The Reappraisal vs. Suppression Study: How James Gross Proved Hiding an Emotion Doesn't Make You Feel It Less

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Try this for a moment: sit through something upsetting and simply don't let it show on your face. No wincing, no tensing, nothing. Most people can do this reasonably well, at least outwardly. But "not showing it" and "not feeling it" turned out, under laboratory conditions, to be two entirely different psychological events — and only one of them came with a measurable cost to the body.

That distinction sits at the center of one of the most cited experiments in the study of emotion regulation, conducted by psychologist James Gross in the late 1990s. The setup was almost deceptively simple: show people something disgusting, ask some of them to hide how they felt about it, ask others to think about it differently, and measure what happened next — not just on their faces, but inside their chests.

THE HYPOTHESIS

Gross was working from a specific theoretical model of how emotion regulation unfolds over time, one that separated regulation strategies by when they intervene in the emotional process rather than by how effective they look from the outside. Antecedent-focused strategies, like reappraisal, act early — before an emotional response has fully formed, by changing how a situation is interpreted in the first place. Response-focused strategies, like suppression, act late — after the emotional response is already underway, by inhibiting its outward expression once it's already in motion.

Gross's hypothesis followed directly from this timing difference. If suppression works by holding back a response that's already been generated, it should require ongoing physiological effort to maintain — effort that should show up as increased activation in the body, even if the face manages to stay still. Reappraisal, by contrast, intervenes early enough that there may be less of a response left to hold back in the first place, meaning it should produce less physiological cost for a comparable, or even greater, reduction in outward display.

THE METHODOLOGY

To test this, Gross had participants watch a short, deliberately disgust-inducing film — a graphic depiction of a limb amputation — while their cardiovascular activity was continuously recorded. Participants were randomly assigned to one of three conditions before the film began. One group was instructed to use reappraisal: to think about what they were watching in a detached, clinical way, as though they were a medical professional simply observing a procedure. A second group was instructed to use suppression: to watch normally, but to behave so that an observer would not be able to tell they were feeling anything at all. A third group received no regulation instructions and simply watched the film as they normally would.

Throughout the film, researchers measured three separate channels of data: participants' self-reported emotional experience, collected immediately afterward; their outward expressive behavior, coded from video by observers unaware of which condition each participant was in; and their physiological responses, primarily cardiovascular measures, alongside other markers of sympathetic nervous system activation.

STEP-BY-STEP EXECUTION

The results split cleanly along the lines Gross had predicted, but with one finding that turned out to be the more consequential of the two. Participants using suppression successfully reduced their outward expressive behavior — to observers, they looked about as unmoved as the reappraisal group. But their self-reported disgust told a different story: suppression did essentially nothing to reduce how much negative emotion they said they were actually feeling inside, which remained roughly as high as the group given no instructions at all.

Reappraisal, by contrast, reduced both channels at once. Participants using reappraisal showed less outward expression and reported feeling less disgust than the no-regulation group — the emotional response itself appeared genuinely smaller, not just better hidden.

The physiological data made the real difference between the two strategies unmistakable. The suppression group showed a distinct increase in cardiovascular activation compared to both the reappraisal group and the no-regulation group, an effect that persisted well after the film ended. Reappraisal, despite producing an equal or better outward result, came with no equivalent physiological penalty. Later work extending this research, including studies led by Jane Richards and Gross in 2000, added a further cost specific to suppression: a measurable impairment in participants' later memory for what they had just experienced, as though the effort spent holding a reaction in had quietly pulled resources away from encoding the event itself.

PSYCHOLOGICAL REVELATION

Gross's research demonstrated that a controlled face is not reliable evidence of a controlled emotional state, and that the two most common ways people manage a difficult feeling are not interchangeable, even when they look identical from across a room. Suppression doesn't remove an emotional response — it holds a fully formed reaction in place through ongoing effort, an effort the cardiovascular system registers even when no one else can see it. Reappraisal intervenes earlier, changing the emotional response at its source, which is why it can reduce what's felt without requiring the same continuous physiological labor to maintain the appearance of calm.

This mechanism sits at the center of what's explored in more depth in Emotional Regulation: The Skill Nobody Actually Taught You , where cognitive reappraisal is treated as one of the few emotion regulation strategies with consistent research behind it, precisely because of findings like these — it changes the feeling itself rather than just managing its outward signal.

It also offers a physiological explanation for the pattern described in Toxic Positivity: Why "Just Stay Positive" Can Do More Harm Than Good . Forcing a composed exterior over an unprocessed feeling doesn't neutralize that feeling — Gross's data suggests it adds a hidden cardiovascular cost on top of an emotional experience that remains, internally, just as intense as it was before.

The finding echoes a related mechanism demonstrated in The White Bear Experiment: How Wegner Proved Trying Not to Think About Something Guarantees You Will , even though the two lines of research target different territory — Wegner's work involves suppressing an intrusive thought, Gross's involves suppressing an emotional expression. Both point toward the same broader pattern: actively pushing something out of view tends to preserve it rather than resolve it, at a cost that shows up somewhere else.

It also helps explain why Stonewalling Explained: Why Going Silent Mid-Argument Is More Damaging Than Yelling identifies stonewalling as one of the more physiologically costly behaviors a person can bring into a conflict. Going quiet and expressionless during an argument often functions as a form of suppression rather than resolution — the visible reaction disappears, but according to Gross's data, whatever is actually being felt underneath rarely does.

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Frequently Asked Questions

What is the difference between reappraisal and suppression?

Reappraisal is an emotion regulation strategy that works by changing how a person interprets a situation before a full emotional response forms, while suppression works by inhibiting the outward expression of a response that has already been generated. James Gross's research found these two strategies produce very different internal costs, even when they look similar from the outside.

What did James Gross's 1998 study find about hiding emotions?

The study found that participants instructed to suppress their reaction to a disgusting film successfully hid their outward expression, but their self-reported disgust stayed just as high as participants given no instructions at all. Suppression reduced the outward signal of emotion without reducing the emotion itself.

Does suppressing an emotion make you feel calmer?

Not according to this research. Suppression was associated with increased cardiovascular activation compared to reappraisal and no regulation at all, suggesting it takes ongoing physiological effort to hold a response in check rather than producing an actual reduction in emotional intensity.

Why does suppressing emotion cost more than reframing it?

Suppression intervenes after an emotional response has already started, meaning the body has to keep working to hold that response back. Reappraisal intervenes earlier, changing the response at its source, which appears to require less sustained physiological effort to maintain.

Is suppression always harmful, or does context matter?

Occasional, short-term suppression in a specific situation, such as staying composed during one difficult meeting, is not the same as relying on suppression as a habitual, long-term regulation strategy. Research generally points to chronic suppression, rather than occasional use, as the pattern associated with the larger physiological and relational costs.

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Related Psychology

• Emotional Regulation: The Skill Nobody Actually Taught You
• Toxic Positivity: Why "Just Stay Positive" Can Do More Harm Than Good