Effects of Suppression and Expression of Academic Emotions on Peer Acceptance in Outperformance and Underperformance Situations

The current study was conducted to investigate the cross-situational differences in the effect of the suppression and expression of academic emotions on peer acceptance in situations involving outperformance and underperformance. A total of 81 adolescents were randomly selected to evaluate a target classmate’s acceptance level when underperforming or outperforming in a predetermined hypothetical setting using two questionnaires. The results obtained from the paired sample t-test showed that the relationship between the suppression or expression of academic emotions and peer acceptance has situational specificity; that is, compared with adolescents expressing positive academic emotions when outperforming others, adolescents expressing negative academic emotions when underperforming achieve higher levels of peer acceptance. In addition, in outperformance, peer acceptance was higher when positive academic emotions were suppressed rather than expressed; in underperformance, acceptance was significantly higher when negative academic emotions were suppressed rather than expressed. These findings underscore the significance of situations involving outperformance and underperformance in shaping the effectiveness of academic emotion regulation strategies, and support the different adaptive values of emotional expression and expressive suppression in both types of situations.