Emotional Display Rules and Their Contextual Determinants: An Investigation with University Students in Turkey

Abstract

The study reported here was the Turkish part of a cross-cultural investigation of emotional display rules, which regulate emotional expression according to the social situation. 235 university students (151 females, 84 males) completed the Display Rules Assessment Inventory (DRAI). Participants were asked what a person should do when feeling each of 7 basic universal emotions (anger, contempt, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, and surprise) toward each of 20 target persons in either a public or private setting. The most basic finding was that emotional expression varies according to both the nature of the emotion and the social situation. Happiness was the emotion allowed freest expression, followed by surprise, sadness, anger, fear, contempt and disgust, in that order. In terms of the social situation, private/public setting and relative status of the person and target were found to significantly affect display of all 7 emotions. For all emotions, fuller expression was approved in close relationships than in more distant relationships. Gender of person and target, and particularly their interaction, were also found to affect emotional expression. In this first investigation of emotional display rules in Turkey, the importance of the situation in determining social behavior once again received strong support.