Articles
A Journey to Icebreaking: Emotion Sharing and Its Effect on Superficial Harmony Friendship

http://dx.doi.org/10.6129/CJP.2012.5402.06
Chinese Journal of Psychology 2012, Vol.54, No.2, 219-242


黃筱蘋(國立台灣大學心理學系);黃囇莉(國立清華大學學習科學研究所)

 

摘要

過去關於友誼的發展多採社會滲透論觀點,認為互動雙方由淺到深的自我揭露讓友誼逐步增進。黃囇莉
(2006)揭示了華人人際間的虛性和諧,虛性和諧中的朋友行禮如儀、互稱朋友,溝通與互動停留在表面層次,若以自我揭露理論來看,虛性和諧的友誼凍結在虛性狀態中。本文進行三個研究,探討Rimé、Mesquita、Philippot及Boca(1991)提出的「情緒的社會分享」是否可能使虛性友誼破冰成為實性和諧,且作為和諧化的方式。前導研究探討華人文化下情緒分享的基本現象,研究採問卷施測,以383位大學生為對象。結果顯示情緒分享不論在實/虛性友誼中都會發生,且各種情緒都會分享,也會影響分享後之關係變化。研究二針對分享頻率較低的虛性和諧之情緒分享進行質化研究。結果發現,偶發性的情緒分享能突破虛性友誼,且「印象改變」、「感同身受」及「共享秘密感」是重要的破冰中介因子。研究三,在問卷中進行實驗操弄,以四種情緒如悲傷、快樂、內疚、喜歡之分享為獨變項,檢驗不同情緒之分享與分享前之實/虛性關係對分享後關係變化的影響,以及三因子之中介效果。研究結果再次確認情緒分享能使關係變好,且這樣的效果受到先前關係實/虛性和諧的調節。另外,也確認在虛性和諧中,負向情緒對分享後關係變化的影響是以「共享秘密感」為中介因子,而正向情緒則否。本文最後討論,在解釋友誼間從虛性和諧轉為實性和諧的破冰現象上,情緒的社會分享理論比自我揭露論有較大的優勢。

 

關鍵詞:友誼、自我揭露、虛性和諧、情緒分享


A Journey to Icebreaking: Emotion Sharing and Its Effect on Superficial Harmony Friendship

Hsiao-Ping Huang(Ddepartment of Psychology, National Taiwan University);Li-Li Huang(Institute of Learning Sciences, National Tsing-Hua University)

 

Abstract

Previous research on friendship mainly subscribed to the “Social Penetration Theory” and considered that the
interacting friends progressively disclosed themselves through daily interaction and developed intimacy gradually. Huang’s theory (2006) suggests researchers should pay more attention to the superficial harmonious side of friendship. Friends who have superficial harmony may conceal their disagreements and not really like each other, even when they claim the other as “a friend.” They also won’t be willing to become close to each other. According to the self-disclosure theory, the superficial friendship seems to remain frozen in this state forever. But is it really true? This article including three studies tried to examine whether the automatic process of “social sharing of emotion (Rimé, Mesquita, Philippot, & Boca, 1991)” may result in a change or a  breakthrough in superficial harmony friendships and move toward genuine harmony. In Study 1, questionnaires were filled out by 383 Taiwanese college students. The results showed that the emotion sharing did happen in both superficial and genuine harmony friendships in Chinese society and different types of harmony displayed the same sharing patterns. All kinds of emotions were shared and affected the friendship quality after sharing. Study 2 focused on the emotion sharing types in superficial harmony friendships that were less frequent in Study 1 and used in-depth interviews as a method for qualitative study. The outcome proposed that emotion sharing
in superficial friendships could break up the superficial relationship itself; and “change in impression,” “the same feeling” and “feeling of secret sharing” could be the main influencing factors. In order to further examine the findings in the previous two studies, quasi-experimental methods were used in Study 3. The experimental stories included four manipulated emotions: sadness, happiness, guilt, affection, and one control condition of non-emotion sharing. The results indicated that friendship quality was affected by emotion sharing and the change was moderated by previous harmony type. Furthermore, in superficial friendships, the effect of negative emotion sharing on the friendship quality was mediated by “feeling of secret sharing,” but positive emotion sharing was not the same. In conclusion, we discuss why the emotion sharing theory is better than the self-disclosure theory for the interpretation of a breakthrough in superficial harmony friendship moving into genuine harmony friendship.


Keywords: friendship, self-disclosure theory, social sharing of emotion, superficial harmony

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