Y. F. WANG ET AL.
ddle school in Beijing (66 male, 53 female). One hundred and
sixteen students completed the measurement. The percentage of
validity was 97.48%.
Measures
We collected life events in adolescent period by interviews
and literature references. Ten typical life events including 5
positive and 5 negative emotional contexts associated with
EDR were selected and rewritten according to Josephs (1994)
and Jones, Abbey, and Cumberl (1998). Because of different in-
teractive partners (parents/peers) and other-involved or self-
involved situations, 10 typical contexts generated 40 situations
associated with EDR.
For example, Lin Ming’s birthday is coming. His dream pre-
sent from parents is a car model. However, he receives a pre-
sent which he does not like. What will Lin Ming do?
A. display sad facia l expression
B. feel sad, but display calm facial expression
C. feel sad, but display happy facial expression
D. others
If you were him, what would you do?
A. display sad facia l expression
B. feel sad, but display calm facial expression
C. feel sad, but display happy facial expression
D. others
If participants chose A, it represented that they didn’t use
EDR. If they chose B or C, it represented their use of EDR.
Participants who chose D were encoded into two categories by
two undergraduates majoring in psychology: participants with
the use of EDR or not. The kappa was .87***. Using EDR
scored 1, while not using EDR scored 0.
Results
The performance of applying emotional display rules in ado-
lescents was shown in Table 1. A 2 (emotional types) × 2 (in-
teractive partners) × 2 (other-involved/self-involved) × 2 (gen-
der) repeated measure ANOVA was conducted. It yielded sig-
nificant interactions among emotional types, interactive partners,
and other-involved/self-involved situations, F (1,114) = 8.33, p
< .01, η2 = .07, and between emotional types and interactive
partners, F (1,114) = 8.52, p < .01, η2 = .07. It also yielded
significant main effects of emotional types, F (1,114) = 188.53,
p < .01, η2 = .62, interactive partners, F (1,114) = 5.85, p < .05,
η2 = .05, other-involved/ self-involved situations, F (1,114) =
13.97, p < .01, η2 = .11, and gender , F (1,114) = 10.74, p < .01,
η2 = .09.
Simple effect analysis was done to explain the significant in-
teractions among emotion types, interactive partners and self-
involved or other-involved situations. In positive emotional co-
texts, participants applied more EDR in front of peers than
parents in self-involved situation, t (115) = –3.40, p < .01, and
in other-involved situation, t (115) = –2.16, p < .05. While in
negative emotional contexts, no significant differences existed
between two kinds of interactive partners both in self-involved
situations, t (115) = 1.19, p > .05, and in other-involved situa-
tions, t (115) = –1.43, p > .05.
Discussion
In the positive contexts, adolescents applied more EDR in
front of peers than parents, while in negative contexts, their
Table 1.
The performance of applying emotional display rules in adolescents
(M(SD)).
Parents Peers
Gender Emotion Other (0 - 5)Self (0 - 5) Other (0 - 5)Self (0 - 5)
N 3.30 (1.34)3.80 (1.29) 3.12 (1.54)4.01 (1.12)
B P 1.62 (1.53)2.19 (1.52) 1.83 (1.49)2.28 (1.49)
N 4.17 (1.05)4.24 (1.01) 4.12 (1.21)4.25 (1.11)
G P 1.86 (1.56)2.29 (1.74) 2.49 (1.38)2.78 (1.57)
performances were similar in front of the two kinds of interac-
tive partners. All the participants used more EDR in negative
contexts than in positive contexts. Compared with other-in-
volved situations, they applied more EDR in self-involved
situations. Girls used more EDR than boys.
The results indicated that the effects of interactive partners
on adolescent’s application of EDR were moderated by emo-
tional types. Zeman and Garber (1996) found individuals’ emo-
tional expressions were influenced by degree of familiarity and
sense of subordinating to elders or superiors. Although peers
are increasingly important to individuals in early adolescence,
the high familiarity and subordinate sense with their parents can
still not go beyond. Adolescents and their parents are the com-
munity of interests. When faced with positive events, they are
unconsciously willing to share with each other. However, peers
are different from parents though adolescents spend more time
with peers. Establishment and maintenance of peer relationship
is an important life event for them. To get a better peer rela-
tionship, sometimes they disguise their positive emotions in
front of peers in order to put little pressure on them. Take a
scenario for example. “In an athlete meeting, Lin Min won the
first prize, while his friends got nothing.” Lin Min would try to
apply EDR to disguise their positive emotions perhaps because
he worried about giving his peers too much pressures or get
peers jealous of him.
Zeman and Garber found that in angry and sad contexts,
primary students applied more EDR in front of peers than par-
ents, which was inconsistent with our results. Liu and Fang
(2007) demonstrated that 4 - 6 year-old children had a better
understanding of situations interacting with peers than old gen-
erations, regardless of the types of emotions. Perhaps the dif-
ferent ages of participants accounted for the inconsistency of
various findings. Seidel et al. (2010) indicated that happiness
positively correlated with approaching intendancy, while anger
positively correlated with avoidance intendancy. Individuals
applied EDR in order to communicate with others more effec-
tively. Adolescents expected receiving “respects like an adult”
and smooth interpersonal relationship, so they were more likely
to express positive feelings as well as deducting negative feel-
ings.
Consistent with previous findings, we also found that com-
pared with boys, girls were more likely to apply EDR. It could
be of large possibility due to socialization of different gender
roles. In most cultures, parents had different social expectations
towards boys and girls. Girls should be more quiet and consid-
erate. Thus, parents tolerated more boys’ emotional expressions
and asked girls to control their emotions. Cole (2005) suggested
that parents focused more on girls’ obedient emotions and
boy’s discordant emotions. The degree of parents’ selective
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