ИСТИНА

Although positive emotional expression may typically be beneficial for coordinating with others by communicating affiliative intent and approachability and by inducing positive emotional state in others (Mauss et al., 2011), it may also depend on values, local norms, and social status of expresser. In some contexts, expressing positive emotions may be a sign of imbalance or youthful immaturity. The research conducted mainly with North-American participants suggests that emotion suppression has negative consequences for well-being (John & Gross, 2004). Proceeding from contemporary cross-cultural research in this field (Soto et al., 2015), we examined whether the negative impact of emotional suppression on well-being is also true in European cultural contexts. We created a 2 (State of mind: happiness versus unhappiness) x 2 (Target of expression: friend/family versus stranger/authority) x 2 (Culture: Russia, U.S.) experiment, with repeated measures on the first two factors. The reasons of hiding happiness/ unhappiness were also studied. As Sheldon and Lyubomirsky (2006) state, the ‘‘pursuit of happiness’’ is an American cultural obsession; happiness, positive emotions and smiles are highly valuable. On the other hand, Russians are often perceived as gloomy and some authors present findings indicating that Russians experience rather low level of happiness (Veenhoven, 2001) and high levels of emotion inhibition (Matsumoto et al., 1998). Students from one American university (N=352) and two Russian Universities (N= 260) participated in the study, all students were from large state universities located in relatively small cities. Results showed that people conceal happiness expression less than unhappiness expression and inhibit more overall to strangers than to friends. In both contexts, happiness inhibition was related to introversion and fear of happiness. The obtained results suggested that Russian participants inhibited happiness more, and especially to outgroup (strangers). There were no differences in unhappiness inhibition to ingroup (friends), but Russians inhibited unhappiness to outgroup more than Americans. Most importantly, as predicted, happiness suppression was strongly associated with negative well-being and adverse psychological functioning in the U.S., but not in Russia. Americans who suppressed happiness were less satisfied with their relationships, less autonomous, agreeable, conscientious, and open to experience. At the same time no differences in the level of happiness and subjective well-being in two cultural contexts were found, which is in line with recent data obtained by Inglehart et al. (2013). The findings cast considerable doubt on the all-but-axiomatic view that expressing one’s happiness is universally adaptive. The directions for future cross-cultural studies aimed to understand the reasons of happiness expression and inhibition and its relations with well-being will be presented.