Capturing naturally occurring emotional suppression as it unfolds in couple interactions.

Most research examining the consequences of suppressing emotional expression has focused on either experimentally manipulated and conscious suppression, or self-reported suppression behavior. This study examined suppression as it naturally occurred in couple (n = 105) discussions regarding a challenging topic. A Suppression Index (SI) was created by calculating the difference between continuous self-reports of emotional experience, obtained using cued video recall, and coders' continuous ratings of expressed emotion.