Suppressors were not judged less accurately than others. However, amplifiers’ warmth and extraversion were judged more accurately than controls and suppressors. Suppression and amplification largely did not impact judgments of others, except suppressors more accurately judged others’ warmth than controls. Thus, suppression and amplification distinctly impacted personality judgments made about the regulators by others but had little impact on regulators’ judgments.