Faces, feelings, words: divergence across channels of emotional responding in complicated grief

Recent evidence suggests that the inability to respond in a context appropriate manner earlier in bereavement is predictive of a protracted grief course with poorer adjustment following the loss (Coifman & Bonanno, 2010). However, little is known about the emotional behavior of adults later in bereavement and whether emotional responding becomes dsyregulated across other channels. An impressive body of evidence in the schizophrenia literature demonstrates a marked disconnection between observable displays of emotion and experienced affect within individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia (e.g., Kring & Moran, 2008). On the basis of this influential work, we examined the emotional responses of a sample of bereaved adults who lost a spouse 1.5-3 years previously. One bereaved group had complicated grief (CG) and the other was relatively asymptomatic. We used an idiographic task where participants discussed their relationships with their spouse and current attachment figure in contexts of conflict and intimacy. We measured emotional responses across 3 channels: self-reported affect, facial expressions, and emotional word use. Individuals within the CG group were less facially expressive across contexts than the asymptomatic group but in some contexts reported experiencing greater affect and used more negative emotion words. These findings suggest that complicated grief in later bereavement is characterized by a disassociation between emotional responding across channels, with context insensitive responding, restricted to facial displays of emotion.