| Positive emotions have recently emerged as an important factor in psychological adjustment following adversity. However, there is currently insufficient data to confirm this. To further explore hypotheses about positive emotions in relation to adjustment, positive emotional expressions in young adult women, some of whom had histories of child sexual abuse (CSA), were assessed in the context of a discussion of distressing life events and examined in relation to measures of future social adjustment and anxious/depressed symptoms. It was hypothesized that Duchenne smiling and laughter (genuine positive expressions that involve involuntary activity of the orbicularis occuli muscles surrounding the eyes) would predict improved social adjustment for nonabused females and CSA nondisclosers (CSA survivors who did not disclose CSA when provided the opportunity to do so). However, these expressions, particularly laughter, were hypothesized to predict worse social adjustment for CSA disclosers. It was also hypothesized that Duchenne expressions would predict decreased anxious/depressed symptoms for all three groups. Although specific predictions were not made for nonDuchenne or polite smiles, they were not expected to predict future adjustment in the same way as Duchenne expressions. Consistent with the hypotheses made for Duchenne expressions, Duchenne smiling predicted improved future social adjustment for all groups, but less so for CSA disclosers. Duchenne laughter predicted better future social adjustment for CSA nondisclosers and worse future social adjustment for CSA disclosers, as expected. There were no significant relationships between Duchenne expressions and anxious/depressed symptoms. NonDuchenne smiles predicted increased future social problems for all groups, but less so for CSA nondisclosers, which is consistent with the general expectation that nonDuchenne smiles would differ in how they predicted future adjustment compared to Duchenne expressions. Discussion focuses on implications of these results for developmentally-appropriate interventions for young adult CSA-surviving and nonabused women and for theories of positive emotion. |
