In the movie Bridesmaids (2011), Annie is a woman struggling to overcome the failure of her beloved small business, Cake Baby, as well as her breakup with her boyfriend, Ted, who continues to lead her on. Annie’s sadness and sense of hopelessness lead her to seek comfort from her best friend, Lillian, whose own life is on the upswing because of her recent engagement. Lillian asks Annie to be her maid of honor, but the situation quickly devolves as Annie’s anxieties and neuroses cause a series of emotional displays, culminating in her ruining a “girls weekend together” and causing a jealous scene at Lillian’s bridal shower.

Surrounding Annie throughout the story are several other vivid characters. Becca is perpetually upbeat and perky; Helen—Annie’s primary rival for Lillian’s affections—is fanatically conscientious; Rita, Lillian’s cousin, is always sarcastic and negative. Adding to the dispositional mix is Nathan, a warm and friendly state trooper who exempts Annie from a traffic ticket and subsequently tries to romance her. But dominating the group is Megan, who is outgoing to the point of aggressiveness. When Annie succumbs to her sadness, it is Megan who lifts her up:²

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As with the characters in Bridesmaids, our emotions and their expression just seem to happen: an incident occurs, an emotion arises, and we communicate accordingly. But although emotions seem unfiltered and immediate, powerful forces shape how we experience and express them. Two of the most influential of these forces are personality and gender.

PERSONALITY

Personality exerts a pronounced impact on our emotions. Recall the Big Five personality traits described in Chapter 3—openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism (or OCEAN). Of these five, three strongly influence our experience and communication of emotion (Pervin, 1993). The first is extraversion, the degree to which one is outgoing and sociable versus quiet and reserved. High-extraversion people experience positive emotions more frequently than do low-extraversion people, which appears to be due to enhanced sensitivity to positive events. Put simply, high-extraversion people look for happiness in their everyday lives, focusing their attention more on positive events than on negative (Larsen & Ketelaar, 1991). They also rate themselves as better able to cope with stress and more skilled at managing their emotional communication than are low-extraversion people (Lopes, Salovey, Cote, & Beers, 2005). In Bridesmaids, we see this trait in Megan when she discusses her success in overcoming a challenging high school experience by working hard and believing in herself, leading her to land a high-ranking government job (with the “highest possible security clearance”).

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Another personality trait that influences emotion is agreeableness. Like Nathan in Bridesmaids, people high in agreeableness (who are trusting, friendly, and cooperative) report being happier in general, better able to manage stress, and more skilled at managing their emotional communication than are low-agreeable people. High-agreeable people also score substantially higher on measures of emotion management and are rated by their peers as having superior emotion management skills (Lopes et al., 2005).

The tendency to think negative thoughts about oneself, known as neuroticism, also affects emotional experience and expression. High-neurotic people, like Annie in Bridesmaids, focus their attention primarily on negative events (Larsen & Ketelaar, 1991). Consequently, they report more frequent negative emotions than do low-neurotic people and rate themselves as less happy overall. They also describe themselves as less skilled at emotional communication, and they test lower on scientific measures of emotion management than do low-neurotic people (Lopes et al., 2005).

Although these findings seem to suggest that highly neurotic people are doomed to lives of negative emotion, this isn’t necessarily the case. Psychologist Albert Ellis (1913–2007) dedicated much of his professional life to helping neurotics change their self-defeating beliefs. Ellis believed that much of neurosis and its accompanying emotional states—sadness, anger, and anxiety—is tied to three extreme, irrational beliefs: “I must be outstandingly competent or I am worthless,” “Others must treat me considerately or they are absolutely rotten,” and “The world should always give me happiness or I will die” (Ellis & Dryden, 1997). Ellis developed Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) as a way for therapists to help neurotic patients systematically purge themselves of such beliefs.

If you find yourself habitually plagued by negative thoughts similar to those mentioned above, you can use Ellis’s five steps on your own to change your thoughts and the negative emotions that flow from them. First, call to mind common situations that cause you to be upset. Second, identify irrational beliefs about your self and others that are tied to these situations. Third, consider the emotional, behavioral, and relational consequences that you suffer as a result of these beliefs—negative outcomes that you would like to change. Fourth, critically challenge these beliefs, disputing their validity. Is there really any support for these beliefs? What evidence contradicts them? What is the worst thing that can happen if you abandon these beliefs? The best thing that can happen? Finally, identify more accurate and realistic beliefs about yourself, others, and the world at large that lead to more positive emotional, behavioral, and relational outcomes, and embrace these beliefs fully.

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Clearly, your degree of extraversion, agreeableness, and especially neuroticism influences how often you experience positive and negative emotions and how effectively you manage and communicate these emotions. At the same time, keep in mind that personality is merely one of many pieces that make up the complex puzzle that is emotion. Part of becoming a competent emotional communicator is learning how your personality traits shape your emotional experience and expression, and treating personality-based emotion differences in others with sensitivity and understanding.

GENDER

Like personality, gender also impacts our experience of emotions. Across cultures, women report experiencing more sadness, fear, shame, and guilt than men, while men report feeling more anger and other hostile emotions (Fischer, Rodriguez Mosquera, van Vianen, & Manstead, 2004). In Western cultures, gender differences in emotion derive in part from differences in how men and women orient to interpersonal relationships (Brody & Hall, 2000). Women are more likely than men to express emotions that support relationships and suppress emotions that assert their own interests over another’s (Zahn-Waxler, 2001). As a consequence, women may feel sadness more often than men because sadness, unlike anger, isn’t directed outward at another person; thus, it doesn’t threaten relationships. Sadness communicates personal vulnerability and signals the need for comforting from others, much the way Annie seeks comfort from Lillian in Bridesmaids by leaving her lengthy voice-mail messages about the assorted messes in her life. By contrast, anger conveys a motivation to achieve one’s own goals or to take satisfaction in one’s success over another’s (Chaplin, Cole, & Zahn-Waxler, 2005).

Though men and women may experience emotions with different frequency and express them differently, when they experience the same emotions, there is no difference in the intensity of the emotion experienced (Fischer et al., 2004). Whether it’s anger, sadness, joy, or disgust, men and women experience these emotions with equal intensity.