Over the past few months I have written several blogs on how experiencing and expressing positive emotions can make you healthier, happier, and have more fulfilling and satisfying relationships. Is the opposite true? For a long time researchers have focused on how negative emotions can have negative effects on relationships. For example, if couples show contempt to each other during conflict they are much more likely to divorce. Thus much of the effort in couples counseling is on how to feel or show less of these emotions.

A new paper by Steven Graham (Florida State University), Julie Huang, Margaret Clark (both at Yale University), and Vicki Helgeson (Carnegie Mellon University) shows a strikingly different set of findings. Across 4 studies they show that expressing negative emotions like anxiety, sadness, fear, and anger can actually make your relationship more intimate and closer. The authors think this is because the emotions signal to others that you are in need of help. This makes partners more willing to lend a hand, which makes the relationship better.

Of course this doesn’t mean that you should just start showing negative emotions all the time to make your relationship better. The authors caution that when partners show a lot of inappropriate negative emotion (like constantly being anxious or sad about the smallest things) or when negative emotion is expressed to strangers or people you don’t know it tends to create dislike or avoidance. However, when you are feeling sad or scared it is OK to show this to your relationship partners, after all, they want to help you. And when that happens you are happier and your relationship is healthier.

Further Reading:

Graham, S. M., Huang, J. Y., Clark, M. S., Helgeson, V. S. (2008). The positives of negative emotions: Willingness to express negative emotion promotes relationships. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 34, 394-406.