Case Report Emotional compensation in parents Amit Goldenberg a, ⁎ ,1 , Yael Enav a,1 , Eran Halperin b , Tamar Saguy b , James J. Gross a a Stanford University, United States b Interdisciplinary Center (IDC), Israel abstract article info Article history: Received 24 July 2016 Revised 22 October 2016 Accepted 25 October 2016 Available online 31 October 2016 Much of what is currently known about the emotional dimension of parental interactions concerns the role of congruent processes, in which partners experience similar emotions. Far less is known about non-congruent pro- cesses, in which partners regulate their emotions to balance out their partner's emotional responses. We define such “balancing out” processes as emotional compensation, and examine them in a series of four studies (N = 895). In Study 1, we show that emotional compensation occurs in situations in which there is high certainty re- garding the “correct” emotional response. In Studies 2 and 3, we show that the value placed on parental unity moderates the tendency to compensate. In Study 4, we show that compensation for high-intensity negative re- sponses positively predicts relationship quality. This work brings to light processes that previously have not been examined in partners' emotional interactions. © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Parents' emotional responses play a crucial role in how their children develop (Campos, Hiatt, Ramsay, Henderson, & Svejda, 1978; Cassidy, 1994; John & Gross, 2004). Knowing this, parents often are mindful of how they and their partners respond emotionally to their children, and try to “stay on the same page” whenever they can. However, in some situations, parents may have different emotional responses. These differences can lead to conflict, which in turn may have broader effects on the relationship between the partners (Cordova, Jacobson, Gottman, Rushe, & Cox, 1993; Reed, Randall, Post, & Butler, 2013). Un- derstanding these emotional dynamics can provide important insights regarding both parental relationships and parenting. As is the case with emotions expressed outside the context of the pa- rental relationship, emotions expressed by one's partner often prompt congruent emotional responses, ones that closely approximate one's partner's responses (Anderson, Keltner, & John, 2003; Randall, Post, Reed, & Butler, 2013). As emotional responses are often expressions of one's judgment of the situation, emotional congruence may be especial- ly evident in ambiguous situations, in which one uses one's partner's re- sponses as an indicator of the appropriate response (Goldenberg, Saguy, & Halperin, 2014; Hatfield, Cacioppo, & Rapson, 1994; Schachter, 1959). Cases of congruence may also occur when it is important for partners to maintain a united front in front of their child, thus expressing emotions that are similar in intensity. In other cases, however, one's partner's emotional responses may lead one to respond incongruently rather than congruently. In such cases, one partner's emotional response may prompt one to react in opposition to their partner. This may be especially true in cases in which one has a clear sense of the appropriate emotional response, yet one's partner's response reflects a radically different judgment of the same situation. In situations such as this, one may try to decrease (or increase) one's emotional response in order to balance out one's partner's emotional response if one feels that it is excessive (or insufficient). While congruent processes have been a major focus of the literature on emotional influence, incongruent processes have been largely ig- nored. Understanding incongruent processes may shed light on emo- tional and regulatory mechanisms that occur in the context of parental interactions. In the following sections, we first map congruent and incongruent processes of emotional influence and then provide an empirical examination of the situations in which they occur. 1.1. Emotional congruence Emotional congruence has been examined from a number of differ- ent perspectives (Peters & Kashima, 2015), including empathy (Davis, 1994), and more broadly, emotional contagion (Barsade, 2002; Hatfield et al., 1994; Hess & Fischer, 2014; Parkinson, 2011). In all of these contexts, the transfer of emotional processes from one person to the other has generally been seen as an unregulated process of conta- gion (but see Zaki, 2014). Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 69 (2017) 150–155 ⁎ Corresponding author at: Department of Psychology, Stanford University, United States. E-mail address: amitgold@stanford.edu (A. Goldenberg). 1 These authors contributed equally. Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Experimental Social Psychology journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jesp http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2016.10.008 0022-1031/© 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.