Emotional expressiveness refers to nonverbal behaviors which communicate how an individual feels. What one reveals expressively to others about one's feelings may in fact be different from what one actually feels 'inside.' In the course of development, children learn to modify (or manage) their emotional-expressive behavior depending on how they want others to respond to them. In order to figure out when, where, and how to modify their emotional expressiveness, children need to learn how others will react to their genuine emotional-expressive behavior. If that anticipated reaction is not a desirable one, then the child needs to consider what impact a modified or dissembled version of that expressive behavior would have on others. The research will examine how children come to anticipate others' reactions to emotional-expressive behavior from a number of perspectives. The research will extend our understanding of what children know about social situations relative to whether it would be appropariate (or strategic) for them to manage thier display of emotional behavior. Qualities of relationship (namely, degree of intimacy, controllability, and status) will be examined for their impact on what children expect as the interpersonal consequences to genuine or dissembled emotional-expressive behavior. Descriptive behavioral information will be obtained which will illuminate what children of different age groups actually do when confronted with a situation that is conducive to expressive behavior management. The research will also examine the influence of parental attitude on children's thinking about the connections among emotional experience, expressive behavior management, and social relations. These studies should provide a sophisticated descriptive data base about the development of children's understanding of emotional-expressive behavior in different social situations. Researchers are just beginning to document norms for emotional-expressive behavior in adults; the present set of studies will extend that documentation downward to ages six to twelve with additional informaion regarding (a) the socialization of emotional-expressive behavior and (b) the developmental progression involved in acquiring expectations about interpersonal responses to emotional-expressive behavior.
