Beliefs about Emotional Expression
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The Symposium provides undergraduates from all academic disciplines with an opportunity to share their research with the university community and other guests through conference-style oral presentations. The Symposium represents part of a larger effort of Iowa State University to enhance, support, and celebrate undergraduate research activity.
Though coordinated by the University Honors Program, all undergraduate students are eligible and encouraged to participate in the Symposium. Undergraduates conducting research but not yet ready to present their work are encouraged to attend the Symposium to learn about the presentation process and students not currently involved in research are encouraged to attend the Symposium to learn about the broad range of undergraduate research activities that are taking place at ISU.
The first Symposium was held in April 2007. The 39 students who presented research and their mentors collectively represented all of ISU's Colleges: Agriculture and Life Sciences, Business, Design, Engineering, Human Sciences, Liberal Arts and Sciences, Veterinary Medicine, and the Graduate College. The event has grown to regularly include more than 100 students presenting on topics that span the broad range of disciplines studied at ISU.
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An essential aspect of effective counseling is the ability to understand clients’ emotions. There are times that clients may experience difficulty openly discussing their feelings during counseling sessions due to strong negative beliefs about emotional expression. Spokas, Luterek, and Heimberg (2009) found that socially anxious individuals tend to believe that emotional expression is a sign of weakness and suppress their emotions to maintain control of their feelings. The goal of this study was to identify themes regarding beliefs about emotional expression to help counselors address any strong beliefs that may interfere with the counseling process. In this qualitative study, we asked 562 college students to write down their beliefs about emotional expression. A total of 1686 statements were analyzed using content analysis, and seven themes were found. Results showed that while some participants held beliefs that emotional expression is normal, others expressed beliefs that emotional expression should be contingent on certain aspects such as time, situation, or gender. Furthermore, other participants held negative beliefs that emotional expression leads to feeling vulnerable. The results of this study could help future research construct measures of emotional expression. Counseling implications include providing college counselors a basis for clients’ beliefs on emotional expression.